Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool is the former Superintendent and CEO of the Chicago Park District, a $400 million government agency with 3,200 employees. He has also served as deputy state treasurer, and Chief of Staff to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

As parks chief, Forrest transformed an agency described as “dysfunctional” by the Civic Federation, a “string of ghost towns” by the Chicago Tribune, and “a patronage system for employees, not citizens” by Friends of the Parks. Forrest wiped out large budget deficits, restored park facilities after decades of neglect, and dismantled a vast patronage empire-- resulting in lower property taxes even as record amounts of money were invested in neighborhood parks.

Forrest doubled spending on recreational programs and landscaping and new open space, while simultaneously earning bond-rating upgrades from Wall Street credit rating services. In fact, the University of Virginia’s developed a business school case study about Forrest’s turnaround of the park district that is still taught at universities around the country.

In 2002, Forrest upset the president pro tem of the Cook County Board, a three-term incumbent backed by every ward committeeman in the district and every elected official in Cook County. He was re-elected for a second term in 2006.

Since taking office, Forrest has been a strong advocate for taxpayers. He passed whistleblower legislation to ferret out fraud; forced the removal from office of the superintendent of the scandal-plagued forest preserve district; and successfully led the opposition – twice – to block $300 million in tax increases proposed by Board President John Stroger. Forrest also was the first elected official to propose limits on homeowner property tax assessments, introducing his Save Our Homes ordinance in 2003.

Forrest has also passed budgetary legislation to bring Access to Care to Chicago, an organization that multiplies public funding by organizing networks of physicians to provide free and discounted health care to the working poor.
Forrest recently partnered with leading health care experts to propose a new public-private model of health care delivery. Under the plan, Cook County’s uninsured citizens in need would have significantly greater access to primary and specialty care in the neighborhoods in which they live.

Forrest is a graduate of Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois College of Law, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the law review. He resides in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago with his wife and three children.