These are the two candidates running for Chubbuck City Council Seat 3

CHUBBUCK — An incumbent city councilor faces a challenge for Chubbuck City Council Seat 3.

Newcomer Annette Baumeister is running against incumbent City Councilwoman Melanie Evans. The city election is on Nov. 7.

EastIdahoNews.com sent the same eight questions to each candidate. Each response was required to be 250 words or less. Evans and Baumeister’s unedited responses can be read below.

Tell us about yourself — include information about your family, career, education, volunteer work and any prior experience in public office.

Evans: My family and I have lived in Chubbuck for 17 years. I grew up in Burley, Idaho. My husband and I have a few businesses in town including a multi-disciplinary health care practice, as well as a development company. We love doing things that have a positive impact on the community, and we love being involved! I have been on the Chubbuck City Council for almost 8 years, and would love to continue serving in this capacity.

Baumeister: I am a lifelong Chubbuck/ Portneuf Valley resident, with three adult children and a grandbaby. I have a career in marketing, particularly in the real estate industry. I have already completed one term on the Chubbuck city council from 2016-2020, and 7 ½ years on the Chubbuck Development Authority Commission (2017-present) with 3 years as chair (2021 to present). I have also completed the Pocatello/Chubbuck Leadership program through the Chamber of Commerce, and I have been active the community in a variety of other ways, serving on multiple boards and committees, including Bannock Development. I have immense pride in my community and see so much potential for what Chubbuck can be.

What is your proudest accomplishment?

Evans: My proudest accomplishment is my family! I have a wonderful husband and two amazing kids. I absolutely love spending time with them! In my city position- my proudest accomplishment is being a part of projects and planning that have improved the beauty and function of Chubbuck. I am passionate about the overall beautification of our city and improving our parks and recreation. We implemented park impact fees a few years ago, and we are now to the point where residents will start seeing the benefits of those dollars in park improvements and development. I love growth and development, but strongly believe that it needs to be well thought through and planned. We have made huge improvements in this area through ordinance changes over the last several years.

Baumeister: Aside from raising my children, this last summer I co-captained a raft down the 96 mile Middle Fork Salmon, in the Frank Church Wilderness Area. Over the course of 6 days, I rowed about 50 river miles including several class 4 rapids. This was challenging, both physically and mentally. I learned a lot about myself and experienced a lot of personal growth.

Why are you seeking political office within your community? Briefly explain your political platform.

Evans: I am seeking political office in my community because I love being involved in a good cause of any kind! I love the people here! I love having a positive impact on the people and places around me! Chubbuck is a wonderful place to live and raise a family, and I love being a part of trying to make that better in any way I possibly can.

Baumeister: I view this as a bit of a job application, and the constituents are the hiring board. I am passionate about my community and particularly enjoy city work. I understand the responsibility and importance of having citizen representation, and holding government accountable. Transparency and honesty continue to be of top importance to me, which I’ll talk more about later. As far as specific actions I would like to focus on: I would like to look at the budgets of comparable communities and see if we can glean any ideas from them on how we can run a little more efficiently.

In addition, we REALLY need to find ways to shorten the development approval process. I also I bring passion and motivation to this position, understanding that aside from policy making, I am an ambassador and liaison for the people and their best interests. I will say, I don’t have an axe to grind, nor am I running on any type of an “agenda.” I am just looking to bring a levelheaded approach to each issue. I hope the citizens will hire me to be their representation.

What are the greatest challenges facing people in your community? What is your plan to meet those challenges?

Evans: I think one of the greatest challenges facing our community is the task to control and prevent tax increases while also maintaining a safe, beautiful, and thriving community. There are always more needs than there are funds to support them. I have worked very hard over the last 8 years to understand the budget, and to request details, improvements, and more transparency in the budgeting process. There have been years that we have been able to cut things from the budget, and there have been years that we have needed more funds than we have available. I appreciate the staff, and city leadership’s, hard work to balance and prioritize the needs within the city.

Baumeister:Trying to keep taxes down and/or cut taxes while continuing to provide and scale needed services in a growing community. I know there is room for improvement in the budget. When I was on the council before, we held the levy flat for the first 3 years. But the city also has growing needs. We need to find balance in providing quality services and amenities (which I feel is best served in retention of city employees), but also find ways to keep costs down. This can come from taking a good look at where existing funds can potentially be re-allocated.

How will you best represent the views of your constituents – even those with differing political views? How will you communicate directly with constituents?

