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Ronnie Woo-Woo Wants Rahm To Resign: 'Get Him Out'

By Ted Cox | December 10, 2015 1:19pm
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Ronnie "Woo-Woo" Wickers joined a City Hall demonstration led by Greg Livingston of the Coalition for a New Chicago.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

CITY HALL — Ronnie "Woo-Woo" Wickers has two words for Mayor Rahm Emanuel: "You're out!"

The Cubs' resident rooter, known for his "Woo-Woo" chants across Wrigleyville, joined a City Hall news conference Thursday urging the recall of the mayor.

"When you're right you're right, and when you're wrong you're wrong," Wickers said. "Get him out."

Wickers was the last speaker in a demonstration led by Gregory Seal Livingston, former spokesman for mayoral candidate Willie Wilson and now head of the Coalition for a New Chicago.

Livingston said his group was throwing its support behind a move by state Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) to formally create a state law establishing a process to recall a mayor.

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Ronnie "Woo-Woo" Wickers backed efforts to recall Mayor Rahm Emanuel, saying, "Get him out."
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

If enacted as is, the process would call for a formal petition to be filed with the Board of Elections, followed by the signing of the petition by at least 15 percent of the total vote count in the previous election, or about 86,000 signatures after Emanuel's re-election in April's runoff, and at least 50 from each of the city's 50 wards. The city would then vote on a recall within 100 days.

"We understand there's a desire by some to insert politics into this discussion, but the mayor's focus is not on his own personal politics," said mayoral spokeswoman Lauren Huffman. "His focus is on the residents of this city and finally and fully addressing the issue of police accountability, which has challenged Chicago for decades. He is energized by the challenge in front of us, and committed to driving real solutions for our city."

According to former U.S. Senate candidate LeAlan Jones, the final bill could also call for the support of at least two aldermen. Livingston and Jones attempted to make their coalition's Facebook page the focal point of the petition effort, even though it's far from being established whether an online petition would be permissible.

Yet they called for the recall bill to be hurried through the General Assembly, saying that Emanuel had lost the confidence of city residents. Livingston called Emanuel "the Nixon of Chicago."

Emanuel has been under fire for his handling of the Laquan McDonald case, among other issues.

Asked whom they would endorse as a replacement for the mayor, Jones mentioned aldermen Edward Burke (14th) and Patrick O'Connor (40th), who also happen to be the last remaining members of the so-called "Vrdolyak 29" that blocked reform efforts of Mayor Harold Washington in the era known as "Council Wars" in the mid-'80s.

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