Mayor Daley, Why? (Or Why Not?)

Last week I returned from a trip that took me through Cleveland, where a widespread corruption investigation threatens to ensnare many public officials in Cuyahoga County. Pol pals there appealed to their Chicago visitor for some perspective.

I found myself feeling uncharacteristically weary at the prospect of describing to them what constitutes corruption and inspires outrage around here anymore.

I think maybe I'm a little Chicago'd out.

I'm numb to the mayor's bald-faced denials. After he got away with saying he destroyed Meigs Field in the middle of the night to make our city safe from terrorists, how can I get excited when I hear the mayor say he didn't know of his nephew's multimillion dollar pension deal? I couldn't even muster the energy to explain the details to my Cleveland friends.

I'm tired of the technocrats the mayor appoints to apply their management systems and their "metrics" to infinite urban problems. When I saw there was a profile on Ron Huberman in the current issue of Chicago Magazine, it took all my resolve just to leaf through the magazine to find it. I watched Paul Vallas succeed and fail, and then even tried to listen to Marble Mouth Arne Duncan. How on earth am I supposed to get it up for Huberman? I read every third paragraph and went to bed early.

I'm lazily accepting of billion-dollar boondoggles. John Kass gets paid for his broken-record outrage at things like the Olympic bid. Me, I blew my volunteer wad on the tardy, hopelessly over-budget Millennium Park, and I actually forgot to mention the Olympics in the Cleveland conversation.

I fought City Hall once, in order to save a house next door that I'd discovered went back to 1859, making it one of the oldest in the city. During that fight, against a developer who wanted to tear the house down and a flaccid Chicago Landmarks Commission, I got advice from my political elders to avoid insulting Mayor Daley directly, or even to refer to Him in meetings about the house with city officials.

And I followed the advice (with the exception of a universally relevant and existentially satisfying cardboard sign I provided to picketers at a couple of protests, "Mayor Daley, Why?")

At one point, I got a handwritten note from Daley, thanking me for my preservation efforts. Months later, the house was torn down.

I'm starting to see how Mike Royko came to deride the good-government types as "goo-goos," either naive political newcomers or supremely cynical feeders on Chicago's dependable cycle of constant corruption and temporary consternation.

It's not that I'm sick of Mayor Daley. He's as entertaining as ever, and as much a confounding brew of political genius and moral vulgarity, animal intelligence and intellectual imbecility as he ever was.

I'm sick of Mayor Daley's Chicago because I feel I've seen it all twice.

I'm not proud of this perspective, nor am I content with it, nor do I even believe it's quite an accurate point of view. I plan to live here my whole life and and Slats Grobnik's clothes don't look good on me.

Who can show me something new under this particular sun? Who can send me back to Cleveland with a story about Chicago that begins, "OK, boys, get this ...."?

Comments

[Chicagouofi]

I'm a lifelong resident of Chicago (but have lived in a handful of other cities) and I agree with writerJohnny above -- it's so easy to bash Daley and blame him for every single problem you have, whether or not its related to the Mayor's duties and job performance. (Since when is it the mayor's job to intercede in every housing/pr­eservation fight?) Don't you and the John Kass' of the world get tired of complaining and making a mountain out of every molehill issue? Chicago is by no means a perfect city (what town is?), and I don't mean to downplay the serious issues the city faces -- gun violence and crime, education, poverty, etc., but frankly I'm so tired of reading these rants and exasperated please.

If it's such a terrible place, get involved locally, run for office, or move to the suburbs. Writing a blog isn't going to fix anything and just stirs up the echo chamber of disgruntled cynics.

[ejhickey]

The late Mike Royko many years ago wrote that Chicago's motto should be changed from "Urbs in horto" (City in a garden) to "Ubi est mea?" or "Where's mine?" I think he also suggested that an outstretched palm be incorporated into the City Seal.. This still rings true today.

[gouge]

the parking meters, the potholes..­....I'm voting for someone new-

[writerjohnny]

Bashing Chicago politics and Mayor Daley is so easy. Fact - politics is like this all over the world and there were a few mayors in between Daley the father and Daley the son. I remember the late 70s and 80s as a time when Chicago was literally crumbling. Downtown at night was a ghost town, business was fleeing, neighborhoods were sliding into oblivion, schools were failing and Chicago felt like a third world country. I'm 56 and I remember when it was literally dangerous to go to Comiskey Park, the Chicago Stadium AND Wrigley Field where the alley behind the Gingerman Tavern was a shooting gallery that cops refused to go into. Yes the mayor has plenty to answer for ultimately and many of the good things were accomplished with a price that was hard to live with but the black and white world of John Kass routinely denies the good while focusing on the bad. The truth is that the Chicago of today is WAY better than when Richard Daley took over in 1989 and in 2005 he was voted in Time magazine, which hardly has a dog in this hunt, as "the best out of five mayors of large cities in the United States".

[writerjohnny]

On a personal note I produce a weekly television show that promotes the Chicago music scene and during an interview with Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips during the Pitchfork Music Festival he proclaimed the park with the "reflective peanut" as his favorite "tourist attraction" in the Windy City. Wayne is from Oklahoma and the numbers of tourists who visit and make similar comments make the Millennium Park bashing even more abhorrent.

[David Murray - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, writerjohnny, what do you want me to say? Wayne Coyne's enjoyment of the bean changes my whole opinion about Mayor Daley and justifies all cost overruns? I'm from Cleveland originally. Dennis Kucinich was the mayor when I was a kid—and when HE was a kid. "Oh, he's just a baby!" my mother used to say in sympathy for this lost ball in high weeds. I know what competence and incompetence look like in a mayor, and I haven't questioned Daley's competence. It's his agenda and his tactics that are wearing me out.

[47th]

I'm 51, have lived in Chicago all my life, and do not recall the city being any more of a disaster than it is today. I grew up near Wrigley Field in the 60s and don't ever remember not feeling safe there. It was a working class neighborhood, much more diverse than it is now. As far as the schools being bad, well they are still awful now, but the property taxes that support them are much higher. Daley has been mayor for twenty years. He has done some good things, and bad things. I think he is more of an embarrassment to the city now. It is time for a change. Long past time.

[delphillips]

I wonder the same thing as you and am just as tired of it all. It amazes me how the media will go after a President or Senator for anything and everything under the sun. But, having lived in Chicago all of my life--and pretty much only known the Daley machine--I do not understand how he's given such a pass. ABC, CBS, NBC local affiliates­...pretty much silent on most issues. They report on them, but they never really press the issue. Basically, there is some unspoken line these reporters know they can walk up to, but not cross. It amazes me...

[47th]

Daley has been mayor for twenty years! The many problems that Chicago has, lay at his feet, and the Olympics will only exacerbate the problems.

[REGONE]

As a life long Chicagoan, I'm very worn out on Mayor Daley. I wish he would not run next election and let the city thrive under new leadership. I almost feel hopeless and I'm tired of all the lies and deceit. This city has so much potential, but he's at the point now of only listening to corporate people as if they have all the answers to every single social and economic issue facing everyday Chicagoans. I see no reason why this guy can't be challenged and defeated in the next election. Times have changed, but Daley is stuck in the 1960's way of leadership. We can do better and we must do better.