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The [Wednesday] Papers
"Cook County Board members have missed hundreds of meetings in the past five years, an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times and ABC7 Chicago's I-Team has found - with four county commissioners absent at least a quarter of the time," the paper reports.
"Commissioner Bridget Gainer had the worst attendance record, records show. The North Side Democrat missed 162 of 504 meetings of the board and its committees - nearly a third of the official meetings she was supposed to attend in the past five years."
Well, Bridget Gainer seems like one of the more enlightened of the bunch over there, and she's often mentioned as a possible mayoral candidate, so I'm sure she has a good excuse.
"Gainer said her hectic schedule as 'a working mother' was the main reason for having the poorest attendance, noting that she is 'the only mom with school-age children on the board.'"
Oh.
"Have I missed some meetings? Sure," Gainer said. "I've missed some of my kids' games, too. And that bothers me more."
But we're paying you $85,000 a year to attend those meetings. It's your (part-time) job! No one forced you to take it.
"In the first three years of her current four-year term, Gainer missed half the meetings of board committees she's assigned to, minutes of those meetings show."
Half! That's a lot of games!
"Gainer also is head of the public affairs group for Aon, the professional services firm but said that hasn't caused her to miss so many government meetings, 'not even a little bit.'"
That's not helping!
It would be one thing if you missed time from your private sector job because of your duties as a public official and parent. It's another to miss time from your public official's job because of your duties in the private sector as well as at home.
You've got it backwards, Bridget!
"So much of the work that happens at the county goes on outside the board meetings," Gainer said.
We get that. But public meetings are the time the public gets to see you and record your votes. Beyond that, your attendance record is far worse at committee meetings, which are often the most important meetings, than full board meetings, which are often the theater of already determined results.
Again, you've got it backwards, Bridget.
"I'm juggling a lot like every other working mother," Gainer told the Sun-Times.
But how many other working mothers are elected, public officials making $85,000 a year plus a private sector salary which is presumably even more than that?
"Gainer, who was an aide to former Mayor Richard M. Daley, has previously said that running against Mayor Rahm Emanuel is 'definitely something I'm thinking about.'"
But how would she have time to be mayor? She's already juggling a lot!
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In the meantime, Gainer is running for re-election to her county board seat.
"Mary Ann Kosiak, a personal injury attorney, has filed to challenge Gainer in the Democratic primary next month. Kosiak did not return calls seeking comment."
Hmmm. Is Kosiak a ghost candidate?
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"Mary Ann Kosiak is a top Chicago woman accident lawyer who has collected millions for her clients in Illinois as a result of car accidents, bicycle accidents, motorcycle accidents, boat accidents, train accidents, plane accidents, truck accidents."
Plus, she's fighting for us!
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Kosiak doesn't even have any endorsements on LinkedIn!
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Gainer did not challenge Kosiak's petitions, though that's most likely because Kosiak isn't a threat. There's no advantage I can see - other than not being see as a bully and/or not drawing attention to her opponent - to Gainer to have Kosiak on the ballot with no other challengers. And yes, I'm presuming Kosiak's petitions are challenge-worthy.
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Kosiak has virtually no online presence.
Here's one of her few Facebook posts:
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Back to Gainer:
I had some questions that were not answered in the Sun-Times report. I found some of those answers on Wikipedia.
-> Gainer has a husband and three kids. (I just wanted to know if she was a single mother. Look, I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of working women - or any working parent - trying to hold down a job and raise children at the same time. But Gainer is voluntarily holding down two high-earning jobs and has a partner. So she may be a "working mother," but she's not a working-class mother. She's rich. In 2013, for example, she and her husband paid $1.2 million for a four-bedroom home in Graceland West.)
-> "Gainer oversees [Aon's] corporate political action committee (PAC) and decides how these funds are spent." (This job description might be outdated, as we will see below.)
I also learned, through the footnotes, that:
-> She was not Mike Quigley's choice as successor, though she was the choice of her friend, media writer and former high-ranking Tribune editor James Warren, yuck.
