Daley names O'Hare man as budget director
Harris, the brains and voice behind Daley's plan for new runways at O'Hare Airport, was chosen Monday to be Chicago's new $135,516-a-year director of budget and management. He succeeds Bill Abolt, who walked the plank for failing to clean up the hired truck mess.
A former intelligence officer and prosecutor who spent eight years in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the U.S. Army, Harris can match Abolt's intellect. But he also has the toughness and political savvy that Abolt may have lacked.
"He don't take no mess. He's a no-nonsense person who will demand that things be done and they will be done," said Ald. William Beavers (7th), chairman of the City Council's Budget Committee.
Harris is a "better candidate for budget director than Bill Abolt was" because he's served time in two of the biggest-spending departments, said a longtime City Hall observer.
"He knows where all the bodies are buried and where the gun is hidden," the source said.
Harris, 41, is no stranger to political hot seats.
He did battle with noise-weary suburbs who point to new, sharply higher cost estimates for O'Hare expansion as a sign of duplicitousness by the secretive Harris.
And he spent five years before that as a civilian deputy superintendent in the Chicago Police Department overseeing an unpopular march toward use of more civilians.
"When I first met him, we didn't necessarily get along. I wasn't in favor of civilianizing the Police Department. But we came to a happy medium. He showed me he knew what he was doing, so we started getting along," Beavers recalled.
Precisely what got Harris in hot water with the mayor isn't clear, but it was evident when Daley bypassed Harris and chose aviation neophyte Rosemarie Andolino to oversee the all-important construction phase of the O'Hare project. Now all has been forgiven and Harris has the promotion for which he's been groomed.
Asked Monday if he has the toughness to say no to the likes of trucking magnates Michael Tadin and Fred Barbara, Harris said: "I don't even know who they are. I'm going to say no for any service that doesn't give the taxpayer the best value for the dollar ... and is not performed in an honest, responsible and competent manner."