NEW YORK | Bloomberg's reach for a 3rd term

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/ny...l?ref=nyregion

Back When the Mayor Loved Term Limits

By CLYDE HABERMAN
October 20, 2008


In 2002, a prominent New Yorker’s blood was boiling over an attempt in the City Council to fiddle with the city’s term limits law. It was the voters who had imposed those limits in two separate referendums a few years earlier, this man said. “I would oppose any change in the law that a legislative body tries to make,” he said.

Three years later, another effort was under way in the Council to monkey with the law, this time to extend the limit to three terms from two — to 12 years from 8. The prominent New Yorker’s blood was still up.

“This is an outrage,” he said in a radio interview. The people had spoken, he said. He added: “There’s no organization that I know that would put somebody in charge for a long period of time. You always want turnover and change. Eight years is great. You learn for four years. You can do for four years.”

O.K., enough coyness. You’ve no doubt figured out that we’re quoting Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The expressed will of the people was a matter of high principle for him.

That was then. Now that he wants City Council members to hand him a third term through legislation — and to treat themselves to more time in office while they’re at it — Mr. Bloomberg has redefined the concept of principle. These days, he calls it dogmatism.

“People that don’t change their mind when the facts change are so dogmatic, they’re not very practical or effective,” he said a few days ago.

What has changed, he says, is the turmoil in the American economy; it requires that his hand remain on the tiller an extra four years. In fact, he was thinking and winking about a third term well before the Dow Jones charts started looking like the EKG of a heart attack victim. For the mayor, principle had morphed into dogmatism quite a while ago.

It is but one example of how, as the politicians and their allies duke it out over term limits, language as a tool to reflect reality has absorbed some of the most severe blows. On occasion, math has taken it on the chin as well.

Take the private deal that Mr. Bloomberg reached with his fellow billionaire Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir and money man behind the local term-limits movement. In return for Mr. Lauder’s keeping his mouth shut this time around, Mr. Bloomberg promised him a seat on a commission that might re-examine this issue in a couple of years. Two civic groups complained to the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board that ethics laws had been violated. In the lexicon of the mayor’s office, however, a reasonable query was distorted into “a publicity stunt.”

Omitted words also inform the debate. On Sunday, The Daily News published an opinion article supporting the mayor’s grab for more time. It was written by Felix G. Rohatyn, the respected investment banker who helped bring New York back from the fiscal abyss of the 1970s.

Mr. Rohatyn pointed out the economic mess that New York was in after the 2001 terror attacks. “Michael Bloomberg rose to the occasion and his leadership protected the city,” he wrote. Somehow, Mr. Rohatyn failed to note that Mr. Bloomberg was able to rise to the occasion only because of term limits. They forced out Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and foiled his own efforts to cling to office.

At a Council hearing last week, the mayor’s counselor, Anthony W. Crowell, not only omitted important words but also resorted to a bit of mathematical legerdemain. Trying to trivialize the 1996 vote that reaffirmed a limit of two terms, Mr. Crowell noted that the majority represented only 17 percent of all registered voters in the city. He neglected to mention that Mr. Bloomberg had virtually the same level of support — 18 percent of registered voters — when he won office in 2001.

Memo to Mr. Crowell: Showing up is what counts in elections. Playing with percentages of registered voters is just that — playing.

In this debate, certain words, like “choice,” have been turned upside down by the mayor and his Council helpmate, the speaker Christine C. Quinn. Both characterize their campaign to strip voters of a chance to choose the future for term limits as an expansion of voter choice in the next municipal elections.

SOME of their language is reminiscent of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” in which the rulers (they happen to be the pigs) distort once-inviolable commandments. To cite one example, the edict that “no animal shall kill any other animal” is slyly morphed to read: “No animal shall kill any other animal without cause.”

A few days ago, the radio station WNYC played parts of old talks by Mr. Bloomberg, including one from 2002. Back then, the new mayor said: “The people themselves have twice explicitly voted for term limits. We cannot ignore their will. They want the openness new faces bring. And they will get it. We will not go back.”

