A day after St. Paul City Council President Rebecca Noecker informed key supporters she plans to run for the District 5 seat on the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners next year, incumbent Rafael Ortega said he will defend that seat, which he’s held since 1994.
Rafael Ortega. (Courtesy of the candidate)
“I fully intend to run for reelection,” said Ortega, the Ramsey County Board chair, in a written statement shared Thursday. “I look forward to sharing the work we are doing to help the people who need help in Ramsey County and describing in more detail the work we are doing to improve transit and create economic development.”
Ortega, the board’s longest-serving member, said he usually sends supporters and potential delegates to the DFL endorsing convention a formal announcement between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and this year will be no different.
Ortega and Noecker both represent downtown St. Paul, West Seventh Street and surrounding neighborhoods, including areas that have been hard-hit by the shift to remote work.
Rebecca Noecker. (Courtesy of the City of St. Paul)
To the chagrin of neighborhood organizers, the county last year abandoned efforts to install a long-planned streetcar or bus rapid transit system along West Seventh Street and instead redirected some $730 million in future funding from the county’s half-cent sales tax to other road and transit projects, most of them disconnected from the corridor.
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Instead of a streetcar, the West Seventh area is now home to a truck maintenance depot for FCC Environmental, the contracted trash hauler performing the majority of the city’s residential trash collection for one-to-four unit buildings.
Their arrival, like the uncertain future of West Seventh’s long-awaited street reconstruction, has also been a sore point with neighborhood advocates.
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