Next time the Salt Lake County Council speaks, its voice will change.

Question is, how will it sound as Democrat Jani Iwamoto and Republican Max Burdick take their places on that nine-member board that oversees nearly a million people and manages Utah's second-largest government budget?

Only time will tell how, or if, these newcomers will alter the tone of the soon-to-be-Democratic-led County Council. Will they become leaders or followers, compromisers or dividers, wallflowers or grandstanders? Will they push, as both promised, toward increased bipartisanship? Or will they pitch their camps behind party lines?

But even before they take that oath of office Jan. 5, these two council members have defined themselves by their past.

Consider Iwamoto: a political neophyte known to answer her cell phone out of breath during the campaign as she mounted a shoe-leather campaign that booted Republican incumbent, Mark Crockett. She's a community-activist-turned-politician who remains self-conscious in the spotlight and often downplays her accomplishments with pronouns such as "we" and "they." She's known as a listener, a relationship builder and, according to colleagues, a tireless worker for causes she believes in.

And then there's Burdick, the longtime Sandy planning commissioner with a reputation for keeping a level head and a sense of humor -- even during volatile debates, such as the crowd-raising controversy over big-box development on Sandy's gravel-pit property (Burdick was commission chair, at the time). He is known for his vigorous research, self-restraint and fairness.

The two council members certainly could claim some personal commonalities: Both enjoy the Utah Symphony & Opera, both wouldn't mind stopping by Crown Burger for lunch, both would rather take a high school world history class than sit through English literature, and both would rank honesty among the most-desirable traits.

But they have ideological differences -- exhibited in a Salt Lake Tribune questionnaire that asked them to choose which of four presidents they esteem most. Out of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, Iwamoto chose a fellow Democrat, Kennedy, and Burdick chose a fellow Republican, Reagan. Even so, both have pledged to work across the party aisle.

That said, how will these councilors-in-waiting fit, in terms of leadership style, into a council that will gain a one-seat Democratic majority next month (to go along with recently re-elected Democratic Mayor Peter Corroon)?

Iwamoto likely will take a less-vocal role, at least at first. She's a listener, according to colleagues, not a grandstander.

"She is going to be very effective," says Chris Finlinson, the government-affairs director for the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, where Iwamoto serves as a trustee. "But she is not going to demand the limelight."

The rise to county office came somewhat unexpectedly for Iwamoto. This Democratic attorney and mother of two had pushed routinely for community causes, but had never given much thought to political ambitions.

She didn't consider running when standing before the Salt Lake City Council in 2002 to fight for the preservation of Japantown during the Salt Palace expansion. And it didn't cross her mind when she joined GOP Gov. Michael Leavitt's bipartisan coalition opposing the storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah.

"It's not like I'm this person that likes to be out in public," Iwamoto muses. "But when it is something I believe in, I force myself to do it."

And so she has -- again and again. As a trial attorney practicing consumer-protection law in San Francisco, she devoted countless hours to nonprofit groups, including a resource center for low-income and no-income minorities to assist with housing, interpreters and other everyday needs. She helped organize a reunion of Japanese-Americans wrongly imprisoned at a Wyoming internment camp during World War II. And she pushed for asbestos abatement and more smoke detectors in schools.

"She's a whirling dervish of community service," Democratic Councilman Randy Horiuchi says.

That service, and her subsequent door-to-door campaign to win east-side District 4, has taught her something about politics. It's about people. And she's determined not to lose that focus, whether it be through organizing town-hall meetings or taking an active role on the community councils within her district.

"Direct contact is so important," she said. "I want to stay in touch with the people in as many grass-roots ways as possible."

Burdick, on the other hand, reaches the council after 12 years on the Sandy Planning Commission, which earned him a reputation for guiding that board with a cool head during political firestorms such as the gravel-pit uproar.

"He was clearly one of the best planning commissioners the city has had," remarked Nick Duerksen, Sandy's assistant community-development director. "He was an absolute professional."

Yet Burdick's foray into politics began much earlier when he, as a concerned resident, complained publicly in the mid-1990s that the city wasn't communicating effectively with its neighborhoods. So Mayor Tom Dolan recruited him to solve the problem. The result was a community-coordinator program that broke the south-valley city into 32 smaller districts -- each with designated captains -- to more effectively manage information. That system continues today.

He later distinguished himself as a planning commissioner whose open mind and intensive study habits left an impression on the staff. In the late 1990s, for instance, the city was crafting a cell-tower ordinance. Before delving into the legalese, Duerksen recalls, Burdick wanted to know everything about the industry -- how the towers worked, the differences between analog and digital and so forth.

A decade later, when asked whether he, as District 6's county councilman, would favor creation of a Granite Township, his approach hadn't changed. His remarks came only after highlighting, cross-referencing and penning comments in the margins of a spiral-bound public-opinion survey on the matter.

Colleagues describe Burdick as a level-headed leader with a well-timed wit to diffuse heated debates. He speaks his mind, they say, but doesn't throw bombs.

"He is kind of a laid-back guy," Dolan said. "He doesn't get worked up over things."

Those Planning Commission days taught Burdick something about public service that he hopes will stick with him now that his future hinges on elections, not appointments: Base decisions on principle, not popularity or political opportunity.

"[Planning commissioners] don't have to think about what party they belong to," he said. "You can have a lot of public clamor in the audience, but you can still make decisions based on what you think is right without any thoughts of, 'Gosh, I'm running for election in six months.' "

jstettler@sltrib.com