As Olympics vote looms, Daley struggles

As Olympics vote looms, Daley struggles
By Dan Mihalopoulos
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
September 13, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-daley-bd13sep13,0,7290701.story


Mayor Richard Daley often talks about how Chicagoans want a decisive, visionary leader who can get things done without "endless politics," and that promise of iron control has become key to the city's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

But with the pivotal Olympics decision three weeks away, Daley finds himself in one of the most troubled periods of his long reign. Daley's decision to lease the city parking meter system left motorists furious over skyrocketing rates and balky machines. Then he fumbled in explaining his promise that taxpayers would cover potential losses from the Olympics.

For the first time since he became mayor two decades ago, Daley's critics outnumber his fans, a Tribune/WGN poll found. The mayor's approval rating is at an all-time low of 35 percent in Tribune polls, according to the new survey.

None of this is to suggest that Daley is losing his dominance of the City Council or his luster with the city's business elite. There is no serious challenger on the horizon if Daley, who regularly wins re-election by landslide, chooses to run for a seventh term in 2011. Even more than his legendary father, the 67-year-old Daley is the only game in town.

On Saturday, Daley said he was not surprised by the poll results.

"I can see why," he said. "People are mad because of the uncertainty of the economy. It's been going very well and all of a sudden everything collapsed."

Now, he is looking to the International Olympic Committee's Oct. 2 decision to provide Chicago with a chance to boost the city's economy and global reputation -- and perhaps provide his own local standing with a much-needed lift.

The mayor's ability to continue to run the city as he sees fit could hinge in great part on whether the Olympics bid succeeds.

Bringing the Olympics to Chicago would represent Daley's crowning glory, showing the world how the city has changed under his guidance. But the Olympics would do more than validate the mayor's track record -- the Games represent what could be his best chance of overcoming the financial troubles that have made his job increasingly difficult.

Daley frequently touts the economic benefits of the Olympic Games, including a predicted influx of federal money for public works projects.

"The Olympics is not his going-away party or his great pyramid," said Paul Vallas, the mayor's former schools chief and budget director. "He sees this as an opportunity to provide an economic jolt at a time of a serious downturn."

The bad economy has left Daley unable to fulfill his 2007 promise of generous wage increases to unionized employees for the next 10 years. Instead, Chicago has been forced to take many of the same cost-cutting measures as other cities and private companies, including layoffs and furloughs.

"The mayor's biggest problem is financial," added Vallas, who now runs the public schools in New Orleans. "The well has run dry."

Daley became mayor in 1989 after a decade of City Hall turmoil and has enjoyed the benefits of a strong economy. In 2003, near the height of the city's real estate boom, Daley enjoyed a 72 percent approval rating.

Flush city coffers helped him reward loyalists and mollify would-be critics. No mayor in Chicago history has received as reliable support from aldermen, not even his father, Richard J. Daley.

Accustomed to overwhelming victories, Daley sometimes lashes out at even a small show of opposition.

A typically easy Daley political victory in December planted the seeds for what may be his biggest public relations problem. Under heavy pressure from Daley aides for a quick vote, the council voted 40-5 to approve a $1.15 billion deal to let a private company run 36,000 city parking meters.

The vote came only two days after the mayor announced the deal. When rates shot up and meters malfunctioned, aldermen scrambled for political cover.

Nine out of 10 people disapprove of the parking meter deal, according to the Tribune/WGN poll, which surveyed 380 Chicago voters from Aug. 27 to Aug. 31. The poll has an error margin of 5 percentage points.

Ald. Thomas Allen (38th) sponsored a new ordinance giving the council more time to debate any future efforts to privatize major city assets. Aldermen approved it, even though they already had the authority -- if not the will -- to put off a vote.

"We're not as trusting. That's the word I'd use," said Allen, whose Northwest Side ward voted 86 percent for Daley's re-election in 2007.