In the spirit of “Animal Farm,” Mr. Bloomberg now in effect says: We will not go back — to the voters to find out what they think.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/ny...l?ref=nyregion

Mayor’s Tactics Are Alienating Some Big Allies

By MICHAEL BARBARO
October 22, 2008


In his aggressive pursuit of a third term, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has begun to alienate some of his fiercest supporters, who say that his hardball tactics are undercutting his well-earned legacy as a reformer and an anti-politician.

In dozens of interviews, former aides to the mayor, elected officials, good-government advocates and voters said they have become deeply disillusioned by the way Mr. Bloomberg is corralling support to rewrite the city’s term limits law, which New Yorkers have endorsed twice in citywide referendums.

Over the last three weeks, the mayor and his aides have silenced a potential critic of his third-term bid with the promise of a plum position on a government committee, pressed groups that rely on his donations to speak on his behalf and cajoled union leaders to appear on camera endorsing his agenda.

Those tactics are expected to deliver a victory on Thursday when the City Council votes on whether to allow Mr. Bloomberg to seek a third term. But many of those interviewed say the horse-trading and arm-twisting he has used in pursuing that term are at odds with his claim to being above the fray of rough-and-tumble politics.

“This is the first move that really pushes the boundary of what he can get away with,” said David Garth, a top political strategist in Mr. Bloomberg’s 2001 campaign for mayor. “This is not a good-government move, and Mike knows it.”

Another Bloomberg admirer, Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer, who has sided with the mayor on important issues like raising property taxes and his bid to impose a congestion pricing fee, said she and her Upper West Side constituents “love the mayor, but are against this process.”

Mr. Bloomberg, who once called an attempt to ease term limits “disgraceful,” is pushing legislation that would allow him, council members and most other elected city officials to serve three consecutive four-year terms rather than two. Allies say he has enough support to pass it on Thursday.

If he does prevail, the victory may carry a cost to his reputation.

The disenchantment with Mr. Bloomberg runs especially deep among his former aides and advisers at City Hall. In interviews, five of them said they had been surprised and unsettled by the mayor’s tactics. “It stinks of clubhouse politics,” said one former aide. “It’s not like him.”

Another said that when former Bloomberg staff members meet for drinks these days, and the topic turns to his third-term bid, “people roll their eyes and say they are glad to not be there anymore.”

The aides said that they had adopted Mr. Bloomberg’s vision and enlisted in his administration because they believed he was a transformational figure in New York politics.

Richard D. Emery, a civil rights and election lawyer who in the late 1980s helped dismantle the city’s Board of Estimate, which controlled much of the city’s spending, has strongly supported Mr. Bloomberg, describing him as a “terrific politician because he is not a politician.”

“Up until now, he has been a paradigm of what a municipal mayor should be,” Mr. Emery said, but watching Mr. Bloomberg’s heavy-handed approach to remaining in office has left him disaffected, he added.

“He is becoming a typical hack, playing the same old games,” he said. “It’s tragic and it’s sad.”

Friends who originally urged Mr. Bloomberg to seek a third term said he has been taken aback by the depth of the opposition, which has prompted him to engage in a bruising political style he is not entirely comfortable with.

“It has required slightly sharper elbows than anyone would have liked,” said one friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This is not how he prefers to do business. He is not particularly happy with the situation.”

Mr. Bloomberg seems outwardly unperturbed by the criticism, casting his decision to seek a third term as an honorable act of public service. “There is nothing better than to try to make a difference, and if the public wants me, I would be honored to do it for four more years,” he said.

Asked if his aggressive campaign could injure his reputation, he said friends regularly told him that “if you walk away now, you can walk away with a stellar reputation as the world’s greatest mayor.”

“Even if it were true,” he said, “how can you walk away from something when you know there’s going to be tough times? The challenge is to do it now.”

Those frustrated by Mr. Bloomberg’s conduct acknowledge that he is well-equipped to manage New York City in a financial crisis, but they are dismayed by his decision to bypass voters, who remain in favor of the current term limits, according to polls.

In a torrent of e-mail messages and phone calls to members of the Council, voters have voiced their objections. Of the 600 messages sent to Ms. Brewer, for example, 75 percent oppose Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal, she said, even as they praise Mr. Bloomberg for his record on education, crime and city services.

