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RICE LAKE. Minn. — Voters in one of the Northland's newest cities on Tuesday sent a pair of incumbents back for second terms on their City Council.
Jayme Heim received 38.79% of the 3,119 votes cast for Rice Lake City Council candidates, and John Hegstrom received 29.27%, according to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website . The remaining two candidates for the pair of open seats on the council, Pat McDonald and Brian Dunphy, received 20.68% and 10.64% of the remaining votes cast, respectively.
Heim, a longtime health care worker and administrator, was elected to the council in 2018, and served on its utilities commission for two years before that. She’s been a frequent presence at civic meetings there since 2015.
Hegstrom was also elected to the council in 2018. Before that, he served on the Rice Lake Planning Commission and a joint airport zoning board.
McDonald, a retired business owner, has lived in Rice Lake since 1979. Dunphy is a Two Harbors High School graduate and construction worker who moved back to the Duluth area in 2008.
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Rice Lake was a longstanding township and bedroom community that stood along the northern edge of Duluth since the late 1800s. Leaders of the then-township, worried about being annexed by their much larger southern neighbor, convinced state administrators to let the town be an incorporated city in 2015.