Eager not to get burned again, aldermen loudly questioned the city's Olympics financing plans this summer, forcing the 2016 bid team to launch a series of public meetings and agree to report regularly to the council. With those concessions -- and mindful of the jobs and contracts Daley would be able to dole out if Chicago gets the Games -- aldermen agreed unanimously Wednesday to re-affirm Chicago's pledge to cover any Olympics cost overruns.

Yet Daley blasted unnamed, politically motivated critics who would question his Olympics plans.

Daley suggests his critics don't have his same gusto for making tough decisions. As questions have mounted, the mayor's temper has frequently flashed this summer.

During a June council debate, Daley was chatting with aldermen in the chamber's anteroom when Ald. Manny Flores (1st) angrily complained he did not have enough information from Daley aides to vote on a plan forcing city workers to take unpaid days off.

The mayor's attention quickly turned from his conversation to the sound of Flores' rising voice piped through the speaker system, according to several sources.

"He was livid," said an alderman who witnessed Daley's reaction and asked not to be identified. "He was saying, 'What's his problem? What's his problem? We gave him what he wanted.' "

Minutes later, the mayor stalked into the council chamber and reclaimed his seat on the dais at the front of the room. He looked toward Flores and flashed a grin.

Despite his loud speech, Flores ended up voting for Daley's cost-cutting plan, which the council approved almost unanimously.

Daley aides charged with keeping aldermen in line are quick to challenge dissenters.

After Ald. Joe Moore (49th) grilled a Daley administration official about budget-cutting measures during a summer hearing, top Daley lobbyist John Dunn charged up to Moore and berated him in the anteroom behind council chambers. In an expletive-laced tirade, Dunn accused Moore of grandstanding in front of reporters.

"Where the [expletive] do you get the nerve?" Dunn yelled as shocked aldermanic aides looked on.

Moore said he thinks Dunn was reflecting the mayor's frustration.

"The mayor's go-it-alone governing style is coming back to haunt him," Moore said. "With times tough and the budget tight, it's important to be open and transparent. That has not been a hallmark of Richard M. Daley's administration."

Daley also has chastised City Hall reporters with increasing frequency for what he calls "phony" stories or for quoting critics, particularly Olympics plan detractors. Outside of free-for-all sessions where reporters try to outshout one another, Daley rarely has granted interviews to local media.

Daley's press secretary, former Tribune reporter Jacquelyn Heard, said the mayor declined the newspaper's request for an interview for this story. Heard acknowledged Daley's frustration with what she called a pattern of negative coverage.

Daley is relying more heavily on populism. In his annual state-of-the-city address in July, the mayor ended the speech with an emotional appeal to the people of Chicago that sounded more like a wartime rallying cry from a national leader.

"I live and breathe Chicago," Daley said. "We can get through these tough economic times. Our parents, our grandparents have done this during the Great Depression. Let's have more confidence in one another. Let's really believe that the spirit of Chicago, that what we're doing today, can carry on another generation."

The passage struck notes like those Daley's father once used. The idea of Daley as the city's patron remains one of his greatest strengths.

At a recent news conference at a South Side social service agency, Daley received the sort of homage that was often lavished on his father when a worker for the community group re-wrote the lyrics of a Bette Midler song in honor of His Honor.

"Did you ever know that you're our hero?" sang the woman, a staff member at ABJ Community Services, while Daley stood, looking down sternly and shuffling papers a few feet away. "You're everything we'd like to be. Our kids can fly higher than an eagle, with you as the wind behind their wings."

Ald. Michael Zalewski (23rd) offered his own take on Daley's stewardship at a recent meeting in his Southwest Side ward. When residents complained that Daley is preoccupied with the Olympics, Zalewski answered them by recounting childhood fishing trips with his father.

"When it was a calm day, my dad let me steer the boat," the alderman said. "But when the wind would kick up and the waves were three feet high, I wanted my dad to do the steering. I wanted him next to the motor."

dmihalopoulos@tribune.com