A new face will join the Duluth City Council in 2022, as longtime Councilmember Marsha Anderson Bomar announced Friday that she will not seek reelection.

Bomar endorsed Jamin Harkness for the seat in a video posted to Facebook. She said she will end her time on council to give someone else a chance to make decisions for the Gwinnett city.

“I have been so honored and so blessed to serve this city for almost 16 years and be part of the team that imagined a new Duluth,” Bomar said. “... But sometimes, it’s important to have other voices and other people at the table.”

In the video, Bomar pulled off her former campaign T-shirt to reveal a “Vote for Jamin ‘21″ T-shirt underneath. She said she wanted to find a smart person with a “great heart for the city” and who had “skills, knowledge and talent” to benefit Duluth’s residents.

“I am so excited to try to represent the citizens of Duluth,” said Harkness, who serves as executive vice president and partner at The Management Group. “... (Bomar and I) agree on a lot of things... she has promised to be a resource for me and to be there for me as we start this new journey.”

Harkness and his husband, Rodrigo, moved to Duluth in 2005 before their son was born in 2008. The candidate serves as president of the Duluth Cluster School Foundation and is a member of the school council at Coleman Middle School.

Jamin Harkness is running to fill the seat that Marsha Anderson Bomar will vacate on Duluth City Council. (Courtesy of Jamin Harkness)
icon to expand image

“There are a lot of parts of the city that we need to celebrate, just as we have celebrated our downtown, and (Harkness) has so many great ideas for how we can continue to make this an all-around great place to live,” Bomar said. “I’ll say it once again: Jamin is my guy.”