Mayoral candidate Danny Davis charged Friday that Mayor Richard Daley is suppressing a report until after Tuesday`s primary election that would show that the Chicago Public Schools face a budget deficit of as much as $150 million.
”Anything you don`t want citizens to know about, you put off,” Davis said during a taping of ”Eyewitness Forum,” scheduled to be broadcast at 9 a.m Sunday on WLS-Ch.7.
Davis would not reveal the source of the information about the potential deficit and provided no other details of the alleged shortfall. But he said information came from ”people who are in a position to know.”
Avis LaVelle, Daley`s press secretary, denied the administration is blocking the release of any report.
”It should come as no surprise to anyone that the school system is in serious trouble. It is no state secret,” LaVelle said, alluding to recent reports suggesting budget problems with the district.
Also Friday, the Chicago Board of Elections predicted voter turnout for Tuesday`s mayoral-aldermanic elections could be the lowest in 20 years.
Thomas Leach, whose recent turnout projections have been within 1 percent of the final figures, said he estimated that about 57 percent of Chicago`s 1,459,632 voters will take part in the primary elections for mayor, city clerk and city treasurer and the nonpartisan aldermanic elections in the city`s 50 wards.
Leach`s prediction, if it proves correct, would spell bad news for mayoral challengers Davis and former Mayor Jane Byrne, who are hoping that a large anti-Daley vote in minority communities could put them in first place.
A low turnout generally is interpreted as favoring the Regular Democratic Organization, which can be counted on to turn out a steady, though dwindling, base vote for incumbent mayors and aldermen.
In a series of broadcast interviews Friday leading into the final weekend of the primary election campaign, all three major mayoral candidates relied on familiar themes.
During a separate interview for ”Eyewitness Forum,” Byrne declared that Chicago is ”dead” and needs a new mayor. Byrne said Daley is providing no leadership and is responsible for ”a horrendous murder rate.”
She expanded on her charge after the taping, saying: ”I see no new projects. When you look at the murder rate, you see quite a bit of death taking place in Chicago. . . . I don`t see any movement toward projects, and I see a mayor who has not described a vision of where he wants to lead us in the next four years.”
The combative Byrne scoffed at what she called the appearance of broad support for Daley, who has a multimillion-dollar campaign war chest at his disposal.
”Whoever sits in that chair, be it Donald Duck, they`re going to raise $2 million,” Byrne said. ”But people see through the facade.”
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Daley, interviewed on ”Newsmakers” WBBM-Ch. 2, blamed drugs for the homicide rate and blamed the federal government for not doing more to stem the flow of drugs into Chicago and other urban areas.
The show is scheduled to be aired at 10 a.m. Sunday.
After the taping, Daley defended the city`s refusal to issue a building permit for a Cook County Jail addition, arguing that the site the county wants to use should be preserved for an industrial park.
”The people want an industrial park,” Daley said, adding that the county knew his designs on the area when he was elected in 1989.
”They knew I was for an industrial park because the people of the community want it. . . . They want jobs,” Daley said.
Meanwhile, Joseph Gardner, Democratic candidate for city clerk, continued Friday to criticize incumbent Walter Kozubowski`s frequent out-of-town trips as a member of city employee pension boards, saying he would refuse to take such trips if he were elected city clerk.
Kozubowski, who has been under fire for his travels as president of the board that oversees the Chicago firefighters` pension fund, could not be reached for comment Friday.
But he repeatedly has said that the trips are part of the job and are necessary for staying up to date about investment possibilities.