Tom Egan says he's not done on board

Tom Egan of Eagan will seek a second term on the Dakota County Board of Commissioners. So far, he's unchallenged for his third-district seat.

Egan, 60, said from the start that he intended to serve more than one term.

"I had goals and objectives that I set out to accomplish, and among them was to create greater collegiality and cooperation with the municipalities in Dakota County and certainly those in my district," he said in an interview.

Egan, an attorney, was mayor of Eagan from 1990 through 1998, and an Eagan Council member from 1978 through 1989. He went on to serve on the Metropolitan Council before being elected county commissioner in 2004.

He represents Mendota, Mendota Heights, Lilydale and 12 precincts in Eagan, and he's vice chairman of the county board this year.

He points to the success that the county has had in working with the city of Mendota Heights to save an important historical area. In all, 23 acres on two different sites at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers were preserved to honor land where important treaties were reached between the American Indian Lakota people and white settlers.

Soon, all non-indigenous species of plant life will be eradicated in a controlled burn as officials return the site to its original prairie state, Egan said. The county helped Mendota Heights get money from many different sources for the project, and the county spent $810,000 from its own Farmland and Natural Area Preservation Fund on it.

That includes a formal design for the Cedar Avenue corridor, and efforts to secure federal and state funding.

"We're making a lot of progress," Egan said.

Egan is one of four out of seven county commissioners up for reelection this year. The others are Joe Harris, who represents the rural part of the county in District 1, Mike Turner, who represents Burnsville in District 5, and Will Branning, who represents Apple Valley and Rosemount in District 7.