[7] As a school board member, he attended the unveiling of a portrait of the late school superintendent Susan Miller Dorsey in 1929[8] and cast one of the favorable votes the same year to purchase the surplus property of the University of California, Los Angeles campus on Vermont Avenue to be used by Los Angeles City College.

Known as an opponent of "radicals and subversives,"[10] Burns was opposed in his candidacy in 1935 by James A. Farley, postmaster-general of the United States and chairman of the national Democratic Party, in telegrams sent to two council members.

[11] In January 1930, Burns and seven other council members who had voted in favor of granting a rock-crushing permit in the Santa Monica Mountains were unsuccessfully targeted for recall on the grounds that the eight "have conspired with Alphonzo Bell, Samuel Traylor and Chapin A.

Day, all multi-millionaires, to grant this group a special spot zoning permit to crush and ship from the high-class residential section of Santa Monica, limestone and rock for cement.

"[12] Burns was one of the six council members who in July 1931 lost a vote to appeal a judge's decision ordering an end to racial restrictions in city-operated swimming pools.