DULUTH — The city of Duluth will hire an additional prosecutor in the City Attorney's Office — a recommendation sparked by the Downtown Task Force and one of several ideas the group has to increase safety in the pandemic-changed neighborhood.
The new hire is a proactive step toward making people feel safe downtown, according to Mayor Emily Larson, who offered a list of other task force initiatives — from public safety to public art — during a media conference Monday afternoon at the freshly renovated Lake Superior Plaza at Lake Avenue and Superior Street.
The City Attorney's Office, headed by Rebecca St. George, currently has three prosecutors in addition to Deputy City Attorney Marcus Jones.
Systems move slowly, and there is a court backlog, Larson said.
"Because public safety is multi-jurisdictional and multi-departmental and multi-governmental, what we can control — what we can work on — are elements within our Duluth Police Department and our attorney's office," she said.
The Downtown Task Force was introduced during Larson's State of the City speech in late March. The group, which meets until the end of September, is looking at issues ranging from public safety to investment.
Some of these topics called for a midpoint update, according to Larson.
"Because downtown is such an important place in the summer, because we have had some events that have caused people to be or feel unsafe, it felt especially important to share concurrently the things we're doing," she said.