Warren:
"The newspapers' accounts the next day couldn't quite shake off the assumptions pervading the conspiracy theories. In particular, there was the first reference by both the Tribune and Sun-Times to Gainer as a former City Hall official. In fact, if anybody had checked, they would have learned that she was one of about 30 grunt analysts in the budget office 10 years ago. Describing Gainer as a 'former City Hall official' is akin to calling Dave Bialas, bullpen coach for the 1999 Cubs, a 'former Tribune Co. official.'"
Really?
From Chicago magazine last May:
You had a close relationship with Rich Daley and worked for him when he was mayor. [She also worked for the Park District as lakefront director.] He went from being celebrated as "America's mayor" to being seen as an incompetent who planted flowers but allowed the city to rot in every way imaginable. So has Daley gotten a bad rap?When I was there in the late '90s, I really feel like it was the golden years. There was so much focus around neighborhoods and how to make them livable. If you went to a meeting with Daley and you said, "We're thinking of doing this at 63rd and Stony," he'd say, "Wait, you mean the corner with the bank? Or the corner with the gas station?"
I think very highly of Daley.
She also backed Rahm Emanuel in 2011. She stayed neutral in 2015; she considers herself an ally of Chuy Garcia.
Also:
You're a county board commissioner, but you have another job as well?Yes, I work for Aon doing global public affairs, building engagement around the world. We just launched an apprentice program here in Chicago and in London. My time is pretty evenly split. I work 30 hours a week for each one.
The shame of it is that I'm favorably predisposed to Gainer. But she's cheating the public.
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Finally:
"Commissioner John Daley, D-Chicago, also has been at every board meeting during the past five years, and had the best attendance rate for committee meetings. He was marked absent at only two of more than 300 meetings of his committees since 2013 - a 99.4 percent attendance mark.
"You have to be here," Daley said. "I think it's important to be here and listen to the testimony and, if there are questions, ask [administration officials], then ask the department heads questions, and form your own opinions."
Apparently Gainer doesn't think so.
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Sources close to the Beachwood Bookmaking Bureau say that Gainer's 5 percent chance of running and winning the mayor's seat in 2019 is likely to be downgraded a point because of this revelation.
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New on the Beachwood today . . .
What Apple Is Getting Away With
"Don't let a twisted and dishonest PR scheme by massive companies grateful for Trump's huge Christmas present distort the truth."
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Michael Flynn, Rogue Star
Titles for the times.
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At The Spertus | Ineluctable Immigrant
"Ellen Rothenberg prompts visitors to consider connections between past and contemporary issues of migration. The project is inspired by objects and documents Rothenberg uncovered in the Spertus collection - as well as research she pursued in Berlin at Germany's largest refugee camp, housed in the monumental Tempelhof Airport, a disused site that was designed and built by the Nazis."
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Does Spending Big In The Transfer Window Work?
Or is it better to just change managers?
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ChicagoGram
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ChicagoTube
How To Pronounce "Chicago Politics."
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BeachBook
Despite Boston-Centric Ad Campaign, Many Gillette Products Wicked Imported.
↓
You know what is Made in America? Grade-A Bullshit.
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Miller Lite Passes Budweiser - Also Known As "America" - In Big Beer Sales.
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How The U.S. Vote To Extend NSA Program Could Expose Journalists To Surveillance.
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TweetWood
A sampling.
I would wager that any sort of large-scale worker benefits initiative would cause their share price to drop, whereas if they were legally allowed to extrajudicially murder one worker every day they'd get a bump
— dame judi dench's secret woodland (@markpopham) January 24, 2018
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WaPo Staffers Fighting for Better Wages Told to Sit Down, Shut Up, and Be Grateful for Jeff Bezos https://t.co/a72xnUlscz via @Splinter_news
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) January 24, 2018
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Yesterday @ChicagosMayor & CEO @janicejackson had a press conference in Crane HS's library. It hasn't had a librarian since 2015. Many of the teachers tell me that that was the first time in months the students had been in there @CTULocal1 @bylaurenfitz @SSKedreporter @PerezJr
— Martin Ritter (@MartinLRitter) January 19, 2018
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She should really go to the hospital to give birth. Don't be a hero. pic.twitter.com/zzVIA5WrYw
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) January 24, 2018
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The Beachwood Tronc Line: Office space.
Posted on January 24, 2018
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