Jamie Gauthier, a Garden Court resident and the former head of the Fairmount Park Conservancy, has announced that she will mount a primary campaign against Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, whose family has controlled the 3rd District seat since the 1970s.

Gauthier is a former president of the Garden Court Community Association, was born in the district and returned as an adult to get a master’s degree at Penn and raise her children here. She served as executive director of the Fairmount Park Conservancy from October 2017 until yesterday when she stepped down to announce her candidacy. She previously served as head of the Sustainable Business Network, a non-profit started in West Philly that helps small businesses balance profitability with social and environmental responsibility. Gauthier has a master’s degree in city planning from Penn.  Continue Reading

                   Jamie Gauthier

Jamie Gauthier, a Garden Court resident, has been named the executive director of the Fairmount Park Conservancy. The organization made the decision on September 13 and announced it on October 9. She had been acting director for several months.

She first joined the Conservancy, a nonprofit that promotes and improves Philadelphia’s parks in conjunction with the city, in January 2017. Prior to that, she had directed Philadelphia’s Sustainable Business Network (SBN), which she described as a kind of chamber of commerce for socially conscious businesses. While at SBN, she became drawn to “Rebuild,” City Hall’s $500 million program to revitalize neighborhoods. That eventually compelled her to leave SBN and join the Conservancy.

“Rebuild is the biggest neighborhood-centered initiative I can recall, so I had to be involved in it,” she said. “So that’s why I ended up leaving SBN, so that I could help the Conservancy connect to Rebuild in some way.”  Continue Reading