Today I am announcing that I will not seek a thirty-eighth term as Mayor of the city of Chicago.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
For many years, I have been a public servant. I was Cook County State’s Attorney before I was Mayor. I was State’s Attorney when one of our fine police lieutenants was supposedly mistreating some of our fine black suspects in one of our police stations on our city’s great south side. This is one of the differences that we have moved past, so I won’t talk further about it. I am surprised that I brought it up.
I’ve had the opportunity to expand, to build, to create, unite, and compromise for the betterment of Chicago. Meigs Field, right, that was not a compromise, but the fine was small. And there must have been a compromise somewhere else along the way. It’s unfair to claim that it was always my way or the Skyway, which I alone decided to lease, but for the betterment of Chicago.
Now I am ready to begin a new phase of my life. I will be writing my memoirs, which all Chicagoans will be able to read by filing a simple Freedom of Information Act request.
