The Duluth City Council met on Monday, March 10, 2025, at 6:00 PM in the Council Chamber. The meeting lasted 37 minutes and included routine approvals, public testimony on federal policy impacts and downtown safety, first readings of two zoning ordinances, and council discussion of local responses to federal actions. All nine councilors were present.
The consent agenda was passed unanimously (9‑0).
Mr. Scott, my name is Ren Owl. I'm um an at-large city counselor, and I will be conducting the personnel um personnel chair interview uh for the Duluth Public Utilities Commission, which you have submitted your application for. Um thank you so much for being here. How it's gonna work is I have a set of questions I'll ask, and then I'll open it up to the counselors, uh my fellow counselors, and then we'll end with a few more logistical questions, and then you will you get a chance to add any additional thing regarding your possible appointment to the Duluth Public Uh Utilities Commission. All of that sounds good. It does, thank you. Um Mr. Scott, why don't you take a few minutes to introduce yourself to the rest of the council, just whatever you would like to share. Sure. Well, thank you for having me here this evening. Um as mentioned, my name is Brad. I'm a civil engineer. I've worked in Duluth for almost 25 years, uh, up until about two years ago. I worked as a consultant engineer. Uh one of my primary clients was the City of Duluth. Uh probably one of the more notable projects I worked on for the city was I was the lead designer, engineer of record for the reconstruction of Superior Street. Um, but throughout my career I've worked on a wide variety of municipal projects and projects on the city's infrastructure system. Um water, storm sewer, sanitary. Um I did work at the city of Duluth for about 15 months, uh changed jobs uh about three months ago. I'm currently a project manager at MINDOT. So made the transition from the private side to the public sector. So but thank you for having me here and uh I'm interested in serving. It's sort of a continuation of being connected to the city, its mission. I believe in the importance of uh dependable, safe, healthy infrastructure, and uh here to advocate for it and uh stay connected to the city, which I've always enjoyed working with. Thank you so much, Mr. Scott. Um you've kind of already touched on this, but if you want to expand, why are you interested in serving on the specifically the Duluth Public Utilities Commission? Well, I I I think it's probably one of the commissions that I'm probably suited to serve on by virtue of that past record of engineering work and my career. Um I'm excited to do it. I know the people at the city, I know a lot of the challenges that the city's facing with providing dependable, safe uh infrastructure, challenge with budgets and um and the needs that the city has. So I to me it's an exciting opportunity to stay connected to staff and the city's mission. That's fundamentally why I'm here. Thank you. Um and you've also kind of touched on this too, but if you want to further elaborate, uh, would you be willing to give a brief outline um of your education and your work experience and how will your background and personal strengths benefit the Duluth Duluth Public Utilities Commission? Yeah, without going back too far. I moved to Duluth uh right around 2002 from Alaska. Uh had worked up there building utility systems, uh, rural water, wastewater systems throughout the state of Alaska. Uh came here, worked for LHB Inc. was the company that I started with and stayed with. And um again, just a career of working for the city, working in projects in Duluth, St. Louis County, the greater Arrowhead region, and um, I think hopefully that experience and insight uh will be valuable to the city. Thank you. Yes. Um do you are you present uh presently serving on any other boards and commissions or have you served on any in the past? Uh I'm not presently serving. I did serve uh on my previous employer's corporate board. Okay. But no longer do that. Thank you.