Chicago’s City Council, which has provided little more than meek approval to Mayor Richard M. Daley‘s dictates for two decades, grappled Tuesday with his stunning decision not to seek another term in next year’s election.
Edward Burke, the 14th Ward alderman and dean of the 50-member council, said everybody who might run to replace him is “reeling from an announcement that, frankly, nobody that I know in politics thought would happen. Everybody that I talked to assumed that Rich Daley would be a candidate for re-election.”
Burke said he hoped Daley, whom he described as “the most successful big city mayor in America,” would reconsider his decision. He predicted that Daley would have won re-election easily, despite low approval ratings.
“He was a builder, there is no question about that,” said Ald. Ed Smith (28th).
Ald. George Cardenas (12th), a loyal Daley ally, said the announcement was “a shock to a lot of us.”
“It’s a tough economy,” Cardenas said, pointing to the record budget deficit that the city is facing.
But Cardenas said he thinks Daley’s wife Maggie‘s long-running battle with cancer was the biggest factor in the decision to quit now.
“It was probably more family issues than anything else,” Cardenas said. “I don’t think he has backed away from a fight ever.”
Ald. Joe Moore (49th), one of the few frequent Daley critics on the council, said he thinks the mayor was not eager to make the hard decisions needed to deal with the city’s fiscal crisis. Although Daley has said he would not raise taxes in his 2011 budget proposal, Moore and many economic experts say the city likely must raise taxes and cut services.
“Whoever occupies the chair is going to have a whole set of problems,” Moore said.
He added that whoever the new mayor is will have to rule more transparently than Daley has operated.
“I don’t think next mayor will be able to be as autocratic and secretive,” Moore said “Many people lost trust in Mayor Daley because he made decisions in secret.”