Toni Preckwinkle has what it takes to run Chicago

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Mayoral candidate and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle | Max Herman/For the Sun-Times

Well, I guess they’ve all got what they wanted! All of these wannabes don’t have Rahm to kick around anymore. Now it’s put up time.

Exactly how are they going to make the city better? How are they going to stop the violence in the wards that double as war zones?

There’s been a whole lot of finger-pointing, not a lot of articulate discussion or ideas. There is no Harold Washington in the group running right now. The only individual I think can hit the ground running would be Toni Preckwinkle. She’s made her bones in Chicago politics and shown her independence.

So I say: Run, Toni, run. I’m sure if she would enter the race, they’ll all turn on her like a bunch of vipers, but she has the connections needed in this city of political land mines. I think it’s time for a black woman. Maybe she could command enough respect to make a difference in areas that Rahm had difficulties with.

No one with a shred of knowledge could say Toni can’t pull this off and be a huge asset for the Chicagoland community. Not just one section of Chicago, but the entire city. IT’S TIME!

John Sorg, Waukegan

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Thank you, Mayor Emanuel

Rahm, thank you for your excellent service. Since you took over this city, we have experienced tremendous prosperity and good governance after more than a century of constant corruption and cronyism.

There is no question Chicago is better today than at any other point in its history. And through it all, you have gotten very little credit. Many have criticized the hard decisions you have needed to make to keep our city functioning.

There is no way we can afford to keep high schools with 50 students open when our financial situation is so dire. These same people also ignore the work you have done to improve disadvantaged neighborhoods, and indeed in some instances — like your idea to invest nearly $100 million in a new police academy on the West Side — have actively protested those decisions.

There are difficult problems you have been working diligently on, and that remain works in progress: violent crime on the South and West sides that permeates through the entire city, new transit needs, and incomprehensible pensions deficits.

I believe you remain the best person to continue working on these issues. I fear that your departure will unleash a clown show of crooked aldermen and impractical activists who promise the moon to the city. I fear that your departure will reverse the progress we have made as a city. Because so few people have said it over the past seven years, I will say it once more: thank you. You are the best mayor this great city could have dreamed of.

Peter Saul, Gold Coast

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