Loss to Daley team may be irreplaceable
'Never, ever had to second-guess him,' mayor says of Scott
Michael Scott’s death leaves a giant void in Mayor Daley's shrinking inner circle that will take a long time to fill, if it ever can be filled. With the obvious exception of Scott's wife and children, nobody lost more than Daley when the veteran school board president’s life came to a sudden and violent end.
Daley values loyalty above all else and trusts just a precious few. Scott earned the mayor's trust by taking enough heat for Daley over the last 30 years to earn an asbestos suit.
(Jean Lachat/Keith Hale/Sun-Times)
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Michael Scott
Scott knew better than anyone that the mayor’s fixers operate best in the shadows outside public view. He also knew what former Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas obviously did not — that anybody who commanded more headlines than Daley would eventually be run out of town.
Scott's value to Daley was not only that he was willing to move from job to job, forging compromises and putting out fires. Scott had the guts and gravitas to deliver to Daley the bad news the mayor didn't want to hear but sometimes needed to hear.
"Michael wasn’t like a messenger or a go-fer. He was a contributor to how the city ran. He didn't come to a meeting to get marching orders. He came to a meeting to collaborate. He valued his own credibility too much to sell himself out," said Ald. Pat O'Connor (40th), former chairman of the City Council's Education Committee, who worked closely with Scott.
"The mayor has been fortunate to have a person like Michael to go to. He will miss that ability in the future because Michael could be candid, and at the same time, not burn bridges."
On Tuesday, the mayor's voice choked with emotion as he told reporters that Scott was "like part of my family." He compared Scott to another Chicago stalwart who was an invaluable adviser to Daley’s father, former Mayor Richard J. Daley: the late zoning attorney extraordinaire Earl Neal.
"I never had to worry about Michael. I could give him an assignment at the Park District, Board of Education, RTA — I never, ever had to second-guess him," the mayor said.
"He had a characteristic about working with people and reaching out to them and taking situations that were very, very flammable. People were excited. He could calm people down and be able to work things out. Michael was an extraordinary public servant."
Daley’s inner-circle has never been huge. As the son of a famous father who grew up in the media spotlight, he tends to be overly-suspicious.
But ever since the Hired Truck, city hiring and minority contracting scandals, that circle of trust has gotten even tighter.
The fact that Scott was drafted into a return engagement as school board president after his handpicked replacement didn’t work out underscores just how tight that circle is.
Just as Scott was tapped again, former Chicago Housing Authority Chief Terry Peterson, who managed Daley's 2007 re-election campaign, was recently drafted to become CTA board chairman.
"There's no fresh blood. He doesn’t have a bench" of trusted African-American advisers, said a City Hall source, who asked to remain anonymous.
Former mayoral press secretary Avis LaVelle, a possible replacement as school board president, said Scott "could be plugged into any situation and was level-headed and sensitive enough not to screw things up."
"It's bigger than the mayor. It’s an incredible void for all of us. Michael is irreplaceable," she said.