In the forceful tone that marked so many of his speeches from the same lectern over the past 22 years, retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley delivered a wide-ranging valedictory speech Wednesday at the final City Council meeting of his tenure.
“I’ve enjoyed every minute of public service,” Daley said after council members took turns lauding him and gave him a crystal bowl engraved with the names of the 129 aldermen who were in office during his record-breaking tenure.
Daley said Chicago’s leaders had put aside political differences and worked collaboratively during his tenure after “difficult and troubling times,” a clear reference to the racially charged “Council Wars” era of the 1980s.
“The city has moved forward,” he said. “We are a much better city in regards to our relationships to one another.”
Daley noted that he won only 6 percent of the African-American vote in 1989, when he first ran successfully for mayor, but he said he focused on winning over the black community. “I was going to make sure that I was their mayor,” Daley said. “And I worked and worked on that behalf.”
He urged the aldermen to cooperate with his successor, Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel, who will be sworn in on May 16. Daley declined comment when a reporter asked later what he thought of Emanuel’s frequent assertions that city government, which faces enormous budget deficits, is in need of dramatic change.
During the 17-minute speech, Daley said education and public housing were the two areas where he had enjoyed his most important successes as mayor.
When he sought control of the Chicago Public Schools and tried to change the Chicago Housing Authority in the mid-1990s, he recalled, “Everybody told me about education and [the] housing authority: ‘You’re not going to win. Those are impossible things to do.’”
Daley said he did not hesitate to knock down high-rise public housing projects because “it isn’t good to stack people upon people.”
He effusively praised former President George W. Bush for helping him dismantle and rebuild public housing. “Every one of his secretaries of [Housing and Urban Development] gave us an enormous amount of money,” Daley said.
The speech also featured Daley’s more philosophical musings on the national psyche.
“We’re getting too negative about America. America is a great country. I mean, we’re just so negative about things. To me, this is such a great country. We can be better.”
Daley said he has sought inspiration from “a little place in my office” where he has pictures of family members and slain police officers and firefighters.
“I keep that there for one reason: Because I’m human,” he said. “I may be your mayor, but I’m human. You have to really believe who you are. The title alone doesn’t give you the responsibility and the respect. You have to earn it.”
Aldermen and the audience in the council chambers gave Daley a standing ovation at the end of his speech. After a few moments, he curtailed the applause with a swift strike of the gavel against his desk.
Daley’s son, Patrick, and one of his two daughters, Nora, attended the meeting, but the city’s first lady, Maggie Daley, was hospitalized for the third time in recent weeks. The mayor told reporters his wife, who has battled cancer for years, was undergoing a series of medical tests after “something happened.” He did not elaborate on her condition.
On Wednesday afternoon, Emanuel’s transition team announced that Nora Daley would be a co-chair of a mayoral advisory committee on cultural issues.
The retiring mayor’s speech followed almost two hours of congratulatory speeches from aldermen. Of the council members who were present for Wednesday’s meeting, only two – Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward) and Scott Waguespack (32nd) – chose not to speak in support of the resolution marking Daley’s departure. The council speeches followed in the long Chicago tradition of often-purple oratory in praise of the boss.
“I’ve been very, very humbled and proud to serve for you,” said Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno (1st), one of many council members who became aldermen after Daley appointed them fill a vacancy.
Ald. John Rice, another recent Daley appointee who lost in his election bid last month in the 36th Ward, said his daughter revered Daley. Rice said every time he and his daughter pass a new library in their ward, she tells him, “Daddy, that’s what the mayor is about. It’s about us children and our neighborhoods.”
Rice, who was a driver for his predecessor, a staunch Daley ally, noted that the mayor has not driven a vehicle in decades. “If you need a ride, feel free to call,” Rice said, eliciting laughter from Daley.
Only vague or joking references were made to Daley’s not-uncommon eruptions targeting anybody who dared question him.
“We’re going to miss your no-nonsense leadership,” said Ald. Walter Burnett (27th). “We’re going to miss your passion.”
Daley laughed when Ald. Rey Colon (35th) referenced his unauthorized, dead-of-night move to destroy Meigs Field and convert it into a lakefront park.
“There’s a time to listen and to work things through the community and there’s a time to scrape those X’s on the runway,” Colon said.
Other council members recalled his support for gay rights and for the city’s many ethnic groups.
The aldermen adhered to Daley’s will more loyally than any council in the city’s history. Only once did the council defy him, to approve an ordinance that would have required large retailers to pay higher wages. And when Daley issued the one and only veto of his career in response, aldermen could not muster enough votes to override it, killing the legislative initiative.
Still, Daley said a lot of negotiation and compromise had gone on behind the scenes to ensure a unified council. In a news conference after his speech, Daley said he had “worked very hard” to win every alderman to his side even when they had previously disagreed.
“None them were a rubber stamp, regardless of what you say,” Daley told reporters. “That has been the secret of our success in Chicago, the idea of working together and taking many ideas that come from the community.”
He added, “Chicago is better off today than it was on the first day of my [first] council meeting as mayor in 1989. I love Chicago more than you can imagine.”
