Pat Gilbreath, who was a member of the Redlands City Council for 22 years, died unexpectedly on October 3.
“It is with a great deal of sadness that I announce to our community that we have lost our colleague and friend, Pat Gilbreath, this morning due to surgical complication from her pancreatic surgery last week,” said Redlands Mayor Paul Foster at the council meeting on Tuesday. “This is a tremendous and devastating loss to our community of a wonderful public servant who gave many, many, many years of dedicated service to this town she loved so very, very much. There will be an announcement forthcoming about a funeral service, a memorial service for Pat. Until that time, we are going to continue to honor Pat by leaving her nameplate here at the dais. She is still a member of this body and someone we hold dear and care about very much. I hope you will join the council and the rest of the community in a celebration of her life when that service is scheduled.”
Gilbreath failed to gain reelection to the city council in November 2010, after she vied unsuccessfully for the California Assembly in the June primary in which she placed a distant fifth among seven candidates. That November it was as if Redlands voters punished her for seeking to abandon them, and she was outdistanced by another incumbent on the council, Jon Harrison along with Foster and Bob Gardner, who were challengers in that race. Two years, later, she staged a comeback when she was elected in the 2012 contest. She was reelected last November.
A certified public accountant by profession, Gilbreath as a member of the city council devoted considerable attention to issues relating to the city’s budgetary processes.
Her council colleagues had selected her to serve on three internal city adjunct committees, the airport advisory board, the library board and the traffic and parking commission, as well as appointing her to three external committees, the CONFIRE Board of Directors, the OMNITRANS Board of Directors, and as an alternate board member to San Bernardino County’s regional transportation agency, known by its acronym SANBAG.
Born and raised in North Dakota, Gilbreath traveled extensively as a part of her professional commitments as an accountant with the firm Eadie & Payne LLC. She had a bachelor of science degree in accounting and business from Cal Poly Pomona and a masters degree in business taxation from USC. She moved to Redlands in 1981. She was the treasurer for the First Congregational Church; was the past president of the Redlands Sunrise Rotary; the treasurer for Citrograph Foundation; and the Rotary liaison to the Interact Club of Citrus Valley High School.
Gilbreath was also the progenitor of the Healthy Redlands program, which she started in 2008 to encourage residents to adopt a healthy lifestyle.