When Victoria Reinhardt ran for the Ramsey County board, she said she knew it was the right time to do so and after 28 years in the role, she knows it’s the right time to pass the responsibility on.

“When I ran the first time in 1996 I said, it’s time for a change. It’s time and that was kind of my theme as I went forward. And right now, I feel the same way,” Reinhardt told the Pioneer Press last Friday.

Reinhardt attended her last board meeting as county commissioner for District 7 on Tuesday after seven terms in office. District 7 commissioner-elect Kelly Miller and District 1 commissioner-elect Tara Jebens-Singh will join the board early January. District 7 represents Maplewood, North St. Paul and White Bear Lake.

The District 1 seat is currently held by Nicole Frethem, whose term expires end of December. Frethem, whose last board meeting was also Tuesday, decided not to run for reelection. Running uncontested in November was incumbent Mary Jo McGuire in District 2.

Reinhardt, of White Bear Lake, said she wants to spend more time with her grandchildren, one of whom would be 18 by the end of another term if she did run again. She still sees herself staying involved in environmental work, something that has been a passion of hers, in some way and as a resource for her board colleagues.

“It has been the honor of my life to be able to to do this job, and I have done it with all my heart and with the eye on the pocketbook the whole time, trying to figure out ways to do things more economically feasible, trying to get funding that we need for the mandates that we have,” Reinhardt said. “And it’s a heavy responsibility, but it’s also one where I feel like I’ve made a difference, and that’s what I wanted to do.”

The board of commissioners celebrated Reinhardt’s years as commissioner Tuesday by proclaiming the day Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt Day in the county and thanking her for her years of work. Colleagues cited her efforts to bring different perspectives together, which Reinhardt credits to her ability to respect and listen to others.

“I mean, we really need the person that you are in that work for holding those issues together in a way to move forward while you’re bringing those diverse opinions together,” McGuire said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The board also approved the 2025 Ramsey County operating budget, the 2025 tax levy and the capital improvement program budget Tuesday.

‘My life changed forever’

Reinhardt grew up in Hastings, married when she was 18 and eventually had two sons. The marriage involved domestic abuse, which can leave a person without self-esteem, Reinhardt said. But an opportunity from then-county commissioner Bob Orth changed her life, she said.

Orth called Reinhardt to tell her he wanted her to work as his legislative aide or principal assistant. Reinhardt’s response was to tell him she wasn’t qualified for the role.

“And he said to me, he said, ‘Victoria, if I didn’t think you were qualified, I wouldn’t ask you.’ And I thought about it, and I said, ‘Yes,’ and my life changed forever. I felt that I had value and that I could do things,” Reinhardt said.

Reinhardt’s marriage eventually ended and, with the help of Orth, and Joan Fabian, who worked with the county Department of Corrections, Reinhardt entered a domestic-abuse program through the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in St. Paul in 1985.

“I had made the comment that maybe if I ever ran for anything, it would be county commissioner, because of my experience with Bob Orth and knowing that this is where you can really make a difference in people’s lives,” Reinhardt said.

She eventually remarried and has been with her husband James Patrick “J.P.” Barone for more than 33 years. Barone also adopted Reinhardt’s two sons from her previous marriage.

In 1996, she filed to run against 22-year commissioner and then-County Board Chairman Hal Norgard. At the time, Reinhardt worked for the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance as a problem materials coordinator and had been active on county advisory committees.

She was one of four challengers for Norgard’s seat, who had been on the board since 1974. Despite any earlier doubts Reinhardt might have had, she defeated Norgard by 836 votes, giving Ramsey County a majority-woman board of commissioners for the first time in its history and seemingly only the second such agency with a woman majority in the state.

At the time Reinhardt started in 1997, commissioners oversaw a budget of nearly $400 million.

That same year, she received her bachelor’s degree in business from Metropolitan State University, the only one in her family to receive a university degree, Reinhardt said. She would eventually go on to receive her master’s degree in business administration through Metropolitan State University and a doctorate degree in public administration from Hamline University.

A passion for Reinhardt in her time as commissioner has been the environment and waste-to-energy initiatives.

She’s been active on the Ramsey/Washington Recycling and Energy Board, and in other environmental partnerships. The county has been expanding a pilot food scrap recycling program in the suburbs of both Ramsey and Washington counties. Robot sorters collect compostable bags of organic waste from trash deposited at the Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy Center in Newport, a facility which had a ground breaking Reinhardt remembers attending around 40 years ago.

‘I want to thank you’

Reinhardt has chaired the county board three times and served in most other years as chair of its budget committee. District 3 Commissioner Trista Martinson, whose original term expired at the end of 2026 and had served as board chair starting in 2022, left the board in August to lead Ramsey/Washington Recycling & Energy. Martinson had represented the district since 2019. The race for District 3 will be decided by special election on Feb. 11.

District 5 Commissioner and current board vice chair Rafael Ortega will take over as board chair with Reinhardt’s exit.

At one point, Martinson reminded Reinhardt that the District 7 commissioner was on more than 30 committees.

Residents don’t often see all the work that leads up to when county boards take action on various items, Reinhardt said.

“This meeting is the culmination of all the work that comes before it. And so sometimes people look at all the items and pass and don’t recognize or realize just how much time goes into it,” Reinhardt said.

“I want to thank you for all of the time that we have labored over things and tried to figure out the best way to move forward, and then as a board, we made those decisions,” she said to board members and county officials present Tuesday.

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