Governance - Ledger - 4 cities offer lessons for Newark's next mayor

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Published in the Star-Ledger, Sunday, May 7, 2006

Four cities offer cautionary lessons to the next mayor of Newark

Sunday, May 07, 2006

BY BRAD PARKS
Star-Ledger Staff

The snow started falling New Year's Eve and by the end of January 1979, a record 90 inches had blanketed Chicago.

What happened next has become Chicago political lore: Without recently deceased mayor Richard J. Daley to give orders, snow trucks barely got out. Transportation, public and private, ground to a near halt. Dirty snow and uncollected garbage piled up in the streets and a month later, angry voters booted Daley's successor from office.

For 1970s Chicago, it marked the end of a political era.

For 2006 Newark, it can be taken as a cautionary tale.

No matter what happens in Tuesday's nonpartisan election, whether voters select former councilman Cory Booker or former deputy mayor Ronald L. Rice, Newark will have a new mayor for the first time in 20 years.

Yet even as some celebrate that change, the lesson from Chicago and other cities is that the transition from a long-serving mayor can be perilous.

"Following one of these larger-than-life figures is difficult for any new mayor," said Marion Orr, a professor of urban studies at Brown University. "History has shown it's the rare politician who can do it well."

In four cities that have had mayors set longevity records recently -- Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit -- the mayor following in the giant's footsteps often found tricky footing.

This is a closer look at those cities and what Newark's next mayor might learn from them.

BALTIMORE

The lesson: Governing is sometimes dirty. Former Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell tells a story about former Baltimore mayor Kurt Schmoke that, for a lot of people in Baltimore, sums things up pretty nicely.

The Phillies were playing the Orioles during an interleague game at Camden Yards. Rendell called Schmoke, an old friend, and suggested he visit Baltimore and they go to the game with their wives.

"Wonderful idea," Schmoke is said to have replied. "Can you get us some tickets?"

"Here's the mayor of Baltimore very much uncomfortable with the idea of pulling any strings to get some tickets," said Orr, who was researching a book on Baltimore's schools when he heard Rendell tell the story. "So he asks the mayor of Philadelphia to get the tickets."

That was the knock on Schmoke, who was mayor from 1987 to 1999: He was too clean to govern, too unwilling to engage in the deal-making any mayor must sometimes undertake.

He had a tough task, following William D. Schaefer, who during 15 remarkable years in office guided the development of Baltimore's glistening Inner Harbor. Yet Schmoke seemed to have the résumé to do it: Yale University, Harvard Law School and Rhodes scholar.

"The expectations for Schmoke were enormous," said Matthew Crenson, chairman of the political science department at Johns Hopkins University. "People were expecting he was going to transform the city. But he never lived up to those expectations."

Under Schmoke, crime rose. Baltimore's drug problem worsened. The schools, which he made a priority, never bounced back. An African-American, he was criticized as a sellout who did little to help the city's black community.

Crenson said he couldn't really think of one great accomplishment of the Schmoke administration.

"He didn't have the fire in his belly to be a big-city mayor," Orr said. "I like Kurt Schmoke a lot because he always had the best interests of Baltimore in his heart. But as a mayor, he was somewhat mediocre. People don't even talk about him much anymore."

CHICAGO

The lesson: A mayor needs a council. In the 1970s, the cover of Chicago's budget featured the pictures of all the department heads. During the first year of the tumultuous Jane Byrne administration, three-quarters of the faces on the book had to be X'd out as the notoriously impulsive Byrne fired one after another.

"It was a horrifically unstable period in Chicago governance," said Mark Iris, a professor of political science at Northwestern University.

"It was chaos," Byrne told the Chicago Tribune in a 2004 interview. "We broke up something that had been in existence for 75 years. Like the spaghetti in a pressure cooker, it was all over the ceiling."

Headline writers at the Chicago Sun-Times nicknamed her "Calamity Jane."

