Zabrocki: Suburbs Will Feel Daley's Retirement

Tinley Park and the rest of the suburbs will feel the effects – economically and socially – of last week's announcement that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley will not seek re-election after 21 years, Tinley Park's own longtime mayor said.

"Whoever follows Mayor Daley has some very large and interesting shoes to fill," said Mayor Ed Zabrocki, who has led Tinley Park since 1981.

As executive board secretary of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, an association of more than 270 Chicago-area mayors Daley helped create in 1997, Zabrocki would meet with Daley four times a year to discuss issues facing the suburbs.

"We've always found Mayor Daley easy to work with, a very likable individual, a very thoughtful individual, understanding of what we had to deal with as suburbs living in the shadow of Chicago, so to speak," Zabrocki said.

Economically and socially, the suburbs are tied to Chicago, Zabrocki said. Whether it's people moving to Tinley to take the Metra to Chicago jobs or whether it's businesses attracted to Tinley for its proximity to the Chicago-area trade market and transportation hub, good times for the city draw people to the outlying communities. Bad times, not so much.

"I think the city of Chicago, more so in the last 10 to 15 years, has become a magnet, a magnet we did not have before," Zabrocki said. "Whether it drew people, drew construction or drew conventions, it was a magnet. And when the economy started to slow down, it wasn't as strong of a magnet. And that's the effect it has on us."

Although theories as to why Daley is choosing to retire range from Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid to Maggie Daley's health, Zabrocki said his own retirement in 2005 after 42 years at Brother Rice High School in Chicago taught him an important lesson: When it's time, it's time.

"It's an inner feeling, an inner something that says it's time to move on, it's time to do different things," Zabrocki said.

Has Daley's announcement spurred any thoughts of political retirement for Zabrocki?

"I've been asked that by probably three or four reporters in the last 24 hours," Zabrocki said on Thursday, laughing.

Zabrocki, a Republican, said he will decide whether to seek re-election in 2013 in November 2012.

"When you worry about whether or not you're going to be re-elected that's when you become a poor mayor because that's when you start to make decisions based on whether they're popular and not whether they're the right thing," Zabrocki said.