The Daley Grind

Today is Election Day in Chicago. To say the least, I'm not enthused.

There are aldermanic elections in all 50 wards, but my alderman is running unopposed. Or at least I think so. (If there is opposition, I haven't heard about it.) There may also be a referendum or two to consider.

And then, there's the mayoral race. If you can even call it a race.

Richard M. Daley is going to win reelection. That's a foregone conclusion. His two opponents--Dorothy Brown, the current Cook County Circuit Court Clerk, and William "Dock" Walls, a former aide to the late Harold Washington--have done the best with the resources they've had (i.e., virtually no money). And the two potential candidates who actually had some cash and could have put up a better fight--U.S. Representatives Jesse Jackson Jr. and Luis Gutierrez--chose not to stay out of this fight. Only they know why. Maybe the new Democratic majority in Congress afforded them more opportunities. Maybe the poll numbers showed that though the various corruption scandals that continue to swirl like raw sewage around Daley's administration had wounded the mayor's reputation, they hadn't wounded him enough for an easy victory. Maybe they put their own best interests ahead of what would be best for the city as a whole.

And what would be best for the city as a whole would be to remove Richard M. Daley from office. For good.

It's not that Daley hasn't done good things in his 18 years as mayor (just short of the record set by his father, Richard J. Daley, who was mayor from 1955 until his death in 1976). Richard the Second has done plenty of good things for Chicago. He took over the public school system; granted, it's still not great, but it's in better shape than before he took it over. He's done a great deal to beautify the city. The public housing projects that had become vast stretches of institutionalized poverty are all but a memory. Navy Pier, the long-dormant stretch of concrete and brick jutting out into Lake Michigan like a middle finger, where dad and I used to spin-cast for perch when I was a kid, was revitalized under Daley's reign. Millennium Park has received much praise (locally, nationally and even internationally) and has become quite the tourist attraction. And basic services have run pretty smoothly (except, perhaps, for the Chicago Transit Authority, and even that's a more recent development).

Any good he has done, though, must be weighed against the bad. And, unfortunately, there's plenty of bad to be weighed.

He had the small lakefront airport, Meigs Field, demolished without bothering with public debate or even discussion. (In a move as cowardly as it was cunning, he had the runways destroyed late on a Sunday night, after the newscasts had all ended.) Millennium Park was years late and millions of dollars over budget, and the contract for the upscale restaurant in the park just happened to go to supporters from Daley's home ward.

That brings me back to the aforementioned scandals.

Numerous subordinates in the Daley administration have been accused, arrested and convicted for all sorts of hiring and contract-issuance irregularities. (I won't even bring up the drug-dealing in the Water Department--except, oops, I just did, didn't I?) Essentially, the impression has been created that only citizens with an "in" at City Hall can get a job, and those who do get a gig with the city don't have to work all that much (at least not at their city jobs; some went off to work at other jobs or sleep or do whatever while somebody else punched them in and/or out).

I know that impression isn't true. I know the city has many hardworking, honest individuals working for it. But the impression that jobs and contracts with the city were (and, for all we know, still are) for sale runs deep and far.

No one has yet accused Richard M. Daley himself of any wrongdoing. No one has said that he's guilty of any illegal activities. But an informed voter has to wonder: Given the mayor's carefully built reputation as a hands-on, involved administrator, how did he not see the corruption festering all around him? Or is the reality that he's really a hands-off, aloof manager who failed to notice what his direct subordinates were up to? Or, worst of all, did he see all the dealmaking and bribe-taking all over City Hall and turn a blind eye to it?

No matter which scenario in the above paragraph is true, the same conclusion can be reached: Richard M. Daley has fostered an environment in which corruption could not merely exist, but flourish, has irreparably breached the trust of the electorate of the City of Chicago, and no longer deserves to be its mayor.

Unfortunately, he's going to be reelected anyway. That doesn't mean I have to vote for him again.

I'll vote for one of his opponents. Or I'll vote for no one. One or the other.

And I suggest all of you who read this page and plan to vote tomorrow do the same, for a vote for Richard M. Daley is an acceptance of a perpetual atmosphere of corruption, unchecked greed and demonstrated lack of respect for the voters of the city he claims to love. I can't bring myself to vote again for someone who thinks so little of me as a voter, a citizen, a person.

I have more self-respect than that.