Evans: I will best represent the views of my constituents by listening and trying to understand all sides of every issue that comes before me. I feel that I have done an excellent job of this for the last 8 years. I’ve made decisions based on what I thought would be best for the community and its residents as a whole. The decisions are not always easy, and I have had to disagree with people that I know and love, but ultimately, my job on the city council is to do what is best for the community as a whole, and not for individuals or special interest groups.

Baumeister: I feel effective communication is one of my greatest strengths. I ran my first campaign with the slogan, “Let’s Talk.” At the time there seemed to be a very nonchalant attitude at the city about communicating with the public, and a vocalized belief that only 10% of the community was engaged or wanted the information, so why bother? While this might be true, we need to show up for, and be willing to listen to our citizens, regardless of the size of the engaged population. I want more people involved! I really pressed for more transparency. The mayor was doing a weekly social media video, which was my suggestion, and we were proactive about press releases. I was personally willing to have open dialogue with anyone who wanted to talk to me, so they did reach out. I always got back to people. It seems that
spirit of proactive openness has waned a little. I’ll be pressing for that again for sure.

What areas in your community need immediate improvement? What actions will you take to address those needs?

Evans: One of the immediate needs in our community right now is park improvements. The parks have been through a rough couple of years as we have made the shift from developer-built parks to city developed parks. Our Public Works Director and Parks Director are currently working like crazy to get improvement /maintenance plans in place- and the funds to support those plans for our current and future parks. We are working on grants and community partnerships to help improve our parks in any way that we can. I will continue to support and offer ideas and advice on how to improve our parks in the community.

Baumeister: Having spent the last 7 years on the Chubbuck Development Authority, we’ve spent considerable funds improving areas within the 1992 downtown plan TIF area. But there are a lot of areas outside of the TIF that have been neglected. Now that we are closing out that TIF, those funds go back to the city’s general fund, and we can hopefully put some of those freed up funds into those neglected areas. The

neighborhoods in the Joy/ Cole Street area desperately need some attention. And there are some little pocket areas that still need some road improvements, and some connectivity issues to address. The parks department has had some struggles getting and retaining employees lately, which has lead to some needs there. Again, I’m always going to advocate for resources for police and fire. The safety of our citizens has to be our top priority. I feel like we made some massive improvements while I was previously on the council, but we still have some ground to cover there.

What parts of the city budget could use more funding? Where are places in the budget that cuts could be made?

Evans: What parts of the city budget could use more funding…. all of them! We are a growing city, and the needs always outweigh the funds available. Our department heads have done an incredible job of trying to find efficiencies and ways to save money so that other needs in their departments can be funded. The make-up of our community is mostly residential, which is not the most beneficial when it comes to taxes. By focusing on economic development, we are bringing more businesses to Chubbuck which have a much higher tax valuations, and can help alleviate the tax burden on individual residents.

Baumeister: I think I answered a lot of this on previous questions about city needs and my goals/vision, so I’ll touch on what I haven’t already. When it comes to budget cuts, I think the best thing we can do is try to hold the line on where the budget is now, reallocate what already exists by matters of priority, and do the best we can with what we’ve got. I do feel like historically (I’m talking decades ago, not necessarily recently), Chubbuck was frugal to the point of neglect, and now we’re paying the price for that ten fold. We still have some making up to do, and then we need to do better with maintenance moving forward. This will create a better environment and save tax dollars in the future. In the meantime, that doesn’t mean we can’t do better with what we have currently. That’s where potentially gleaning ideas from other comparable cities would be helpful.

What is the role of local media in your community? How can city officials work to have a better relationship with the media?

Evans: I believe the role of local media in our community should be to share and report accurate and true information to the residents. I also believe that the media should have a strong focus on the positive and good things that are going on in our community. I think that more communication between city officials and the media means more information getting out to our residents. I think that having a quarterly meeting or press conference for general city updates and questions would be a great practice to implement.

Baumeister: One of my first jobs as a career professional was at a local news station. I know how important the media is in disseminating information to our citizens. While I was on the council before, we worked hard to make sure press releases went out regularly. Additionally, I personally invited my news contacts from all of the media outlets to meetings that I felt were critical, even if the meetings were hot button issues. To me, the hot button issues were the most important to share. It is important to be open and honest about controversial and/or hard topics. I would always say, “Let’s reach out to them [the media] first, and give them the facts straight up. Even if people don’t like I, they have a right to know. Don’t make them dig, that creates risk for incomplete facts and misinformation.” I don’t know if anyone currently on the council still does that or has that passion.