A proud advocate for transit: For outgoing Washington County Commissioner Lisa Weik, it’s personal

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
·8 min read

Washington County Commissioner Lisa Weik still remembers what time the last bus left the Sears store at Brookdale Mall in the 1970s.

Weik, then a teenager, worked at the mall and rode the bus to her family’s home in Brooklyn Center almost every night. “The last bus leaving Sears at Brookdale was 9:37. I mean, that’s how ingrained it is in my brain,” she said. “The store closed at 9:30. I could close out my cash register, and then just hit those doors.”

Weik’s family had one car, so she had to study the bus schedules to determine the best way to get to work and school. “I had to know where the public-transportation routes were, and how viable they were,” she said. “I could do one transfer easily and still go to the classes, work somewhere and get home.”

Weik, 64, who has represented most of Woodbury over the past 14 years, will retire at the end of the year. She was elected to the board in a special election in November 2008 and re-elected in 2010, 2012, 2016 and 2020. She’ll be replaced in January by Michelle Clasen, who won the District 5 seat in the November election.

Gold Line project

One of Weik’s proudest accomplishments is her work on the METRO Gold Line, a 10-mile bus rapid transit line being constructed between St. Paul and Woodbury, with bus-only lanes that will provide frequent, all-day service in both directions. The new $505 million bus line will feature 21 stations and four park-and-ride facilities.

Convenient and safe public transportation is critical for the Woodbury area, according to Weik, former chairwoman of the Gateway GOLD Line BRT (I-94 East) Commission.

“I’m probably unique in that I was transit-dependent as a teenager and as an adult,” she said. “When my second child was born, my husband and I were trying to get by with one car. I was trying to go back to school, and I would go in the evening so I could have the car. If I did have some day classes at the (University of Minnesota), I needed to line things up with bus schedules. I know the value of public transportation.”

Prior to attending the University of Minnesota, Weik graduated from the Medical Institute of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1977, where she trained to be a certified laboratory assistant. After graduating from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor of science degree in biology in 1996, Weik worked as a regulatory-affairs specialist for Guidant and a senior compliance specialist for Medtronic.

Getting involved in politics

It was Weik’s involvement with the Biological Sciences Alumni Society — she served as president from 1999 to 2000 — that got her involved in politics. In 2000, then-U of M Alumni Association President Margaret Carlson asked all of the college’s Alumni Society presidents to attend their local legislators’ town hall meetings to support the U of M’s capital requests. The first one Weik attended was being hosted by then-state Rep. Jim Seifert, R-Woodbury.

“His legislative assistant got my name on a clipboard and then stayed in touch with me, and that’s basically how I got started,” she said.

Weik became an active campaign volunteer, doing literature drops through the years for Seifert, Rep. Karen Klinzing, R-Woodbury, and Rep. Mike Charron, R-Woodbury.

When then-Washington County Commissioner Greg Orth died suddenly in January 2008, Weik was recruited to run for the seat.

Weik took an unpaid leave from Medtronic and won the primary election in September and the special election in November.

Shoe leather

The key to her successful campaigns in 2008 after never having held political office? “Shoe leather,” she said. “I went to every door in the district. I think it was around 15,000 — this would include townhomes and apartments. I would knock on the door and introduce myself and say that I was running.”

Weik said she often had to explain to those who answered the door exactly what a county commissioner did.

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“The core function of county government is to protect the most vulnerable in society, so it’s a very serious and important charter,” she said. “But I do think it is the invisible layer of government in Minnesota — not by design. With as much communication technology as we have, it’s still hard to really to communicate out, in a meaningful way, so that people know all of our roles and responsibilities.”

Being a county board member has required being an expert on any number of topics on any given day, she said.

“I always remember a piece of advice from (Ramsey County Commissioner) Victoria Reinhardt that I got many years ago,” she said. “I had said something like, ‘I’m surprised at the volume, and how much things change.’ She said what she always does is focus that day very, very intently on what’s in front of her.”

‘A wealth of information’

Prior to the election, Weik attended almost every county board meeting. After the election, she met with then-County Administrator Jim Schug each week to go through all the information that would be discussed at the next board meeting.

“The way I prepare is probably a few layers more than other people,” she said. “If I’m asked something, I don’t want to not know how to answer the question.”

No one is more prepared than Weik, said Commissioner Gary Kriesel, the only county board member in Washington County who has a longer tenure on the board.

“Nobody works harder than Lisa,” he said. “She must operate on about four hours of sleep a night. You know what I find remarkable? An issue will come up five, six, seven, eight years old, and she basically has total recall on all the details. She just consumes information. I coined the phrase ‘Weik-apedia.’ She’s the Wikipedia of the board. She is just a wealth of information.”

Kriesel said he and the other board members have been especially appreciative of the amount of time Weik has spent working on the Gold Line BRT. “It’s just been incredible,” he said. “She’s a data-driven person, and she helped guide it into existence. She is totally responsible for where we’re at now.”

Weik “never pitted improvement to roads or highways against transit, or vice versa, but she saw it as being an integral part that was missing in the east metro and in Washington County,” said Washington County Administrator Kevin Corbid. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Gold Line project wouldn’t have been as smooth or successful as it has been up to today without her involvement.”

Benefits of BRT

Weik said the benefits of BRT far outweigh those of light rail for the Gold Line, which is slated for completion in 2025. “You get the same level of service as light rail at half the capital cost to build it and at a much lower operating cost,” she said.

More than 80 percent of the 10 miles the buses are going to be traveling on the Gold Line BRT will be in their own dedicated lanes, she said.

“There will be real-time messaging, and the buses will come either every 15 minutes or every 30 minutes in off-peak times,” she said during a recent tour of the line in Woodbury. “That’s like Chicago. You don’t even need a schedule.”

The Gold Line is already spurring economic growth in the area, she said. “You’re not going to get economic development around a regular bus stop for regular-route transit, but anytime you’re building or constructing infrastructure, that attracts private-sector money,” she said.

Food waste collection

Another of Weik’s passions is food scraps. She’s especially excited about plans for food-waste curbside collection in Washington and Ramsey counties, she said.

“We’re talking about curbside collection of food scraps that would then result in a second renewable energy source that actually would be a renewable biofuel,” she said.

The Recycling and Energy Center in Newport, jointly owned by Washington and Ramsey counties, has a new four-story addition to accommodate the program, which will launch in the spring. Optical scanners and robotic arms will pick out the bags of food scraps, which will then be composted, she said.

“You’re taking something that is truly a waste product and turning it into an asset,” Weik said.

Retirement

Weik and her husband, Phil, have two adult children, Sarah and Jeff. Her post-retirement plans include getting the couple’s house in Woodbury’s Watertower Place neighborhood in shape to “downsize,” she said. “I’ve done some of that work over the last couple of years, but I need to really focus on getting the house ready to list.”

An overseas mission trip with Lions Club International is on her retirement bucket list. Weik works with the Woodbury Lions Club’s eyeglass-collection initiative. Having the right prescription eyeglasses “can mean the difference between employment and unemployment,” she said. “These glasses can change the quality of a person’s life, including whether or not they can hold a job.”

She’s also thinking of writing a book about her life and her decision to leave the private sector for public service.

“I’m thinking of that quote — ‘To Go For the Bigger Life’ — for the title,” she said. “That’s what I did. Rather than staying with a safe private-sector job, I wanted to give back and contribute to my community.”

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