It was Thursday afternoon, and Mayor Harold Washington had given a well-received campaign speech to a crowd of enthusiastic students at Northeastern Illinois University on the city`s North Side.
He had poked fun at two of his opponents in this year`s mayoral race. He had told anecdotes of his childhood. He had praised Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And he had stressed his campaign theme that Chicago is better off now than it was before he was elected.
But the reporters who crowded around him afterwards weren`t interested in any of that. It was the Chicago Housing Authority that they wanted to ask him about, and it was the Chicago Housing Authority that he didn`t want to discuss.
”You talked to the students about reform,” one reporter said. ”How do you reform the CHA?”
The question was one that Washington wanted to avoid. For more than two weeks, the financial, management and leadership problems of the huge public housing authority had been a front-page controversy and a growing threat to his re-election chances.
That threat had originally developed as the result of the Washington administration`s own public relations backfire, and two weeks` worth of efforts at damage control by various mayoral aides had failed to blunt its potential impact on the mayoral race.
So, on Friday morning, Washington took the matter in his own hands and accepted the resignation of the agency`s embattled chairman, his longtime friend and political ally Renault Robinson.
He did so without the usual publicly expressed kind words of praise and regret at losing such a committed public servant that often accompany such events.
Instead, there was simply a statement, issued by the mayor`s press office, in which Robinson said, ”In recent days, it has become clear to me that among all the pressing problems of the CHA, Renault Robinson himself has become a central issue. . . . It is now clear to me that I have done all I can, and that the benefits of my energy and experience will be outweighed by the liabilities of the personal issues.”
When pressed late Friday by reporters, Washington commented, ”You never feel good about things like that, but Mr. Robinson decided he was going to resign and I`ll just let it go at that.”
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Yet, Robinson apparently didn`t want to go.
He had offered his resignation a week earlier, and Washington had refused it. He had met with the mayor several times over the past week before offering his resignation again Friday.
”I think Renault wanted to hear from the mayor that the resignation wasn`t going to be accepted,” said one high-ranking administration official. ”He might have actually expected the mayor to decline the resignation when it was tendered, but, of course, that didn`t happen.
”The bottom line is the mayor finally acknowledged that, regardless of who was at fault, Renault`s presence there would remain a liability. He was allowing himself to become a personal issue.”
There was speculation and fear that, if the CHA had continued as a blazing issue for the rest of the campaign, it might hurt the voter turnout from public housing complexes, and create an image of Washington as a bad manager that could turn liberal voters, such as those on the lakefront, away from him.
One top campaign official denied that such fears played a role in Robinson`s departure. ”Does the lakefront stay up nights worrying about the CHA?” he asked rhetorically.
The issue that tumbled Robinson into his fall from grace involved $11 million in improvements at Robert Taylor Homes, the largest public housing development in the world, where more than 15,000 people live in the development`s 28 high-rises.
In announcing the plans last November, Robinson said $4 million would be used to repair elevators and $7 million for security improvements, such as enclosed lobbies.
A contract for the elevator improvements was awarded on Dec. 1, but, as the year moved to its end, the CHA had been unable to put the security improvements out to bid.
Already, the agency had asked for and received two extensions of a federal deadline to commit the money, and Robinson was seeking a third extension of the latest deadline–New Year`s Eve.
Since last April, Robinson had been heading negotiations with the local office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over the funds, and, since last October, Ernest Barefield, Washington`s chief of staff, had been taking part in those talks.
But, when push came to shove, the CHA was unable to get an acceptable bid for the security improvements. At a bid opening Dec. 29, the only one submitted was for $15 million–twice the money available.
On Dec. 31, Gertrude Jordan, the local HUD adminstrator, wrote to Robinson that she was denying his request for a deadline extension and was taking back the $7 million.
The decision also put into question the other $4 million for elevator improvements. Unless the CHA could come up with $7 million from somewhere else, it would also lose that $4 million as well.
Early that New Year`s Eve evening, Barefield telephoned reporters to tell them about the loss of funds.
In an apparent attempt to protect himself and Washington, Robinson blamed executive director Zirl Smith for the missed deadline. Smith blamed confusion within the agency over who was in charge.
That confusion had long been a problem at the CHA because of a struggle between Smith and Robinson for control of day-to-day operations.
Robinson, appointed to the CHA board in 1979 by Mayor Jane Byrne, was named CHA chairman in August, 1983, by Washington.
Within a short time, he moved to act as his own executive director and made a number of controversial and questionable decisions, including the firing of the agency`s elevator repair workers and the hiring of his brother- in-law.
Despite calls for Robinson`s ouster from outside and within the administration, Washington stood stubbornly behind the man who had helped persuade him to make his successful run for mayor and who had served as his first campaign manager.
He agreed to permit Robinson`s $60,000-a-year salary to be cut in half and to bring in Smith as executive director with responsibility for day-to-day operations. But he refused to replace him.
It wasn`t long after Smith was hired before Robinson was working to take back many of the powers he had lost, and, by April, 1986, he had regained almost total control of operations.
Most of the monumental problems that face the CHA and its residents today –such as the need for three-quarters of a billion dollars in building improvements–weren`t caused by Washington or Robinson.
They were the result of more than four decades of misguided social policy and race-conscious decision-making that sought to isolate low-income blacks from the rest of society and permitted the agency to be mismanaged and its residents to be ignored.
But local housing experts and many who work for the CHA say the housing authority`s problems have been exacerbated over the past three years because of the internal warfare between Robinson and Smith.
After the loss of the $7 million, Cook County Assessor Thomas Hynes, a mayoral candidate, called for Robinson`s resignation, but it was Smith who appeared to be in the hot seat.
And after failing to get any backing from Washington, Smith resigned Jan. 7.
In the stage-managed events of that day, Robinson praised Smith as doing a job that only Jesus Christ could have done better. And Alton Miller, Washington`s press secretary, shuttled Robinson and interim executive director Brenda Gaines from television station to television station.
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But the appointment of Gaines didn`t end the controversy.
Over the next week, news reports appeared, detailing the millions of dollars that the CHA owes its suppliers and the Christmas bonuses that the agency gave to special tenant leaders.
Finally, details of Jordan`s Dec. 31 letter to Robinson were published which indicated that he was responsible for the lost deadline and that Barefield had been involved in the negotiations.
On Friday, Robinson resigned.
In accepting Robinson`s resignation, Washington gave his political foes an opening that they were quick to take advantage of.
Hynes, who had called for Robinson`s resignation two weeks ago, said Friday, ”I`m glad he has done the right thing in resigning, but that is only the first step. The problems are profound. The Washington administration should move immediately to find a professional executive to run that agency.” The CHA will likely remain a campaign issue. But the main focus of their political attacks is lost with the departure of Robinson.
And Washington got rid–for the moment, at least–of a lot of unwanted questions.