After the death of Richard J. Daley, the mayor since 1955, Byrne had run as an anti-machine candidate, calling it the "evil cabal." The machine never considered her a threat -- until snow-sick voters gave her a victory in the Democratic primary, tantamount to making her mayor.

Once she got into office, however, Byrne discovered she couldn't do much without Chicago's 50-member, machine-backed council, many of whom hated the instability she created. After fighting it for the first half of her term, she succumbed to the machine.

"It's really a 'Star Wars'-like story," said Arnold Hirsch, a professor at the University of New Orleans who has written extensively on Chicago. "She started off good and then turned to the Dark Side."

Byrne was voted out after one ineffective term.

"If a new mayor wants to accomplish anything, he has to put together his own governing coalition, whether it involves adding groups or splitting them apart," Hirsch said. "It's hard political work."

CLEVELAND

The lesson: Don't alienate the constituency that elected you. If there are three words that might embody Jane Campbell's term as mayor, they are "Adopt-a-can."

Elected in 2001, Campbell was facing a severe budget crisis in 2003 and announced the city no longer had the funds to empty its 1,300 public trash cans. So she asked citizens and business to "adopt" a can near them and empty it. The public was less than enthused.

"When you get down to it, urban leaders are judged on how they get the basics done," said Stephen Brooks, a professor of urban politics at the University of Akron. "Picking up the trash is the most basic thing an urban mayor can do, and here she was, saying she needed help to do it."

It was one of many missteps during a difficult term. Campbell had replaced Michael White, a sometimes-dictatorial leader whose 12 years brought incredible change to downtown Cleveland: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum; new stadiums for the Browns, Cavaliers and Indians; a remade Warehouse District.

Yet Campbell -- a career legislator who was criticized for her lack of executive experience -- seemed unable to keep the momentum going.

"She got the reputation of not being an effective leader, though I'm not sure how fair that is," said David Elkins, chairman of the political science department at Cleveland State University. "Some of her decisions just didn't pan out."

She angered the police and firefighters unions with her tough budget decisions. Her refusal to back a convention center expansion angered business leaders. Her support for traffic cameras as a revenue generator angered many citizens.

"Politically she had something of a tin ear," Elkins said. "It wasn't so much any one decision she made as it was a collection of many decisions that resulted in a winnowing away of the constituency that got her elected."

DETROIT

The lesson: Respect your predecessor. Ultimately, Coleman Young's downfall was the Krugerrands. Not long after being elected for a record fifth term, allegations surfaced that Young had entered in a private business with his deputy police chief that sold South African Krugerrands, an apartheid-era gold coin.

The deputy police chief was later indicted. Young never was. But by the time Young announced his 20th year in office would be his last, Detroit was aching for a change -- and got it in the form of Dennis Archer, a Michigan Supreme Court justice who was elected in 1994 with a promise to clean out the corruption.

"Archer had a long honeymoon after he came in," said Thomas Sugrue, a professor of history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and a Detroit native. "The opinion-makers and business elite couldn't wait to be rid of Coleman Young. And (Archer) was able to accomplish a lot because of that."

It came at a cost, as Archer repeatedly clashed with Young loyalists. But he still completed a number of high-profile projects, building new homes for Detroit's Lions and Tigers and bringing casinos to downtown Detroit.

"Archer really embraced what we call 'trickle-down urbanism,'" Sugrue said. "It gave folks a new sense of pride in their city. But has it transformed the neighborhoods or the economy of the city? By and large, no."

Archer was re-elected by a large margin, though in his second term he faced a recall movement spawned by Young loyalists who continued to oppose him. A fed up Archer decided not to seek re-election in 2002. Archer, now the president of the American Bar Association, gives this advice to new mayors:

"You can't tear down the living legend," Archer said. "You can't lift someone else by tearing someone else down. You have to earn the respect of your constituents. You need everybody to help you make a city run."

Brad Parks may be reached at bparks@starledger.com or (973) 392-7961.

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