Mar. 21—CHEYENNE — After James Clark stepped down as mayor of the town of Burns, Joe Nicholson was selected as mayor pro tem. Last week, he was officially sworn in as the town’s new municipal leader.

Nicholson joined the Burns Town Council in 2022 and was appointed mayor on March 11 by the council. He will serve until the end of Clark’s elected term in May 2025.

He’s already made steps toward more governmental transparency and said he hopes to continue to do so.

“One of the big things I think we need to change around here is transparency,” he said. “There has been a lot of talk out here and a lot of discussions about how the town has always had kind of a more closed-door governmental body, and I feel like that needs to be changed.”

His first meeting as mayor was the first town council meeting recorded and uploaded to the town’s Facebook page. He said he also intends to upload every meeting agenda and minutes to the page, as well, something that has been inconsistent in the past.

Comments on the page have expressed positive feedback to the posts. Nicholson also runs the town’s Facebook page, so anyone who messages it will be contacting the mayor directly.

He said he also hopes to focus on general policy cleanup for the town.

“I need to go through the town ordinances and ensure that they are up to date, as they have not been touched in a while,” he said. “I need to work with my council to make sure that all of the citizens’ complaints are heard and addressed, and I’m not just talking citizens of Burns. I’m talking to citizens in the outlining community also — Hillsdale, Albin, Carpenter. If they’re in the outlying areas, and there’s something that’s bothering them or something they have an idea about that could possibly make our town better, then, by all means, I think they could come to the council, and I think they need to present it. It takes an entire village to make itself better, not just one or two individuals.”

Before being appointed to the Burns Town Council in 2022, Nicholson has no prior experience in local government. He grew up in Denver and later joined the Navy, where he was stationed on the USS Albany submarine out of Norfolk, Virginia. After that, he worked in information technologies.

He moved with his wife and child to Burns in 2021 because he said she liked Laramie County School District 2 and wanted their children to go to school there.

Former Mayor Clark was one of the first people he was introduced to in town. The two would visit and have lunch together at the Rodeo Diner.

When a seat on the Town Council opened up, Clark suggested Nicholson put his name in for it. He was selected by the council at the time and sworn in in 2022.

Clark resigned due to health concerns on Feb. 11. When Nicholson was appointed last week, Jenna Nussbaum was selected out of four candidates to take his seat on the council.

“I think we’ve picked a candidate who will add new policies, new views, new everything to the council,” he said before Nussbaum was sworn in.

In his first meeting as mayor, Nicholson invited Alisha Michaud of the Pine Bluffs Senior Center to discuss the possibility of serving meals in the town’s community center as a satellite of the Pine Bluffs location. Michaud said that more than 33% of the Burns population is over 60, so the program would likely be well attended.

Nicholson works as an engineer and lives in Burns with his wife and three children. He said he’s unsure at this time if he will seek election as mayor when his term is up, but he wants to focus on accomplishing his goals for the town for now.

“The town of Burns is a great place to live, it’s a great place to raise children, and it’s a great place to just get away from big city life,” Nicholson said. “But it also has its own struggles, and no place is perfect. Everything can use improvement. So, I feel like the town itself, with the help of my council and the citizens of the town, we can continue to improve the town, we can continue to make things better and just make it a great place for people to want to move out to.”

Noah Zahn is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle’s local government/business reporter. He can be reached at 307-633-3128 or nzahn@wyomingnews.com. Follow him on X @NoahZahnn.