“Power corrupts and as we are seeing now, he is not immune to this common human trait,” said one e-mail message, which added, “I do believe that Michael Bloomberg has done a good job.”

“He’s making a mockery of the system,” said another constituent, who noted that “he has been a relatively good administrator for the city.”

Aides to the mayor said the concept of a Bloomberg third term was supported by a large but silent group of New Yorkers who are not motivated to write their council members.

Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, said, “Remaining popular was not on his mind” when he decided to seek a third a term, “nor was it when he made decisions like supporting congestion pricing or the smoking ban.”

Mr. Bloomberg has been harshly criticized for striking a deal with Ronald S. Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics heir whose well-financed campaign helped create term limits in 1993. Fearing that Mr. Lauder would oppose him, Mr. Bloomberg promised to appoint him to a charter revision commission that could restore the two-term limit in 2010 and put the issue up for a voter referendum.

David Yassky, a council member from Brooklyn and a close ally of the mayor, said his constituents “very much don’t like the way he is going about changing term limits, and they especially don’t like the feeling that this is a deal among a narrow group of people. That sentiment is near universal.”

Mr. Yassky said 85 percent of the roughly 800 constituents he has heard from object to the mayor’s plan, even though they hold the mayor in high regard and dislike term limits. Like Ms. Brewer, Mr. Yassky has called for a referendum, rather than legislation, to decide whether to change term limits.

Many who are unhappy with the term limits campaign complain that Mr. Bloomberg and the City Council have only held two public hearings about the legislation and are quickly scheduling a vote on the bill in the midst of an intense presidential campaign and an economic crisis.

At those hearings, Mr. Bloomberg’s aides and allies asked groups that have received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of his private donations to testify on his behalf, and allowed supporters to fill seats with people who did not plan to testify.

The mayor’s office said opponents employed similar tactics during the contentious hearings.

Mr. Bloomberg appeared to antagonize his critics over the last few days by saying he did not listen to any of the testimony and by describing many of the speakers at the hearings as “people who emote.” A majority opposed Mr. Bloomberg’s legislation.

Mr. Garth, the political consultant who worked for Mr. Bloomberg, said New Yorkers were discovering that a mayor they revere as the consummate political outsider is capable of disappointing them. “A part of Mike was always too good to be true. The guy makes very few mistakes for a mayor of a city like this. He has been unbelievably successful.”

Still, “there is an arrogance about the mayor, and people resent that.”

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by NY Times

Mr. Bloomberg, who once called an attempt to ease term limits “disgraceful,” is pushing legislation that would allow him, council members and most other elected city officials to serve three consecutive four-year terms rather than two.

Even if you buy into the "only Bloomberg can save NY" argument, no one on the council has yet explained why they too would need to stay in office. But the truth is, there was no way in hell the council was even going to entertain the idea of lifting limits for Bloomberg and not do it for themselves.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/ny...on&oref=slogin

Referendum Pushed for Term-Limit Plan


By DAVID W. CHEN and FERNANDA SANTOS
October 22, 2008


Saying they valued both sides of the debate over Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s bid to change the term limits law to allow him to run again, three City Council members said on Wednesday that they would introduce a measure requiring that any revisions be achieved through a public referendum, not legislation.

If the measure is successful, it would essentially nullify the bill supported by the mayor, which requires only Council approval for the term-limit changes to take effect. The council members’ measure would amend the mayor’s bill, which is expected to come up for a vote on Thursday, and require that a charter review commission be created to push for a referendum that could be held as early as February.

The three members — David Yassky of Brooklyn and Alan J. Gerson and Gale A. Brewer of Manhattan — said they concurred with Mr. Bloomberg’s assessment that the global financial crisis required continuity in municipal government, and that changing term limits to three four-year terms from two for the mayor and Council on a one-time basis was in the city’s best interest.

But they rejected the mayor’s contention that legislation was the best way to achieve that goal, saying that a referendum would better reflect the wishes of most New Yorkers. “We think this has a chance, a good chance,” Mr. Gerson said during a news conference on the City Hall steps. Whether Mr. Gerson was being overly optimistic remains to be seen. Administration officials said they were confident that the amendment would fail. Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, who supports the mayor’s bill and has been lobbying her colleagues furiously behind the scenes, said much the same.

