At the last minute and with no fanfare, a challenger has made a race of it for the 2nd District seat on the Duluth City Council.
But Ryan Sistad said he's serious in his challenge of incumbent Joel Sipress, the current council president.
"I believe in this city, and I think there could be a lot of improvements made," he said in a telephone interview.
Sistad, 23, entered unnoticed on the last day of filing, July 18, and initially played hard to get when the News Tribune sought a brief interview. On Friday, he said he's concerned about what seems to be a difficult environment in Duluth for small business.
"I think it's very tough for a new businessperson to come up here and make money," Sistad said.
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A native of Fosston, Minn., who graduated from high school in Northfield, Minn., Sistad attended the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks to study business management. He moved to Duluth three years ago intending to transfer to the University of Minnesota Duluth. But when an opportunity opened up at Parsons Electric, he went to work there instead.
Sistad, who is unmarried, acknowledged he's not very familiar with Sipress, but from what he understands he believes he'll have significant differences with the incumbent, he said.
"I'm pretty conservative when it comes to taxes, especially sales taxes," Sistad said.
He favors both clean water and clean mining, he said, and believes mining and pipelines are important to the local economy.
Since there are only two candidates for the 2nd District seat, Sipress and Sistad will bypass the Sept. 12 primary election. The general election is Nov. 7.
