The bruising debate over term limits is not over — yet.
Starting at 9:30 a.m. on Monday at City Hall, members of the public will be given two minutes each to tell Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, face to face, why they favor or oppose legislation that would permit him to seek a third term. It is not known how long the hearing will last.
It will be the first time that Mr. Bloomberg will be present for a public hearing on the legislation.
The Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID) strongly oppose the recent City Council vote extending their own terms of office and those of the Mayor and other municipal officeholders, as well as the unsavory tactics used by Mayor Bloomberg to bend the Council to his will. Strong-arming charities who depend upon the Mayor's largesse and harrassing vulnerable Council Members do not represent the transparent, accountable governance approaches that this Mayor has always claimed to offer. For the Mayor and City Council to dismiss two recent referenda proving the people's support for eight-year term limits is an outrage.
While many New York City Council members behaved in a cowardly and self-serving manner, Council member David Yassky was a spectacularly shining example of hypocrisy. It is hard to believe that his amendment to require a referendum on the extension of the terms of office was offered in good faith when, upon its defeat, Yassky then voted to support the power grab orchestrated by the Mayor, the City Council Speaker and New York's plutocracy.
CBID is proud that Senator Barack Obama has financed his Presidential campaign with four million donors, most have whom have made small contributions that represent personal sacrifice linked to their passion for the candidate. We don't want a city whose Mayor only has the support of one donor - himself - along with everyone else whose support he has bought with millions of dollars spent to date and during the coming year. This is not democracy in action.
This year, CBID has members working in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and other areas to protect and enhance democracy through a fair Presidential election. Next year, CBID's members will be working right here in New York City. Mayor Bloomberg, we will not dismiss or forget your hubris. Nor will we forget the lame but devastating votes cast by David Yassky and 28 other Council members. And we will not forgive.
WCBSTV published "Bloomberg Could Face Angry Council If Reelected", which makes a similar point to a NY Times article. Here is their description of the new dynamics at City Hall:
There's every indication that the mayor knows he needs to mend fences. On Friday, he met with council delegations from various boroughs about the Willets Point project.
"This kind of meeting on a mayoral proposal is somewhat unprecedented for this mayor," said Councilman Oliver Koppell (D-Bronx).
"He's almost never talked to council members, suddenly he's calling all of us and [asking] can't we all get along? And he's meeting with borough delegations and God bless him, but after seven years it's hard to believe a sudden revelation he wants to be cooperative," said Bill De Blasio (D-Brooklyn).
TPM provides a candid quote on the reasoning behind some of Bloomberg's support. In "Bloomberg Devotee: It's the rich who matter" Craig Gurian writes:Every once in a while, however, a window is opened on the embedded assumptions that shape City politics. The New York Times recently interviewed Felix Rohatyn, long-famed for bringing New York "back from the brink" of fiscal ruin in 1975. Rohatyn thinks we couldn't possibly have a better Mayor than Mike Bloomberg (Bloomberg is "as indispensable as anyone I know in doing that job"). Apparently Rohatyn is particularly reassured by comparing Bloomberg to himself: "I don't think there's anything I know about finance that [Bloomberg] doesn't know or can't get by snapping his fingers").
Entirely missing from Rohatyn's analysis, of course, was any reason why anyone should believe that Bloomberg has been or will be looking out for New York's middle and working classes. And Rohatyn provided the reporter (Sam Roberts) with a wonderful insight into why: The test of the city," says Rohatyn, "is whether it keeps attracting rich people, important people..." (emphasis in original)
There's some very interesting commentary coming from Henry J. Stern's column. His most recent installation is called "More Attitude, Less Gratitude." An excerpt:Councilmembers are specifically forbidden by the Charter (Section 38) from extending their own terms, but at the time the Charter was adopted (1989), term limits were not an issue, so there is no direct prohibitory language in the Charter. Similar provisions governing elections are protected from political tampering by that Section, and it was the clear intent of the Charter drafters not to allow politicians to interfere with the election process by changing the ground rules themselves.
Footnotes: All four Councilmembers who are seeking election this year voted No. They are McMahon (running for Congress), Addabbo and Gennaro (running for the State Senate) and Como (running for a one-year term as Councilmember). When I was on the Council, we used to call that 'Going off the reservation'. It was all right if you received a pass from the leadership.article >>
Now that the City Council has surrendered to Tsar Bloomberg and Director of the Gendarmes Christine Quinn on term limits, the legal challenge to their attack on the voters takes center stage. And that is where Norm Siegel comes in. A civil rights lawyer defending New Yorkers for decades, Norm Siegel is lending his expertise to the legal battle against the Bloomberg Putsch.
• It was inherently self-serving: Most of the members of the Council would have a hard time finding another $90,000-a-year job, but they should not have given in to the temptation of allowing themselves hold onto their cushy posts. Now Yassky can run for his seat virtually unopposed. Isn’t that convenient?
• It was falsely argued: The mayor and Yassky made the argument that the city’s economic downturn will be so traumatic that we need Bloomberg’s steady hand to pilot this sinking ship. Again, reasonable people can differ on whether Billionaire Mike is the man to oversee New York’s response to problems partly caused by his billionaire friends, but there is no doubt that New York City has come through deeper troubles before. Lest we forget, Bloomberg only became boss because then-Mayor Giuliani could not run for a third term despite widespread feeling that the continuity of his leadership was essential after 9-11. It wasn’t true then, and it ain’t true now.
• It was unnecessary right now: If Yassky and others truly believe that a three-term limit is better than two, fine. But such councilmembers could have easily voted against the mayor’s naked power grab and then called for a charter commission to review the issue calmly and soberly rather than in the heat of this manufactured leadership crisis.
