Collins has low-profile challenger for Cook County Commissioner

By Susan S. Stevens

Earlean Collins, a Democrat who has served on the Cook County Board since 1998, faces a political unknown in her bid for re-election as First District Commissioner. Henrietta S. Butler filed as a Republican candidate, then moved. Her former neighbor in a two-flat at 1840 N. Mobile Ave. does not know her whereabouts.

Her phone number is unlisted. The Cook County Republican Central Committee cannot find her, either. As far as helping with her campaign, a GOP committee spokeswoman said, “We tried to but we are not having very much success getting hold of her, either.” Earlean Collins cast the deciding vote for Bobbie Steele to serve the remainder of County Board President John Stroger’s term, saying it was time for the county to get on with its business. She is a strong supporter of providing more county contracts for minorities and women.

She chairs three County Board committees: Business and Economic Development, Public Health, and Family Court and Juvenile Detention Center. She is a member of nine committees. If reelected, she wants to establish additional programs for the mentally ill in Cook County Jail, which has become one of the largest mental institutions in the nation, an aide said. Communitybased mental health treatment needs additional funding, too, the aide said.

Collins also wants to increase affordable housing in the county and train people to repair houses, the aide said. Before Collins was elected to the County Board, she was the first African-American woman elected to the Illinois Senate. Prior to entering politics, she was an administrative assistant in the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. She is a University of Illinois graduate.

The First District straddles an irregular line from the Near West Side of Chicago to the county’s western suburbs.  The district officeis at 5943 W. Madison St.