MANSFIELD — Laura Burns said residents in Mansfield’s 1st Ward should have a council member able to give them 100 percent.
Still suffering the impacts of a horrific ice-skating accident in New York City in December 2023, Burns will not seek re-election to City Council in 2025.
“I have really struggled with it for awhile because if there is anything that I have enjoyed this year, it has been working with (Mayor Jodie Perry’s) administration,” Burns said Tuesday evening after a council meeting.
“But it has been difficult … keeping (legislation) straight, being able to speak clearly in meetings, maintaining my focus and my memory … it’s hard,” she said.
Burns fell while skating on the famous rink at Rockefeller Center, suffering broken bones in her skull and bleeding in her brain.
The accident happened during a mother-daughter holiday trip to New York aimed at “doing all of the touristy” things.
Burns joined a crowded rink of skaters, but never made it all the way around the rink.
“I remember seeing a couple sitting on the wall next to the rink,” she told Richland Source a few weeks after the accident. “Someone told them they couldn’t sit there and they jumped down (just as Burns approached).
“I don’t know if they hit me when they jumped down. I just lost my balance. The next thing I know, I was waking up in the ambulance,” Burns said.
She spent five days in Bellevue Hospital in NYC before returning home to begin a long, slow rehabilitation.
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That process has not resulted in a full recovery, she said. She made her decision not to seek re-election over the last few months, consulting with her husband and children.
“The person that ran for election almost four years ago is not the same person who would be running (in 2025),” she said. “I believe that if you are voting for someone, you should be getting a candidate capable of giving 100 percent.
“I know there is a saying out there that on the days you only have 30 percent to give and you give 30 percent that you actually gave 100 percent. I get that and it’s nice to say. But the reality is I can’t give the people in (the 1st Ward) what they deserve,” Burns said.
“(Doctors) have said this is about as good as they anticipate I am going to be. I have a little bit of pride and that is really upsetting,” she said.
“I did all the therapy. I did the things I was supposed to do. And I know if we have a particularly challenging (council) meeting on a Tuesday night, I know that Wednesday at work I am not a great employee because I am so exhausted.
Two Republicans pull petitions for 1st Ward seat
Two Republicans have taken out petitions to run for Mansfield City Council in the 1st Ward in the May primary, according to the Richland County Board of Elections website.
Lori Cope and Michael Miranda have pulled petitions used to seek voter signatures.
Neither has filed completed petitions, according to the website.
No Democrats have taken out petitions for the seat, according to the elections board website.
“It used to be if we had a long (council) meeting that I could just drink an extra cup of coffee. Now I can’t be trusted to lead a meeting on Wednesday morning because the words just don’t happen,” Burns said.
She was appointed by the local Republican Party in January 2020 to complete an unexpired term and was then elected to the seat in 2021, receiving almost 70 percent of the vote in the ward of about 8,405 residents on the city’s southeast side.
“I think it comes down to the fact there are only so many brain cells I could give each day. Sometimes, having council (meetings) in addition to my family and my career, I need to dig deeper and I can’t always do it,” she said.
She said she has struggled to meet the needs of her legislative work with her family life and her career as a data coordination supervisor at Charles River Laboratories in Ashland.
Burns said she has heard criticism that she has communicated harshly with others since her accident, largely due to fatigue.
“I sometimes snap at people. That’s not fair. I am sure I do it sometimes and I don’t want to be like that,” she said. “That’s not how I want to exist.”
The accident has also impacted her everyday life.
“I hate it because everything I do now is a major effort … like going to the grocery store and remembering what I was going to buy is hard. I had an argument with my husband (Tuesday) because I bought the wrong number of tickets to see the Nutcracker (musical) because I couldn’t remember how many people are in my own family.
“I had a moment and I calculated wrong … and it’s just not fair to people who are counting on me to (come to council) and advocate for them,” Burns said.
The daughter of a retired Mansfield police officer, Burns earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Oral Roberts University after completing the Mansfield Christian homeschool program.
The brain was one of her favorite topics of study in college.
She admitted recognizing after the accident the irony of the injury, given her educational and professional development.
“It was my favorite thing,” she said after the accident. “I love how much power it has — not only over basic (bodily) functions, but also in who you are.”
