City of Duluth
Duluth’s budget debate is missing millions
Duluth residents should not accept a budget narrative built only around the bad news. Transparency requires more than explaining the size of the shortfall. It requires identifying every option, every revenue decision and every pool of existing or reasonably anticipated financial capacity.
The bill comes due: Inside Duluth’s 2027 budget reckoning
Early-term labor agreements, sluggish revenue growth and familiar levy politics have left City Hall confronting a projected $5.5 million deficit.
Duluth needs a budget surgeon, not another video stream
The city estimates its recently negotiated labor agreements will increase personnel costs by approximately $9.9 million over three years, according to the 2026 city budget. There is your deficit, dressed in a collective bargaining agreement and scheduled to arrive on time.
Rethinking the response: Duluth could cut public safety costs by changing who answers 911 calls
Houston uses an emergency telehealth program that allows selected 911 patients to speak remotely with a physician. In one reported year, 92% of the 6,008 people served by the program were directed to transportation other than a Houston Fire Department ambulance.
Duluth searches for budget ‘bloat,’ but labor costs dominate projected shortfall
The city cannot eliminate a multimillion-dollar structural deficit without confronting employee costs, service levels or taxes. That is where the money is — and where the difficult decisions will be.
Public confidence is earned through facts, transparency and action
The city's response should not be measured by the words spoken at a news conference but measured in the weeks and months ahead by successful investigations, accountability for those responsible, thoughtful prevention efforts and a renewed sense of confidence among the people who call Duluth home.
Duluth adopts sweeping downtown strategy, zoning overhaul aimed at boosting housing, investment
The strategy emphasizes expanding housing opportunities, improving public spaces, activating downtown streets, supporting business growth and making development more predictable for investors.
Howie: Forsman the best choice for Duluth’s next mayor
Arik Forsman doesn’t posture. He doesn’t spend his time trying to win the internet for a day. He leans into the unglamorous mechanics of governing — budgets, policy detail, stakeholder conversations — and does it with a steadiness that’s easy to overlook if you’re chasing noise instead of results.
Police investigate reported shooting in Duluth’s East Hillside
Based on preliminary information, investigators believe the people involved were targeting each other.
Howie: Duluth isn’t a used car sales lot — and it doesn’t need a pitchman
What was intended as connection begins to blur into something else — something that, in its saturation, can feel closer to a pitch than a public service. An overextended one. Almost like a showroom floor that never quite closes.
Howie: The verdict on Reinert will be about direction, not personality
The question is no longer simply whether Roger Reinert deserves another term. The question is whether Duluth believes it is on the path it wants — and if not, who has the discipline, clarity and courage to alter it. November 2027 will deliver the verdict. The work of deciding it begins now.
Howie: The library isn’t the story. It never was.
This time, the leverage isn’t casino revenue. It’s downtown frustration — visible poverty, safety complaints, business dissatisfaction and the persistent sense that downtown Duluth has not lived up to decades of promises.
Howie: How the City of Duluth learned to live on borrowed time
The City of Duluth now spends roughly $1 of every $7 in the general fund on debt service. That’s money that can’t pave streets, fund libraries, or expand housing programs. And yet the answer to each new challenge is the same: another bond.
Mountain Lion spotted in Duluth
"As with any wild animal, we want to remind the community that you should exercise caution in their presence and never approach them." -- Duluth Police Department