Mayor Daley 'isn't Dying' but Chicago Will Lose Out on One Great Mayor

I was born in 1981, and Mayor Richard M. Daley was elected as the Chicago mayor in 1989 so for most of my childhood and young adult life that's who I knew as mayor. While there is a current debate in Chicago over whether mayors should serve four-year terms instead of being voted in repeatedly, I oppose that idea. Mayor Daley has been Chicago's mayor for over 20 years, and overall I think he did an outstanding job.

It's impossible for me to agree with every politician's decision. I don't agree with Mayor Daley privatizing parking meters the same way I don't agree with President Barack Obama's views about turkeys on Thanksgiving or trying to appease rebellious Republicans. But overall both politicians have made decisions that I felt were better for our city and country, too.

I had the opportunity to meet Mayor Daley while working for the Chicago Defender. He cut the ribbon on their new location in Bronzeville, and the news staff was invited to a 2009 Bud Billiken reception before the big parade. I stopped to shake his hand and chat with him a bit, but what stuck out most to me was when I was leaving the Chicago Cultural Center to go home, he was standing outside by himself. No bodyguard. Not 50 billion cameras around him. I thought it odd at first, but then I was impressed that he trusted Chicago that much that he would be that accessible.

A politician who I can never talk to or meet or one that's not actually out in the community bothers me. Mayor Daley was none of the above. If we didn't see him at somebody's rally for peace, we saw him at some new educational facility. Chicagoans can criticize him for wanting to privatize the Taste of Chicago or for agreeing with Weis' decision to enforce RICO against Chicago gangs, but we sure can't criticize him for not helping our youth. I met two of his interns while working for the Defender and to have the opportunity to come straight from college to work at a well-known newspaper is something I wish I'd have taken advantage of when I came home from Missouri.

The opening of 30 out of 80 projected "College and Career Academies" that'll help 23,000 Chicago students is something he can say he had a part in. In the last two years, two schools funded by the city of Chicago have opened, and more than $5.5 billion in school improvements were given. Chicago is in debt for $654.7 million, but the mayor didn't want to shortchange education. He knew that once you start clipping money from educational facilities, the youth today would never get back on their feet. I respect that about him.

Once he announced on Tues., Sept. 7 at a City Hall press conference that he was not running for re-election in 2011, discussion boards have been blowing up wondering who should be next. Should Rahm Emanuel step up to the plate? Should Congressman Luis Gutierrez? Or maybe Jesse Jackson Jr.? I don't have a strong enough opinion on any of these potential candidates to say whether I'd like them as mayor or not. Mayor Daley has never had any strong opposition running against him as far as I could tell so I never considered a second best. I just assumed he'd stay in the mayor's office until he physically couldn't anymore, and frankly I'm disappointed he's leaving.

While I'm sure that there's someone else in the Chicago area who can do as good or better a job as Mayor Daley, at present time I don't know who that person would be. I hear great things about the late Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago, but my only memories of him are as the life-sized image in the DuSable Museum. Only time will tell who can match the two, but I'm hoping Mayor Daley has a change of heart or at least suggests someone who he's positive can fill his shoes.