Chamber's goal: Oust aldermen who defy mayor

By Laurie Cohen, Todd Lighty and Dan Mihalopoulos, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporter Gary Washburn contributed to this report
Published November 10, 2006
 

Alarmed by signs that Mayor Richard Daley is losing his iron grip on the City Council, a major business group plans to launch a campaign to defeat aldermen who don't support him.

The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, which represents 2,600 companies, warned top business leaders they can no longer rely on Daley alone to protect their interests.

"Under Mayor Daley's leadership, the business community had, effectively, `one-stop shopping' in City Hall," the chamber stated in a presentation made at the Oct. 26 meeting of its board of directors. "Members of Chicago's City Council were relatively complacent until recently."

The presentation, contained in an e-mail obtained by the Tribune, offers an unusually blunt assessment of Daley's influence during his 17 years in office. It warns of "decentralizing political power," signaled by recent council actions such as passage of the "big-box" minimum wage ordinance that Daley later vetoed.

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