Fritz Kaegi

Fredrick "Fritz" Kaegi is an American politician who has served as Cook County assessor since 2018.

Early life Kaegi was born in November 1971 in Chicago, the son of Louise and University of Chicago Byzantine Empire historian Walter Kaegi. He grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. This included 13 years spent working at Columbia Wagner Asset Management. In the Democratic primary, he defeated embattled incumbent Joseph Berrios. Kaegi originally had appeared to have successfully challenged the ballot petitions of Andrea Raila, kicking her out of the race, thus making the primary a one-on-one race between Kaegi and Berrios. Berrios was the powerful chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. During the primary election, Kaegi received the endorsements of the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and Daily Herald, as well as politicians such as Danny Davis, Bill Foster, Robin Kelly, Mike Quigley, Bobby Rush, and Jan Schakowsky. The Chicago Tribune described his victory against Berrios as a "rare topping of the machine." After defeating Berrios to be the Democratic nominee, Kaegi won the general election against Republican Joseph Paglia.

Tenure As assessor, Kaegi began the process of reassessing all of the county's properties, to be done over a three-year period. His predecessor, Berrios, had undervalued many commercial properties. Kaegi has received pushback from localities for the increased value assessments he has given to many commercial properties, as localities worry that if commercial property owners successfully appeal to the Cook County Board of Review, there is a risk that local tax bodies will need to give tax refunds to the ownership properties in question.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaegi moved to reduce the tax burden on most commercial and residential properties, to account for the pandemic's impact.

Personal life Kaegi lives in Oak Park, Illinois.