Mayoral candidates Jane Byrne and Ald. Edward Vrdolyak (10th) Friday criticized Mayor Harold Washington`s hiring practices and contract awarding procedures, respectively, while the mayor dismissed Byrne as ”nervous and frenetic” and Vrdolyak as ”not a legitimate candidate.”
As on most Fridays in Chicago politics, the three candidates popped up at the tapings of radio and television shows to extend their campaigns and lob political hand grenades at their opponents.
Byrne, for instance, showed up for a taping of the WMAQ-TV program,
”City Desk,” to continue her attack on what she called Washington`s poor record on hiring women and vowed to establish a ”fairness commission” to review city hiring practices of women and minorities if she is elected.
Vrdolyak went to the studios of WBBM-TV to tape the ”Newsmakers”
program and charge that Washington`s awarding of city contracts to minority-owned firms was the ”greatest fraud” in the city`s history.
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Both shows will air at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.
Meanwhile, Washington taped the WMAQ-AM radio program, ”Chicago News Conference,” and dismissed both of his critics.
Byrne, the mayor said, has been practicing the ”big lie” in her campaign, but he predicted, ”The people of Chicago will give her a sound thrashing.”
And Vrdolyak, he said, is ”not a legitimate candidate” because he is running on the Illinois Solidarity Party label in the upcoming Feb. 24 primary election.
Concerning Sheila Jones, the disciple of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche, who is running along with Washington and Byrne in the Democratic primary, the mayor would only say, ”She has a right to run. She`s running and that`s all I have to say on that.”
That program will be broadcast at 7:30 a.m. Sunday.
Two of the mayoral candidates, Washington and Byrne, nearly had their first physical confrontation of the campaign Friday morning, as they taped their respective appearances only yards apart on the 19th floor of the Merchandise Mart.
Television camera crews, aware that Washington was about to complete his taping as Byrne was leaving hers, attempted to stall the former mayor, but she left shortly before Washington emerged from his studio.
In her continued attack on Washington`s record for female hiring, she said that a computer study made by her staff revealed that in only three areas of city government hiring did newly-hired women fare better in salaries than did newly-hired men.
And, she added, those three departments were the only ones in the study not under the direct control of the mayor. They were the City Council Finance committee staff, headed by Ald. Edward Burke (14th), a Washington foe; the city clerk`s office, headed by Walter Kozubowski, a Burke ally; and the City Council staff, named by the 50 individual aldermen.
In Vrdolyak`s attack, the outgoing Chicago alderman said that the city may have lost as much as $100 million during Washington`s administration because of his policy of minority contract-letting.
”I`m saying it`s costing the city probably 30 percent more to do business, in buying supplies, in services and everything else, just for the minority participation,” Vrdolyak said.
”This administration is going to fall because of the fact, under the guise of minority participation, they have the greatest fraud and the greatest hustle that we`ve ever seen in this city,” he said.
A confident Washington said that the almost crusade-like zeal of his backers in the 1983 election still exists and predicted that a record number of voters will turn out on Feb. 24 to give him the Democratic mayoral nomination.