Mayor Richard M. Daley ridiculed the need for the city to own a $50,000 luxury mayoral stretch limousine, as he announced major reductions Monday in the city`s fleets of automobiles and mobile telephones that trim more than a million dollars from the troubled 1989 budget.
In referring to the armored plated, 1988 Cadillac stretch limousine purchased by his predecessor, Mayor Eugene Sawyer, but never put in use, Daley said: ”I don`t think it`s for the mayor of Chicago. It`s so large, it`s kind of embarrassing to sit in.”
”In case of a nuclear disaster, I think I would be the only one left,”
Daley joked with reporters. ”You will not fit in that car. We`re going to evaluate it and get rid of it in some way.”
Later, however, Avis LaVelle, the mayor`s press secretary, took a more practical view that did not rule out Daley ”reluctantly” using the car now gathering dust in a police garage at 5219 S. Wentworth Ave., if its resale value is not as much as the cost of a less ostentatious vehicle. Regardless, the 1981 limousine now being used, is in need of replacement, most sources agreed.
Besides that city officials will have to surrender 254 of the city`s 504 cars and 174 of the 214 mobile phones, Daley disclosed that he has cut his own police security unit and is evaluating cutbacks of bodyguards assigned to aldermen and more often used as chauffeurs.
”Our audit has shown that 504 city employees are favored with cars,”
Daley said. ”Cars that are bought or leased, maintained, gassed and even washed at taxpayers` expense. And, 214 of these cars come with telephones.”
Daley said the cars deemed unnecessary and the mobile telephones will be auctioned off under sealed bids.
Ben Reyes, acting head of the General Services Administration, expects the vehicles to be sold for an average of $1,000 and the telephones for an average $200 each.
Savings expected from reducing the number of city cars equipped with phones includes almost $420,000 in maintenance costs, $104,769 in overtime for mechanics and $324,648 for mobile phone bills and maintenance.
”This is just the beginning,” Daley said. ”We are going from one department to another.
”These have been passed out over the years and all of a sudden they became part of the territory that everyone had a car and a telephone.”
The mayor did not disclose other measures to deal with the $122 million budget shortfall projected last week by his transition team of financial advisers, but he said every department is being audited to determine where cutbacks can be made.
