People of Interest: Bill Niemeier
Bill Niemeier has been a coach for Carlsbad youth in a variety of sports for about 16 years. Currently, he is serving as a volleyball coach at Carlsbad Intermediate School, formerly known as P.R. Leyva. Niemeier is also a financial planner as well as an aspiring city councilman. He is the father of three children, one of whom is a JMA teacher named Michael. His son and our journalism class (Montessori Insider) is one of the reasons I wanted to interview Bill, along with knowing more about my teacher’s family life. I also thought it would be interesting to conduct an interview with someone who may one day be determining important policies for our town.
As a city councilman, Bill Niemeier’s primary role would be to listen to the voice of the community and try to accomplish certain tasks based off of the needs of the community. If, for example, the community wanted better roads in Carlsbad, than it would be up to Niemeier and his colleagues to obtain the necessary funding and manpower to fulfill the community’s wishes.
As for his own personal ambitions for the community, Niemeier stated that he would want “…more places to eat, more things to do, a few more things for the children to do…” Ultimately, he wants Carlsbad to be a larger city with much more entertainment, art, and culture.
When I asked him what inspired him to run for office, he said that “My inspiration for running for office actually came from a culmination of all the years I spent living here. You know, when I had little kids at home, and when Mr. Niemeier was a little kid, we had a weekend off of sports, meaning we didn’t have a soccer tournament to go to or a volleyball tournament, and when we had a weekend off I would say ‘What do you guys want to do?’ and their response was there was nothing to do. So, that’s where it started off. We needed more stuff to do in Carlsbad.”
Bill Niemeier was a very interesting and fun person to interview, with plenty of interesting and insightful ideas on how we can improve the city. His ideas to make Carlsbad a more attractive place to live for graduate students could pay off very well in the long run. Get to know even more about Bill here.
Votes can be cast at the Carlsbad Municipal Building, 101 N. Halagueno St., Room 20, and voting officially comes to an end March 6th.
