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Chicago
By MILTON RAKOVE

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Bilandic — filling Daley's shoes

IT IS 15 months since the late Mayor Richard J. Daley passed from the political and governmental scenes in Chicago and was replaced as mayor by Michael A. Bilandic and as Democratic party chairman by County Board President George Dunne.

How well is the city government functioning under its new leader. Mayor Michael Bilandic?

With Daley's passing, many of his long-time critics hopefully or fearfully predicted governmental chaos or deterioration. But to date the prophets of disintegration and decline have been proved wrong. The city is quiet and stable, the city government is functioning effectively, racial turmoil has not materialized, ethnic hostilities have been ameliorated and public policies have gone forward as if Daley were still in charge.

It is a time, in Chicago, of not making waves, of holding to an extant status quo, of a continuation of most of Daley's policies, but of moving forward on some matters he had become intransigent about in his last years.

It had to be that way. After the reign of a combination constitutional monarch and benevolent despot, a political community needs respite, order, continuity and stability.

Bilandic has given the city these things. He is not a charismatic public figure on television, but he is an intelligent, able, tough, hard-working administrator. He understands the city's finances and the budget, is familiar with the bureaucracy and has the confidence of the city's business, banking and labor leaders.

Bilandic's style is to meet emerging problems head on, formulate a policy and hew to his adopted line. He is not so much an innovator of new policies, but an executor of what he considers to be tried and true policies and an adaptor of those which are not working well. He has worked out a quid pro quo arrangement with Gov. Jim Thompson, has secured the governor's help on matters like the Crosstown Expressway and city control of the Port Authority, and gave Thompson support for his hold-the-line budget. He retreated from Daley's intransigent stand on expanding minority employment and promotion in Chicago's police and fire departments, which had put the late mayor in conflict with the federal government; Bilandic has given some ground, but as little as possible to achieve his objective of freeing up federal funds. He provided police protection for children being bused under a school board directive but refused to publicly endorse either busing or integration. To date, his low profile policy has worked well, since the issue has been defused without causing a serious racial conflict.

When a scandal erupted over the airport concession given by Daley to his cronies and family at O'Hare Airport, Bilandic moved to cancel the contract and appointed a blue ribbon commission to oversee the allocation of a new contract. When former Commissioner of Consumer Sales Jane Byrne publicly accused him of "greasing" a fare increase for the taxicab companies, he defused the issue after initially going public in response, by cooperating fully with U.S. Atty. Tom Sullivan's grand jury probe and by sponsoring a city council inquiry which will surely take a long time to reach any conclusions. Since even Mrs. Byrne has not accused him of doing anything criminal in the taxicab controversy, the federal inquiry should leave him politically untouched.

Bilandic has kept the city council under control by successfully balancing off the interests of the council's ethnic, racial and geographic blocs; by sharing some power and responsibility with the council's leadership when necessary; by refusing to fight publicly with then media and the minority bloc and by putting on the pressure when it is needed on matters of prime importance to his administration. He has begun to put his own stamp on the bureaucracy, keeping most of the old top Daley appointees, but slowly consolidating his control of the bureaucratic structure.

Bilandic has pursued an independent course in dealing with the Cook County Democratic party and its current chairman George Dunne. He deals with powerful ward committeemen individually and gives them due recognition and cooperation, thus keeping his lines open to key people. His control of the bureaucracy provides him with two powerful and effective instruments -excellent city services and patronage-for fending off the rise of a powerful, ambitious party leader who could seek to replace him as mayor. In dealing with both the bureaucracy and the party, he has been ably assisted by his (and Daley's former) administrative assistant, Tom Donovan, a dedicated, able, hard-working young llth Ward Irishman, who has emerged as, not the grey eminence, but the red-headed eminence behind the throne — the most powerful man in the city bureaucracy and, probably, the party.

The watchwords in Chicago under Bilandic are continuity, efficiency, stability and order.

Will Bilandic be reelected in April 1979? Almost certainly.

What kind of a mayor will he be after that? Only time will tell. He has been, to date, a man who has blended the past with the present. The question of whether he will be a man of the future in will depend on the needs of that future in Chicago and on his ability to adapt to those needs. The answers to those questions are still moot.

34/ May 1978/ Illinois Issues


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