Time Magazine calls Mayor Daley the best big-city chief

Time calls Daley best big-city chief Hardly a whiff of scandal as Time calls Daley best big-city chief April 18, 2005 BY JIM RITTER Staff Reporter After 16 years in office, the scandals keep piling up for Mayor Daley. But the mushrooming corruption merits barely a mention in this week's edition of Time magazine, which names "Richard the Second" the nation's best big-city mayor. "Chicago's imperial Richard Daley . . . is widely viewed as the nation's top urban executive," Time reports. The magazine credits Daley for promoting "splashy growth," hiring "skilled managers," expanding green space, reforming public schools, relocating CHA residents, luring Boeing to Chicago and overseeing big projects like Soldier Field and Millennium Park. But there's scant mention of scandals: "Allegations of financial corruption have caught up some of his political allies, although Daley has personally avoided implication." Daley's Hired Truck Program paid politically connected and mobbed-up trucking companies $40 million a year for little or no work. The Water Department, called a "racketeering enterprise" by the feds, allegedly took in $500,000 in bribes. And contracts that were supposed to go to minority, female and disadvantaged contractors have enriched "rich white guys who are friends of the mayor," said Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd). In the last 70 years, there has been more corruption under Daley "than any other mayor other than his father," said Dick Simpson, a University of Illinois at Chicago political scientist and former alderman. Standing tall Ald. Joe Moore (49th) said Time was right to rank Daley No. 1. "Chicago stands above the rest of the cities, and the mayor has to take credit for that." However, Moore added, corruption "is a blot on his record, and probably should mention more than a passing glance." Time's other top picks include mayors Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, John Hickenlooper of Denver, Martin O'Malley of Baltimore and Michael Bloomberg of New York.>