In Reversal, Moseley Braun Will Release Tax Returns
UPDATED: 1/3/2011 10:34 p.m
CHICAGO (WBBM/CBS) - Chicago mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun has reversed herself and now says she will release her tax returns before the Feb. 22 mayoral election.
Although the former U.S. senator and ambassador said Monday morning she would not release her returns in advance of the election, she changed that position Monday night in an interview with WFLD-TV.
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In the evening interview, Moseley Braun called her earlier comments a ``misstatement,'' and said she was being too flippant at the time. She said her returns would be released Tuesday.
The other major candidates, former Chicago School Board president Gery Chico, City Clerk Miguel del Valle, and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, have all released their tax returns.
Braun also says the deal that privatized parking meters is a financial disaster for the city, and she says she'll try to break it if elected.
At a Monday news conference the former U.S. senator said she thinks the city got "snookered" when it entered the 2008 deal in which a private company paid the city more than $1.1 billion in exchange for a 75-year lease of the meters. She says a lease agreement should have been worth several billion dollars more.
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The private company now running the meters also implemented a meter rate increase on Jan. 1.
The deal led by outgoing Mayor Richard Daley has been widely criticized -- in large part because the city has already spent all but a fraction of the money.
Braun says she'd sue to cancel the deal. She didn't say Daley's name but said the administration exceeded its authority in making the arrangement.
"The city was badly advised," she said. "The city council did not have an adequate opportunity to review the contract."
Braun has said this before, but now there are many people listening.
They're listening because she's now considered one of the favorites. And what they heard might be termed "the politics of denial."
Braun's claim that the courts would invalidate the parking meter lease deal, drew a heated response from Gery Chico.
"Before we perpetuate any more hysteria about trying to grab a headline because the meter rates just went up, let's be responsible about what we're going to do in government going forward," said Chico. "And let us not mislead voters, because it's a campaign season, into believing that something is there that really isn't there."
Chico dismissed Braun's vow to pursue legal action, saying it would be too costly. Even if a lawsuit were successful, the city would have to pay at least $1 billion to get the meters back.
Chico agrees the lease was a bad idea, but said that it's time to move on and quit playing politics on the issue.
When asked if she was holding out false hope with the parking meter issue, Braun replied, "OK, that's not called false hope, because what I'm saying to you today is that I'm committed to do everything I can do to make sure it happens."
Braun was coming off a weekend of appearances with former candidates Danny Davis and James Meeks, both having dropped out in the last 10 days; after the Chicago Defender headline "We all run, we all lose."
When asked what the reason was to come up with a consensus African American candidate, Braun said, "We just went around the three of us, Senator Meeks, Congressman Davis and myself, to look at it to see what was in the best interests of the whole city."
Braun is clearly hoping to recreate the movement nearly three decades ago, when an African-American consensus led to Chicago's first black mayor: Harold Washington.
"The black community thought overall, let's try to get one single candidate we can rally behind. But there are a lot of people who will not rally behind Carol Moseley Braun for many reasons," said political consultant Delmarie Cobb.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine & Newsradio 780's Political Editor Craig Dellimore contributed to this report.=
