“As far as cops, we’re down by 2,000, but if any of my opponents claims they can fill those positions, they’re lying.”

I was sitting in a West Side high school, listening to the mayoral candidate Gery Chico and thinking about Warren Beatty.

Mr. Chico, a former top aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley, on Tuesday unveiled an impressive education plan, including a focus on early childhood education — birth to age 5 — and a dramatic lengthening of a shamefully short school day and year, by two hours a day and 24 days a year.

It reflected a strong knowledge of the system — he was president of the Chicago Board of Education during the mayor’s historic mid-1990s takeover. My qualms involve how we’d pay for his high-minded initiatives and how the teachers union would ever agree to work much harder.

Mr. Chico points to potential efficiencies and to achieving revolutionary change via collective bargaining. But while finding his plan commendable, I wondered if he, like candidates at all levels, feels restrained as to how honest he can be on certain combustible issues.

In the 1998 movie “Bulworth,” Mr. Beatty plays a down-on-his-luck United States senator liberated by a contract he has put out on his own life. Believing he has only three days to live, he dispenses with platitudes and political correctness.

He tells a black church audience that his appearance, as a white, is only about getting a nice photo taken. This crowd, he proclaims, won’t be taken seriously until it forks over the big bucks needed to buy access and clout, like whites.

Similarly, he tells a heavily-Jewish movie industry group in Beverly Hills that it produces junk to get outrageously rich. He even snipes at politicians who pander to the group by disparaging the Rev. Louis Farrakhan.

Ah, imagine something similar in our mayoral election! It’s why I asked experts in various areas, including municipal finance, transportation, education and the arts, for help in conjuring Bulworth-like honesty. What might the candidates say if unencumbered by the usual political and tactical restraints of a campaign?

“Chicago, we’re going bankrupt and have to sharply cut the public work force and benefits paid employees,” suggested finance mavens not affiliated with any candidate. “We’ve got 37,000 workers, and 80 percent of the budget is personnel. When it comes to pensions, raise the retirement age, reduce automatic increases, regardless of inflation, and revisit what pensions are for. Are they deferred compensation for those who can work or a safety net for those who can’t?”

The thrust of my education watchers was: “The teachers union is just one part of a complex education problem. But Mayor Daley, and his handmaiden, Arne Duncan, were petrified about a walkout and constantly caved. How many workers do you know, on any continent, getting 4 percent increases this year? Folks, I’m willing to take a strike.”

A chat with one Chicago Public Schools official prompts this: “Can it really be that a system with 41,000 teachers saw just two get canned last year for incompetence? And just 41 were involved in the process by which terrible teachers are flagged for possible removal? Those numbers defy the laws of gravity.”

Outsiders knowledgeable about municipal manpower inspire this: “Three guys on a garbage truck, 50 ward superintendents and, then, assistants to the superintendents?! Puhleese. Get lean or get out, and give private contractors a chance to compete for trash pickup as they do elsewhere.

“Firefighters can be true heroes. But we’re grossly overstaffed, with too many firehouses and relying on a model based on a long-gone era of more fires. They shouldn’t serve as a 911 response center. Many have sweetheart jobs, work a second gig and retire early with a nice pension. The party is over.

“As far as cops, we’re down by 2,000, but if any of my opponents claims they can fill those positions, they’re lying.”

When I asked about bosses, not just the too-often-targeted rank-and-file, I got this for a Chicago Bulworth: “In some departments, way too many managers. The era of deputy commissioners stretching to the horizon is over.”

Privatization is easy to bash, given the parking meter deal. But smart folks who concede the pros and cons lead to the declaration, “When it comes to Midway Airport, it’s smart. Airports worldwide are going private and generating far more retail and restaurant revenue. And, unlike the meter mess, this will bring in strong annual revenue.

“Take Midway revenues and pump them into mass transit. We should have done that with the meters. You just can’t keep jacking up C.T.A. fares.”

Finally, members of a constituency rarely mentioned in any campaign, the arts, have our liberated candidate concluding, “Cynics will scoff, but make Chicago home for a truly great annual festival of the performing arts. Create an American counterpart to the Edinburgh Festival, using Millennium Park as the focal point.

“We’ve got godawful poverty, depressing segregation and too much crime. But one has to dream and cultivate the soul. And this would be a lot better than a one-shot Summer Olympics. I ask for your vote.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 20th, 2010 at 10:39 am and is filed under James Warren. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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