CITIES: The People's Choice

"When I first ran for mayor," said Paul Egan of Aurora. Ill. last week, "everybody thought I was a joke. They tried to prove I'm crazy. Once they got working on my wife and they almost had her persuaded to commit me to an institution." Opening the desk drawer in his office in the ramshackle city hall 35 miles west of Chicago, hen-shaped Mayor Egan spat into it, slammed it shut. At 58, blue-eyed, poly-chinned Paul Egan is no joke. The magazine Chicago called him "the worst mayor in the world"—but the electorate of industrial Aurora (pop. 57,000) does...

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