[Music] and this is local decision 2025. Thanks so much for tuning us in here on North Metro TV and we're going to talk about the Circle Pine City Council race and the incumbent is joining me now, Megan Bachmeer. And thanks so much for coming down to the studios. and Megan, uh, first of all, tell the viewers about yourself and and why you're running and why you want to return to the council. >> Well, thanks so much for having me for this forum and opportunity to talk to the voters in Circle Pines. Um, I have been on the council for the past year and a half and it has been an absolute pleasure to serve my community in this way. I was first inspired to join the council because of all the great things that are happening in Circle Pines. We have wonderful parks and trails, great schools, we have really strong infrastructure, and it's a safe and welcoming community to raise a family. So, for all of those reasons, I was excited to get involved and give back where I could. Um, and then looking forward, some of the things that uh I feel are strength of ours that I would love to continue to uh build on are that safe, welcoming community and creating more opportunities to invest in that. Um, and then also, uh, uh, just continuing to make government affordable and effective for our city. I feel like we've done a really good job of keeping Circle Pines the right size. Uh, not too not too small of a budget, not too big of a budget, but just the right size. And then, um, another thing I think we've done really well, and I would love to look for more opportunities to do this, is finding ways to deliver big city level services for our small community. Uh we have a great track record of that and uh I would love to continue doing that work. >> So you were appointed to the city council. >> Yes. >> Uh what have you learned in the in the uh stint you've had so far and obviously you enjoy it or you wouldn't be trying to win again, would you? >> Yes. No. Uh I've learned so much. I feel like it would be a shorter list of things that I haven't learned. Uh it's just been a great crash course in all the things that really make a good local government. Um, we've gone through two budgeting processes since I've been uh appointed to the city council. Uh, we're going through right now a changeover in our fire services and uh there have just been uh so many different opportunities to learn about what makes our city uh work really well, do a lot of long-term planning and understand the history uh of Circle Pines. And that's a really important part of uh being a good uh public servant is is really understanding where things have come from and why we are at the place we are today. so that we can plan for for a good future. >> The history being celebrated here in 2025 has 75 years old for Circle Pine. So, um what do you want to see the next 75 years look like? Not that you'll be on the council that long, but I mean, how do you get that jump started? >> That would be a long tenure. Um yeah, it was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate and really learn about the history of Circle Pines. is a really rich history um at 75 years and I think uh the things that have made our community so special from the beginning are some of them are still with us today. Uh there was a lot of talk around the 75th anniversary about how Circle Pines feels like a small town and that's a really special thing where neighbors are connected to each other. When we did the Circle Pines um big weekend of celebration, our volunteer committee did an amazing job. I want to say thank you to them in this forum. um they created opportunities for people to gather together all across the city and it was so fun to see people walking and biking between our parks and neighborhoods and I think those are the things that are a really strong foundation for our community and I would love to see us continue to invest in that while we do have um you know an expanding north metro and uh it feels like we're part of a bigger and bigger city up here that we maintain that that small town connected feel where people have opportunities to get together and meet their neighbors and they feel connected to their city government. >> It sure seems like Circle Pines is very comfortable with uh the kind of city that it is, that small town vibe, that that charm, if you will, but you can get to downtown St. Paul or downtown Minneapolis in roughly 20 to 30 minutes. How do you keep that in the, as you said, the growing north metro? >> I think it's really what the city council can think about doing is how do we create opportunities for people to continue to come together around community events. Um there was talk in the sort of debrief that we did with the volunteer leaders for that 75th anniversary celebration of what if not doing this huge blowout event you know every year every other year but what if we did different events in different parts of the community more regularly so that people do feel um like they're living in a small town and not just a neighborhood or part of a large north metro. So, there's going to be a big pivot coming. Um, that would be going from the Centennial Fire Department to SPM, Spring Lake Park, Blaine, Mountains View, and I know it sounds like Mayor Dave and Chief Dan Rea, everybody's on board, and and this is a good thing. Tell us what you think about that. >> Yes, we did just vote to uh officially sign the contract to move from Centennial Fire Department and wind that down over the next two years and join Spring Lake Park, Blaine, and Mountains View. Uh, and I did support that. Um it was a really uh it was a thoughtful good process where we made sure that we were hearing from the different stakeholders mainly. And the most important one is hearing from our firefighters at Centennial um about what questions did they have before we went down this road um and what reservations did they have and Chief Reka and his leadership team did an amazing job of answering those questions um finding answers if they didn't have them off off the cuff right in those meetings and um on paper it is a really good um it's a really good decision for our community financially. That was sort of the number one thing we looked at, right? As we said, wow, this is a cost savings and we're providing a better service for our community. But it's important to understand how this will impact our firefighters and um make sure they have all their questions answered and they have all the resources they need to make this big transition. Um and so once that process was done, I felt really good about it and I'm uh I was really glad to support the change. And >> and certainly in the firefighting profession, >> costs have just skyrocketed. the engines, the equipment, just over time things have just shot up. So, it sounds like this is a win-win. Would you look at it that way? >> It Yes, it definitely is. Um, we are going to be able to have again a higher level services, more equipment at a lower cost. Um, and the training is going to be better. The opportunities for our firefighters to work in different um areas, have different experiences. Um, that's all going to be additive as well. >> All right. Uh, tell us about Minnesota winds. Oh, what I do outside of city council. >> Uh, your other life. >> Yes, my other life. Uh, so yes, professionally I am the co-founder and I run uh a new performing arts nonprofit called Minnesota Wins. And really our mission is to um bring concert band, the concert band art