With a lagging effort to mobilize support, the bid by Ald. Timothy Evans
(4th) to succeed Mayor Harold Washington appeared stuck Sunday as his key black opponent, Ald. Eugene Sawyer (6th), lobbied for crucial votes among the Chicago City Council`s white ethnics.
But the white ethnic bloc, which claimed 24 members, had not given up hope that a new acting mayor might come from their side and continued meeting Sunday night to plot strategy.
Just days ago, Evans was considered the front-runner to succeed Washington because of his apparent support from Jesse Jackson, who has tried to reunify the city`s black political contingents. But Sunday, Evans ended up defending Jackson`s controversial role in the effort to choose the next mayor.
On Friday, Evans had been maneuvering physically with Sawyer to be closer to Jackson when the Democratic presidential candidate arrived at O`Hare International Airport. On Sunday, Evans was doing some verbal maneuvering, denying that Jackson was trying to exercise undue influence on local politics. ”He had every right to come home. He is a peacemaker, not a kingmaker,” said Evans, meeting with Ald. Kathy Osterman (48th), in her lakefront ward office on the North Side. About an hour before, 15 white and black aldermen had gathered in Osterman`s office to hear from Sawyer and Ald. Danny Davis
(29th), who also is interested in the acting mayor`s job.
Evans` comments, made after Osterman had told him publicly that her constituents were concerned about Jackson`s intervention, were remarkably similar to those Jackson made to reporters earlier in the day.
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”What I have been doing basically is the role of a mediator or a peacemaker, not a kingmaker,” Jackson said.
While Evans` supporters worked the telephones Sunday, Sawyer was working the streets. He met at various locations with white ethnic politicians in an attempt to jar their cohesiveness and pick up the 26 votes he will need when the City Council meets, perhaps as early as Wednesday, to choose an acting mayor from their midst.
But the white ethnic bloc had not given up hope that they could find the votes to elect one of their own.
Ald. Richard Mell (33d), along with his close ally, U.S. Rep. William Lipinski (D., Ill.), made a morning call on Cook County Board President George Dunne, who had just returned from a California trip. They asked the Cook County Democratic chairman for his support.
Dunne reportedly balked at giving his support or the vote of his protege, Ald. Burton Natarus (42d). Instead, he insisted that Washington`s successor should be a black and called a meeting of the party`s executive committee for 3 p.m. Monday, after Washington`s funeral, to decide the party`s role in selecting a successor.
When that move failed, Mell met with Sawyer at the Northwest Side home of Ald. Patrick O`Connor (40th), but the two candidates could not reach a mutual accommodation.
”I sat down earlier with Ald. Sawyer,” Mell said, ”and he tried to persuade me to drop out, and I tried to persuade him to drop out, and there were no deals.”
They then both went to what was quickly dubbed the ”Osterman meeting.”
At least 15 aldermen, most of them from the white bloc for which Osterman has been named a spokeswoman, huddled inside her ward office at 5457 N. Broadway. Outside, 20 pickets carried placards reading ”No Deals” and charged that the aldermen inside were violating the Illinois Open Meetings Act.
State law forbids the majority of a quorum of any elected body-in this case, 13 of 26, which represents a quorum of the 50-member City Council-to meet secretly while discussing public business.
Aldermen leaving that 90-minute meeting, answering questions about the possible illegality, said they had been careful that no more than 12 aldermen were in one room at the same time.
Though 15 aldermen were in the building at one time, they said, three always were outside the meeting room, watching the Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers football game.
Another bloc-the four Hispanic aldermen who are viewed as a small but key factor in the selection of an acting mayor-demonstrated their solidarity by meeting with Hispanic business leaders in a downtown motel for an hour and a half to discuss the political maelstrom.
All four-Luis Gutierrez (26th), Jesus Garcia (22d), Juan Soliz (25th) and Raymond Figueroa (31st)-said they would stick together to maintain Washington`s agenda.
”We have to keep progress and reform,” Garcia said after the meeting.
”We don`t want to limit our choices to anyone at this time.”
Another aldermanic caucus was assembled Sunday night in the Northwest Side home of Ald. Joseph Kotlarz (35th), who had hosted a ”white ethnic”
meeting the day before.
To guard against the television cameras and reporters` eyes that had peered into the picture window of Kotlarz`s home on Saturday, newspapers and plastic coverings were placed over the windows Sunday night.
Apparently in preparation for a long night of wrangling, a pizza delivery truck came just before the aldermen arrived and brought to the front door five large pizzas-three sausage and two cheese-that the delivery man said had been donated by the pizza company.
It was that kind of day.
Meanwhile, while the political scurrying was going on outside City Hall, it was a business day for David Orr, the 49th Ward alderman and vice mayor who was sworn in Thursday as interim mayor. He will serve until the council selects an acting mayor.
Orr met with Ernest Barefield, Washington`s chief of staff, on budget and educational matters. The meetings were interruped by the news that sometime on Saturday, Orr`s North Side ward offices had been burglarized.
Orr, who has had his headquarters in a conference room behind the mayor`s private office since Washington`s death there on Wednesday, said his workers told him the ward office had been broken into, but it did not appear that any equipment or files had been taken.
”I just hope it`s just a coincidence,” Orr said. ”I don`t know what anyone would hope to get.”
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Orr, who has repeatedly stated that he has no interest in making his interim mayor status permanent, used his mayoral position Sunday to veto the ordinance establishing a regular council session for Monday. He set Tuesday as the next date when the council will meet, solely to honor the late mayor.
The council, however, could meet as soon as Wednesday to pick a successor, but spokesmen for all of the factions agreed Sunday that it is unlikely that such a meeting would be called until some kind of agreement had been reached behind the scenes.
Although most participants in the current struggle took pains Sunday to be polite to each other, publicly saying they wanted to avoid political skirmishes until after the mayor is buried, one of their former colleagues rankled Sunday when told that his name kept cropping up as a possible participant in the maneuverings.
”I said I was not going to get involved, and I meant it,” snapped former alderman, former Democratic Party chairman and present Republican Edward Vrdolyak. ”Can`t they use someone else? Can`t they be decent enough or smart enough amongst themselves to create something on their own without making me their bogeyman?”
It has been widely speculated that Vrdolyak might try to resurrect his mayoral hopes if a mayoral election is held, as scheduled by current law, in 1989 to fill the unexpired portion of Washington`s term.