Duluth civic activist Noah Hobbs on Sunday announced his campaign for an At Large position on the Duluth City Council.
Hobbs is the first announced candidate for the job, although more are expected, with the filing period in July, any necessary primary in August and the general election in November.
Two At Large council positions will be on the ballot this autumn. The terms of current At Large councilors Linda Krug and Emily Larson expire at the end of the year. Larson has announced she is running for Duluth mayor, leaving at least one seat with no incumbent.
“I am running because I am proud of Duluth, and I am proud to see the direction our city has been moving the past eight years,” Hobbs said in a statement announcing his candidacy. “But we can and need to do even more to ensure that Duluth is a city families want to live in, students want to learn in and businesses want to grow in.”
Hobbs, 25, is president of the Merritt Park Community Club and chairman and founder of the River Corridor Coalition that’s working to expand development in western neighborhoods of the city. He is also an active leader in his church, is on the board of directors at PAVSA and CHUM, and is a former board member of Neighborhood Housing Services.
Hobbs works as a planner for the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency in Virginia. He graduated from high school in Mankato, Minn., and moved to Duluth in 2007 to attend the University of Minnesota Duluth. He has master’s degree in public administration from Hamline University.
Hobbs said his priorities, if elected, include “enhancing and maintaining city parks, putting forward a sustainable solution for failing infrastructure, creating a more equitable city when it comes to poverty, substandard housing and homelessness, and helping shape Duluth’s $18 million” investment into River Corridor neighborhoods.
Hobbs noted that he is an avid baseball fan, an amateur home brewer and enjoys the outdoor activities such as “canoeing around Spirit Lake, fishing for trout and salmon on the big lake and grouse hunting just north of Duluth.”