form that tens of thousands of students uh study and learn and love each year in school to the main concert stage. So Minnesota Wins is our state's first professional concert band. So if you think caliber of Minnesota orchestra but for the concert band art form um and it's born out of personal experience. I was a band kid. I started on clarinet in the fifth grade and I played all the way through college and it was an incredibly special part of my life. I didn't always recognize that as a student necessarily. But then when school ended and it was gone that was a big moment of wow there's a there's a gap here. And um so many years later I you know had a professional career, gained a lot of experience, worked in the nonprofit sector. Um I came across this came to this idea of what if we did have this in our state and um have worked with a friend that played saxophone in college with uh she's now a successful composer to launch Minnesota Winds and our first season actually kicks off uh next month. >> Uh how does that background translate into being on the council? Do you think it helps? It definitely helped. All all skills are transferable, but I think some of the ones that have helped me um the most in my time on the council um from my varied professional backgrounds have been uh relationship building. That's a big one. Um I love to meet people, to learn, to listen. Uh and that's I think a really important part of being a good servant leader. Um another one is communication. Um, communication is a really, it's something we do well in Circle Pines, but I think it's an opportunity for us to do even more um to connect people more closely with what their local government is doing and with who the people are that are actually serving them so that when an issue comes up or an opportunity um they feel comfortable engaging in the process um of providing feedback and making sure we make a really good decision. Um, and then I think the other one I would mention is being a good steward of resources. That is probably our number one job as a council is to be good stewards to take good care of our shared tax dollars and our other shared resources. Um, and that's something that I think about on a daily daily basis as uh someone running a nonprofit. >> Now, around the Twin Cities, there's a lot of cities with double-digit tax levies. >> Yes. >> Circle Pines though is not one of them. 2% that's >> minuscule by today's standards. You have to be happy about that. >> Yes. Uh, one of the things I've learned in my time on the council is that in recent decades, we've done a really good job of uh maintaining uh a pretty even pretty low to moderate levy uh for our residents, tax for our residents. Um, and we've also been able to still invest in nice things. We have great roads because of a long-term plan. Uh, and we also have great parks for the same reason. And so, uh, I think that idea of looking for how do we make a sustainable future for our city, um, is all about how do we maintain a good tax levy and have these strong plans and not be yo-yoing our residents around. Um, uh, so yeah, it's a it's something we're really really proud of is staying under that double digit. >> What do you think Circle Pines can improve on? >> Um, I do think that communication is something we can do better. Um, the council is really busy. For a small town of 5,000 people, you might not think that, but we meet uh every other Tuesday and we typically have a pretty full agenda. Uh, but I think a lot of people in the community don't necessarily know what what's going what's on the agenda. Um, we do have the wonderful service of North Metro TV covering all of these so that people can go and watch them, but we can't necessarily as council members expect people to always come to us. Uh, we need to do a good job of going to them as well. So something I am starting um is an occasional email newsletter. I will not bombard people's inboxes but just providing occasional updates on what the council is talking about big and small. So if people are interested they can send me an email. Um my email is Megan which is spelled me a g- an number four uh circlepinesgmail.com and I would love to add you to that. >> What do you think the primary role of a council person should be? Well, like I mentioned, I think the most important job that we have is being good stewards of tax dollars and our shared resources. Um, that is the, you know, largest funding source for our city operations. And the way that I think about it is, um, our city is something that we're building together. People don't love to pay taxes. Nobody loves to pay taxes. But when we sort of think about and maybe reframe what those taxes do, then we might start to feel really proud about the things that we're building together um, as a community. And so I think that um keeping that top of mind is is the most important important job. >> Uh you'll have a new mayor and certainly Dave Bartholomew has been a been a fixture in Circle Pines. He's he's like the water tower. You just expect him to be there but he won't be. Uh your experiences with Dave and and what have you learned from him? >> Uh Dave has been a great mentor. He is wonderful at sharing his experiences and I feel like as he's come towards the end of uh his term here as mayor, he's shared even more honestly about the ups and the downs of um serving in local government for so long. It's 20 years as mayor and 24 including his time on the council. Um and so uh I've just been really grateful to learn from that. Um he's very uh servant-minded in terms of servant leaderminded in terms of how he approaches local government and um he's the first one to encourage other people to have that same mindset too. We're you know bringing different perspectives on our council. Um all of us members do but uh we have one goal in mind and that's to serve our community and serve our neighbors and um I think that the culture that he's created with his leadership here is something that's really special. We all genuinely enjoy going to council together whether it's, you know, an easier easier meeting or there's something contentious. Uh we work through it together and uh it's just it's just a really strong culture that we have and that's uh in big part to Dave's leadership. So I'm grateful for that. >> And and finally, your chance here to tell the viewers why should they vote for you for Circle Pine City Council? >> Yeah. Well, um I've been honored to serve our community in this capacity um for the last year and a half and I would love to continue doing this work. Um in terms of uh you know, we talked about the skills that I brought, the experience that I've brought. Um I think that one other thing I would love to add is uh that I have a kindergartener at Golden Lake Elementary School and my husband and I um chose to bring our family here to uh Circle Pines to um to raise our family and I'm invested here for the long term. Um, I would love to continue to build on the things that make our community strong. Um, address issues as they come up. Uh, work towards creative solutions and I always try to do the right thing. I love to listen and learn. Um, and uh, would be honored to continue doing that as your council member going forward. >> Well, thanks so much for stopping by. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Good luck in the election. >> Thanks. Uh, she's Megan Bachmeire running for Circle Pine City Council, the incumbent. This is Local Decision 2025. [Music] Heat.