Ahh, but Paul, the City was incorporated as a City in 1887.  As you know, prior to that, Duluth was a collection of many very small townships.  Were there some mayors of those townships who were elected unopposed?  Yes.  Has there been since Duluth became a City in 1887?  No.

That said, I'm actually disappointed that there is not a race.  People deserve to be given a choice, especially for Mayor, I know there are a lot of people who have made it clear that they'll never vote for me - those folks deserve a candidate.

It's noteworthy, but not worth celebrating...

OK, after a little research, now I need to qualify my comment.  Duluth was a city from 1870 until 1877, then lost it's charter from 1877-1887 and was a village for that decade.  

The city seal states 1887 as the date of incorporation and was the date used to describe 125 years of city history in which there was not an uncontested race.  But it is more complicated than that.

Baci, obviously Maryanne meant 1874, but I like your take on the typo. And keep this in mind: the way you drive your motorcycle like it was merely a scooter is a phenomenon known as driving the "vespasian way."

Don, wish you had an opponent just to see the reaction of those angry trolls on the DNT Area Voices comment section.

And it's good to see you keeping up on this key element of Duluth history: Duluth became a city in March of 1871, thanks almost entirely to the investment made here by Jay Cooke, who also funded the digging of the ship canal (and just about every single other commercial operation in town). When Cooke went broke in the Panic of '73, all his money, and the jobs that money created, pulled out of town. We couldn't pay our debts, so in 1877 the state pulled our charter. Ten years later, thanks to the grain and timber that came through Duluth — and not Superior, thanks to the ship canal — finally paid off, we paid our debt, and became a city once again. (Iron ore didn't come through Duluth until the 1890s).

Duluth learned a big lesson, and never again has Duluth relied on the ideas of out-of-town absentee developers to bring the city financial success...

I think it's great knowing that the naysayers who are always predicting Duluth's imminent demise must be gnashing their teeth in fury that Don will be mayor for another four years -- at least. I guess all the sound and fury will be in the school board races, you can already witness it now on Area Voices.

Come on mayor.  While I admire your politically correct and humble assessment of the state of local politics and the lack of an opponent for your re-election, I'm sure you and the missus are dancing a jig knowing there will be no campaign to wage.  And who would blame you?  Dance away Mayor, you earned it.

I start counting from 1877, for the same reason that Kilbourntown, Juneautown and Walker's Point are not the same as Milwaukee.  But also because I admire Donny Ness.  I've seen him speak several times, and every time, he has said:  I have hard decisions to make.  And he makes them.  (Reopen the Branch Libraries 5 days a week!)  And still, he's popular.

Mark Dayton and Barack Obama and every Republican in the US could learn from this kind of Democrat.

"Vote Vespasian, Vote Vitality!" is even better

So they shot a sleeping man, and it is assumed they thought he was a deer? Isn't it more likely they thought it was a vagrant, and therefore a disposable and/or troublesome semi-human? Vagrants were seen as a threat all across America during that time. (Even in Duluth, where it seems half the population got here as young male vagrants only 10-15 years prior.) And since our newspaper (not uniquely) was a sort of soothing presence in times of the unthinkable, it doesn't seem unlikely they would gloss over a homeless murder by saying it was a mistake.

It has been a couple of days since I checked this thread. Wow, did it get dark!

Yeah, what's he got, what ... 80-85 years til that happens?

I dunno if it's been brought up at all yet, anything's possible, but is it at all unique that we have such a (relatively) young city leadership? The Council is still pretty mature with Stauber, et. al., but Don and Chief Ramsay are both relatively young, compared to the rest of the city government.

Cuneo, Anderson and the rest are in their mid to late 30s, right? Early 40s?

Yep ... and I was trying to insinuate that our good mayor was the ripe old age of 15.

baci's not brown nosing.

most of us know hizzonner personally.