Ginka Tarnowski Announces Candidacy for Duluth City Council

At 5 pm on Saturday, March 18th, Ginka Tarnowski announced her candidacy to represent Duluth’s 5th District at Council. The announcement took place at the All American Club in Duluth's West End, a club founded with the ideal of being ‘a place where all Americans are welcome.’

After welcoming people and thanking them for being there, Ginka made the following remarks as regards why she is running for city council.

I believe in a simple concept, that building your future in Duluth should be the quickest and easiest choice you'll ever make.

And let's be honest: right now, it's not.

You deserve a city that puts people ahead of process. You deserve a city where you pay less to live and receive better services. And together, we can get there. With your support, and your willingness to join me in fighting for our city's future, building a future in Duluth should be the quickest and easiest choice you'll ever make in life.

And right now, it's not. You know it, I know it, even the City administration must know it. Over the past 10 years, Duluth has added only a hundred new citizens. Hermantown has added 1,000.
 
Duluthians deserve better.

* * * 

In her press release announcing this event she talked about her experiences growing up in which several of the schools she went to closed. “When they closed Chester, I went to Lowell. When they closed Woodland, I went to Central. When they closed Central, I chose Denfeld."

It was at Denfeld that Ginka says she experienced the potential Duluth could achieve.”

Adopted into a Duluth family sometime between the ages of 3 and 5, depending on which official birth certificate one looks at, Tarnowski has spent her life in Duluth asking questions and receiving unsatisfactory answers.

“I was in 4th grade at Chester when the heat magically disappeared,” recalls Tarnowski. “We had to wear jackets and gloves; it was hard to write with gloves, and we couldn’t learn." When she asked the adults around why things had to be this way, the only answer she got was, "That’s just the way things are in Duluth." That answer was just as unsatisfactory in 4th grade as it is today. Duluthians pay a high cost of living and receive a poor quality of services for it: Why?”

Over the years she noticed that many past candidates for Duluth’s Council have promised growth, yet "Duluth has continued its decline in statewide rankings faster than most Duluthians can do a bunny hill."

I myself first became aware of Ginka when I was researching the interconnected problems of homelessness and our lack of affordable housing. Her op-ed pieces in the Duluth News Tribune showed her to be a diligent researcher, dedicated to ferreting out data regarding the city's failure to recognize the ways the administration itself impedes the growth we claim we long for. 

Ginka believes that Duluth is the best of all places to live in America. So why can't we make it easier to move here and live here. 

One of the stats that surprised me is that in the past ten years Duluth added 100 people and Hermantown added a thousand. See the U.S. Census data Duluth here: 

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/duluthcityminnesota/PST045221

As the 5th District’s representative on the City Council, Tarnowski promises to work tirelessly to deliver better to her constitutions. “It shouldn’t take three years of planning and listening sessions and one week of work to fill a pothole, nor should any business owner be left in tears after a visit from the city. Yet these are real things! They happen! That’s not cool, man!”

Speaking personally, I am impressed with what people who know her have to say about Ginka. She's a straight shooter and they trust her.

She's been an advocate for Duluth for a long time and feels inspired to help her community. In talking with people in the 5th District she's met a lot of unhappy people, people unhappy with city policies that need to be changed if we're ever going to have the better future we're trying to work toward. Two issues she's been hearing a lot about are the lack of transparency in city government and the cost of living for those who have settled here. "These are issues in the community that are not being heard," she said.