1. Bio

2. Political career

3. Controversies

4. References

5. External links

Bridget Gainer is a Cook County Commissioner, representing the County’s 10th district. She has served as Commissioner since 2009 for the 10th district, which includes many of Chicago’s north side neighborhoods. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

Bio

Gainer was born and raised in the Beverly neighborhood on Chicago's south side. In 1990, she graduated from University of Illinois with a bachelor of arts in English and political science. Afterwards, she moved to New York City to work as a community organizer with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

She moved back to Chicago in 1994 to continue her work as community organizer to work with local community members to keep schools open later in the day for after-school programming. From there, Gainer worked as a budget analyst in Chicago's City Hall becoming familiar with the City's budgeting process. She then went on to work for the Park District as the Director of the Lakefront Parks.

Gainer later went on to join Aon in a financial role and continues to work for Aon today.

With an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, a strong background in public sector finance and her experience working as a community organizer in Chicago's neighborhoods, Bridget was elected to the Cook County Board in 2010 and was quickly noted by MSNBC’s Chuck Todd as a rising star in Illinois politics.

Bridget Gainer is married to Dennis Kibby and has three children.^[1]

Political career

Gainer was initially appointed to the seat in April 2009 to replace former commissioner Mike Quigley, who won the special election to fill former Congressman Rahm Emanuel's seat when Emanuel left Congress to become White House Chief of Staff to President Obama . Gainer's rise to this position, has been lauded as good for the County. In 2010, Gainer, a Democrat, defeated her Republican opponent in the November 2010 election and won a four-year term. In March of 2018, Gainer overwhelmingly won her primary election against her opponent.

Since becoming a Cook County Commissioner Gainer has:

• Created Cook County’s first Pension Committee. As Chairman, Gainer launched an open-data pension website (OpenPensions.org) where press, the public and County employees could go for details on plans and proposals and offer their own solutions and ideas.

• Created the Cook County Land Bank, the region’s most comprehensive response to reduce the amount and impact of vacant land and abandoned buildings throughout Cook County. Bringing together realtors, private developers, civic and social leaders. The Cook County Land Bank has been noted in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and Crain’s Chicago Business.
  • The CCLBA works independently from the Cook County Board earning revenue from the property sales and reinvesting into the budget to provide an infrastructure to provide additional resources for first-time home buyers and small neighborhood developers. Since the program began, 400 homes have been purchased and rehabbed.^[3]

• As Chairman of the Workforce Development Committee, Gainer continues to work locally to create a new pipeline for talent outside of a four year college degree through apprenticeship programs by bringing together community colleges, high schools and businesses.

• Works to fight for the woman and children in our criminal justice system by eliminating the practice of separating new mothers awaiting trial from their newborns, led the fight to ban shackling pregnant detainees during labor and delivery and created the first citizen advisory Board for the Juvenile Detention Center.
• Created an independent bureau within the State's Attorney office to allow County litigation to be handled by State's attorneys rather than outside private counsel, saving the county millions of dollars each year.
• Worked to reform the county lobbying ordinance requiring full transparency in the contracting process^[4]
• Voted against video gaming in bars ^[6]

In 2015, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Gainer founded a Chicago chapter of Off the Sidelines, a civic impact organization for women which has quickly gained over 3,000 members.^[7]

In 2017, Off the Sidelines Chicago was renamed Cause the Effect Chicago.^[9]

Controversies

Despite mulling a bid for Chicago mayor since Richard M. Daley's retirement in 2011, Gainer ultimately took her name out of the race for mayor in the 2019 election.^[1] She had also come under scrutiny for her driving record^[2] and attendance at legislative sessions. Over her tenure on the County Board Gainer missed 8% of County Board meetings^[3] and 17% of Forest Preserve meetings. ^[4]

In November 2018, Chicago public radio station WBEZ sued Cook County in relation to e-mails the government would not release as part of a FOIA.^[5]

References

External links

• http://www.bridgetgainer.com/
• http://www.cookcountygov.com/

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