Mocking aldermen who have suggested that passing a 36 percent pay raise for themselves and other city officials one week after an election is inappropriate at best, Mayor Richard Daley sarcastically issued a moral challenge to the dissidents.
Daley’s own annual salary would go from $115,000 to at least $150,000 under the proposal. He predicted that complaints about the pay raises, set for a vote at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, will be replaced by quick acceptance by the current critics of the $20,000-a-year or more increase once the high-profile publicity dies down.
And in a move questionable in its legality but politically blunt, Daley said at a City Hall news conference Tuesday that he would push for companion legislation requiring those voting against the hikes to designate the money to go to their favorite charity after paying the taxes due.
“If someone morally feels that way, we should not jeopardize their morals,” Daley said. “If people ethically and morally oppose it, that’s how we should act. (Otherwise) it could hurt them psychiatrically and medically, these people could have nervous breakdowns. I wouldn’t want that to happen to them.
“They have to be consistent about their moral values,” Daley said.
When asked whether he would turn his own projected pay raise over to a charity, the mayor shrugged and said, “It’s something to think about.”
During the news conference, the mayor sought to portray his raise as a coincidental benefit of aldermanic self-interest. He refused to acknowledge any question suggesting that since he controls the votes of a council majority on almost any issue, any pay raise proposal would have to first clear his office.
Meanwhile, on the 2nd floor of City Hall, aldermen were fleeing reporters or pretending not to understand the issue or not to hear questions about plans to increase their current $55,000-a-year salaries to $75,000 or more, as well as increase their expense accounts.
Most seemed to consider the controversy temporary, providing uncomfortable fodder for radio talk-show hosts and reaffirming in the minds of many citizens, the image of Chicago aldermen as greedy politicians.
“You guys in the media type us as fedora-wearing cigar chompers with pinkie rings,” complained Ald. Bernard Stone (50th). “That’s so old. I don’t even smoke cigarettes. And I don’t wear a pinkie ring.”
Others, such as Ald. Robert Shaw (9th), who usually offers lengthy, unsolicited public comment on almost any issue, was almost terse on this one.
“I haven’t seen any legislation,” Shaw said, “so at this point, there’s nothing to comment on.”
Some aldermen were said to be commenting among themselves that since they were in a short-range no-win public relations situation, maybe they should vote themselves a bigger pay hike.
“So some of the guys are thinking, if we’re gonna take a hit, why not go for $80,000?,” said Ald. Sam Burrell (29th). “I’m a full-time alderman. And the way it is now, if we take $65,000 we’re still criticized. Either way, the issue won’t be around in four years.”
Ald. Patrick Huels (11th), the mayor’s floor leader, and Ald. Helen Shiller (46th), one of the mayor’s more vocal critics, exchanged insults in the council annex Tuesday after Shiller crashed a Huels news conference to criticize him for taking a pay raise.
Huels reminded Shiller that she adopted a similar public stance in 1991, when aldermen voted to increase their pay from $40,000 to $55,000, but has never missed cashing a check for the higher amount.
“I don’t think people should be allowed to grandstand and say that they’re against something, and say nothing later when they take the money,” Huels said.
He later turned his attention to lobbying dissident Aldermen Joseph Murphy (18th), who has also been in the lead in criticizing the proposed pay raise, and Brian Doherty (41st).
Both are Daley supporters, but they also have high concentrations of city workers in their wards, and the Daley administration has already begun to set a tough tone for union talks on contracts that expire in June.
“I’m not saying tht the aldermen aren’t worth the money, I just don’t like the timing of it a few weeks before we tell working people that they’re going to get a 3 percent raise if they’re lucky,” Murphy said.
