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Roger Reinert was inaugurated Tuesday afternoon as the 40th mayor of Duluth before a standing room only crowd in the rotunda of the historic city hall. 

“I stand here today in this place filled with both excitement and a sense of profound responsibility,” Reinert told the audience, which included the four surviving former mayors of Duluth, including Emily Larson, who he defeated in November.

“We spent months talking about the work and now we get to do it. You have entrusted me with Duluth’s next chapter and I do not take that responsibility lightly,” Reinert said. 

Reinert is a former state legislator, an attorney, and a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve. 

He easily defeated Larson by a 60-40 margin in a hard-fought campaign pitting two DFLers against one another, denying a third term to the first woman to be elected Duluth mayor. 

hard-fought mayoral campaign nears finish

Duluth mayoral contest over two-term incumbent Larson

Reinert ran on a campaign of change, promising to focus on core city services such as street repair and snow plowing, and investing in housing and the city’s downtown. 

He said there will be plenty of other opportunities to discuss those issues in the days and weeks ahead, including taxes, public safety and city infrastructure.

“We will do much of that in my State of the City speech, somewhere around the 100-day mark,” Reinert said. “And that’s when I plan to share details around the vision for my term and the administration.”

In an interview after the event, Reinert, 53, admitted he had to work hard not to get choked up during his speech. He called becoming mayor “the culmination of a lifetime,” adding that his educational, military and career experiences were all “intended to give me a skill set to do this job.” 

Reinert has already made two changes to the staff her inherited. He moved to replace City Administrator Noah Schuchman with David Montgomery, who served in a similar role under former Mayor Don Ness and under Larson during her first term. 

He also nominated Jessica Fralich to be the next City Attorney, replacing Rebecca St. George. 

Reinert said additional changes are possible, but said he first wants an opportunity to meet with department directors over the next six to nine months to see how he and the staff work together. 

“By the end of the year, I want the public to be able to say I have seen a noticeable difference in each of these areas: in housing, in streets, in downtown, in public safety, in my property tax burden, in our commercial activity.”

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Roger Reinert was inaugurated as the 40th mayor of Duluth in a ceremony at Duluth City Hall Tuesday afternoon, after the former state lawmaker easily defeated two-term incumbent Emily Larson, the city’s first woman to be elected mayor, in the November election. 

Roger Reinert inaugurated as next mayor of Duluth

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