America's Big-City Mayors Quitting In Droves -- Former Glamour Post Now Seen As `A Horrible Job'

Once they were the most powerful of politicians, ward heelers and street fighters whose influence rivaled that of presidents. They grew larger than life handing out patronage jobs and clearing the roads promptly when it snowed, and many never left office until they died or went to jail.

But as cities have declined, the prestige of being a mayor has gone down with them, say a record number of mayors bailing out this year. And the high turnover, many of these mayors contend, is no fluke: Urban problems and the shrinking power of the mayor's office are deterring promising candidates and denting for good the stature of a position steeped in history and lore.

"Pressure?" asked Bill Althaus, mayor of York, Pa., who is stepping down after 12 years. "What pressure? I've snapped already. The most difficult political job in America just gets worse every year."

That's not all:

"I don't believe people in this country care if we solve the problems of cities as long as we just leave them alone," Althaus said.

And he's the past president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Such legendary city leaders as six-term Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Boston Mayor James Michael Curley would cringe at such talk.

But they never faced problems like those of Althaus and at least 15 big-city mayors who are leaving office: AIDS. Crack. Homelessness. A growing divide between suburbs and cities. Orders from the federal government to provide services - without the money necessary to carry them out.

Not to mention that Daley and Curley and New York's Fiorello La Guardia had well-oiled political machines and fat public payrolls to keep the troops in line.

"It's a horrible job," declared Richard Sennett, a city historian at New York University. "It's not a job anyone in their right mind would want."

Many mayors quitting

Among those big-city mayors who are retiring, taking new jobs or simply stepping down are Coleman Young in Detroit, Maynard Jackson in Atlanta, Xavier Suarez in Miami, Raymond Flynn in Boston, Tom Bradley in Los Angeles and Sophie Masloff in Pittsburgh.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors says the turnover is the highest in 25 years. The group doesn't track the number of smaller-city mayors leaving office.

A high rate of turnover wasn't the case even as recently as a decade ago.

Take the case of Juanita Crabb of Binghamton, N.Y. In 1982, she was a 33-year-old idealist who very much wanted to be mayor. She saw it as a political position like no other in America, one that would allow her to improve people's lives in substantive ways and even to change the physical appearance of her city.

She headed efforts to build a new baseball stadium downtown and to put more police officers on the street.

The problems mount

But the Reagan years marked the end of revenue sharing, in which the federal government handed out money to cities. At the same time, troubles like violent crime and drugs showed up in a town that hadn't experienced them before. Crabb began to see the flip side of her position.

"People think you're the mayor and you can make it right," Crabb said. "We talk about problems in the abstract on the state and federal level. But people come into my office and say they've been laid off, and I know these people. They're friends and neighbors. You end up commiserating and not being able to help them. It's real frustrating."

By the end of her tenure, Crabb felt a mayor's duties constituted a long and nearly impossible list: economic development director, CEO, marketing whiz, budget genius, public-works expert. "You name it," she said, "and it's found in the small print of the job description of a mayor."

Crabb, a Democrat now running for state assembly, said she worries about who will be attracted to the mayor's office in the future and whether candidates will realize what's required of them. One of those seeking to succeed her, Crabb noted, held a major news conference recently to announce that, if elected, he would plant more trees and put suggestion boxes in the park.

In Newark, N.J., no stranger to urban problems, Mayor Sharpe James is hanging in regardless of the pressures. "I've lost my hair already, I'm losing weight, all of those things," he said. "But you have certain projects you can't walk away from."

He doesn't rule out leaving in the near future, though.

"It's a lonely outpost," James said. "There are lots of city halls out there with signs out front that say, `Wanted: Mayor.' "

--------------------------------------------- NATION'S VOTERS CHOOSING GOVERNORS, MAYORS ---------------------------------------------

Tomorrow's elections at a glance:

Governors

-- New Jersey: Democratic incumbent Jim Florio, whose 1990 tax increase made him Public Enemy No. 1 for many New Jerseyans, has regained some of his stature and leads in polls over Republican Christine Todd Whitman.

-- Virginia: Republican George Allen has surged ahead in polls over Democrat Mary Sue Terry. Virginia law prohibits Democratic incumbent L. Douglas Wilder from running for a second consecutive term.

Mayors

-- New York: In a rematch, Democratic incumbent David Dinkins and Republican challenger Rudolph Giuliani are slugging it out in the streets. The dominant themes: crime and ethnic tension. Polls give Dinkins a slight edge.

-- Detroit: Retiring Mayor Coleman Young will cede his troubled city to one of two black Democrats - prosecutor Sharon McPhail or former state Supreme Court Judge Dennis Archer - in a nonpartisan runoff.

-- Boston: America's most clannish big city chooses between an Italian-American, acting Mayor Thomas Menino, and an Irish-American, state Rep. James Brett. Raymond Flynn quit to become U.S. envoy to the Vatican.

-- Atlanta: A 12-candidate race will determine who leads Atlanta into the 1996 Olympics. Leading contenders include County Commissioner Michael Lomax and City Council members Bill Campbell and Myrtle Davis.

-- Pittsburgh: Democrat Tom Murphy is considered the front-runner in a three-way race to succeed the inimitable Sophie Masloff. He'll try to hold off Republican Kathy Matta and independent Duane Darkins.

-- Miami: Former Mayor Steve Clark and city Commissioner Miriam Alonso are favored to emerge from a six-candidate field and sprint into a Nov. 9 runoff. The overriding issue, not surprisingly, has been crime.

Propositions

-- School vouchers: A California proposition would provide vouchers worth $2,600 for every child to use at any public or private school.

-- Term limits: Measures are on the ballot in Maine, New York City and upstate Monroe County, N.Y., and Downey, Calif.

-- Recall: A proposed constitutional amendment in New Jersey would permit recall of all elected officials.

-- Secession: Voters in New York City's least populous borough, Staten Island, can take another step toward floating off on their own.

-- Taxes: Two measures in Washington state would rein in taxes by tying them to inflation, population growth and personal income. One of them also rolls back a $1 billion tax increase.

-- Gay rights: Measures in Cincinnati and Lewiston, Maine, would repeal gay rights ordinances; a nonbinding resolution in Portsmouth, N.H., tests public sentiment on the issue.

-- Dummy: Proposition BB on the San Francisco ballot would allow Officer Bob Geary to go on patrol with his wooden-headed dummy, Officer Brendan O'Smarty, which the police brass, for some reason, doesn't like.

Associated Press