Inver Grove Board Member and Former GOP Chair File for Bankruptcy Protection

Inver Grove Heights School Board member and longtime Baja Sol president Bridget Sutton has filed for bankruptcy protection along with her better-known husband, Tony, the former Minnesota GOP Chair. 

The couple has filed for divorce. A petition was submitted in March of 2013.

Multiple reports state the Sutton couple made the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing in late August, showing primarily business debts they jointly owe $2.1 million, compared to about $300,000 in assets, according to Nick Halter at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. 

The Suttons were part of a Twin Cities group that purchased Baja Sol back in 2006. The restaurant, which serves Mexican fare in a fast food atmosphere, still has 12 restaurants in the metro, but was hit hard by the 2008 recession. 

The couple is no longer involved iwth the company, but owes more than $300,000 to a Woodbury-based firm, Blackburn Blaine, that was the landlord for the former Baja Sol location in Inver Grove Heights. Blackburn sued the Suttons for unpaid rent, and that case was settled in 2012. 

Bridget Sutton runs her own media consulting business, Pounding Heart Multimeida, from her IGH home. 

Tony Sutton was widely blamed for the Republican party's financial struggles after pearking with a landmark 2010 election, which saw the GOP take over the Minnesota State Senate and State House, and narrowly lose in the race for governor. 

In the wake of that election, the GOP's state coffers were shown to be well in debt, to the tune of $1.3 million. Some of that stemmed from the 2008 U.S. Senate election and ensuing recount, which Sutton drove. 

Bridget was elected to the Inver Grove School Board in 2004. Her current term expires in 2015.