“I am very optimistic that the mayor’s bill will pass in the Council tomorrow,” she said at an event on Staten Island.

But one of the bill’s most ardent critics, the Working Families Party, praised the amendment. And a few council members and lobbyists contended that it had a fair shot at passage. “I think it’s 50-50 at this point,” said one council member who supports the amendment.

The three council members must introduce the measure in the form of an amendment because copies of the mayor’s bill have already been printed.

On Thursday morning, the mayor’s bill will first be taken up by the Government Operations Committee, which held two marathon days of public hearings last week. If the bill clears the committee, as expected, it will go before the full Council in the afternoon. But under the Council’s rules, the amendment must be considered first, by the full Council.

If the amendment passes, it would represent an embarrassing political setback for Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn, who, as close allies, have successfully persuaded council members on issue after issue.

If it fails, then the Council will vote on the mayor’s bill, and the expectation on Wednesday night was that Mr. Bloomberg would ultimately prevail, albeit by a small margin.

The unexpected amendment added to a chaotic day of lobbying and last-minute twists in the term-limits fight, as both sides scrambled to gain any advantage, however slim.

In State Supreme Court in Manhattan, city officials won a round when Justice Jacqueline Winter Silbermann rejected a petition filed by two council members attempting to block the Council’s vote. The petition asked the court to reverse a ruling by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board last week allowing council members to modify, extend or abolish term limits even if they directly benefit from the change.

The two council members — Bill de Blasio and Letitia James, both of Brooklyn — had argued that the public deserved to have an independent body decide whether it was a conflict of interest for council members to essentially determine their own political destiny. But the city argued that council members are merely being asked to make a tough decision, which is their job.

Justice Silbermann accepted the city’s argument, saying that council members could always vote no or abstain. But Randy M. Mastro, a deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration who is representing Mr. de Blasio and Ms. James, hinted that more legal action could be in the works.

“This is not the end of a process,” Mr. Mastro said. “This is the beginning of a process.”

Meanwhile, three other council members removed themselves from the dwindling list of undecideds. Jessica S. Lappin of Manhattan and Michael E. McMahon, who is the Democratic nominee for a Congressional seat on Staten Island, said they would oppose the bill, while Sara M. Gonzalez of Brooklyn said she would support it.

In an interview, Ms. Lappin said, “Even though I oppose term limits, I think it’s very important to respect the will of the people.”

Mr. McMahon’s vote came as a surprise. His brother Thomas, a prominent lobbyist, is married to Deputy Mayor Linda I. Gibbs, and the councilman has been a close ally of the mayor.

As it stands now, 18 members say they support the mayor’s bill, 22 say they oppose it and 11 are undecided.

Mr. Yassky, Mr. Gerson and Ms. Brewer are among the 11 who are undecided. But the conventional wisdom is that if their amendment fails, they will ultimately vote for the bill — even though they said during the news conference that they had not yet made up their minds.

Small wonder, then, that several reporters asked the three a variation on the same question: Is their amendment simply a fig leaf to allow them to say that they tried to stop the mayor’s bill, before ultimately voting for it?

“Absolutely not,” Mr. Yassky said.

That, however, did not impress Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, a good-government group that has been critical of Mr. Bloomberg’s maneuvers.

“It is kind of like a John Kerry position,” said Mr. Dadey, who appeared at his own news conference, in almost the same spot, just an hour earlier.

“If they vote for the amendment and then vote for the bill without the amendment, it will be seen as a crass political move intended to provide them cover in voting to extend term limits,” he said.

[ThisSideofSteinway]

Council Votes, 29 to 22, to Extend Term Limits

By Sewell Chan AND Jonathan P. Hicks

After a spirited, emotional and at times raucous debate, the New York City Council voted, 29 to 22, on Thursday afternoon to extend term limits, allowing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek re-election next year and undoing the result of two voter referendums that had imposed a limit of two four-year terms.

The vote was a major victory for Mayor Bloomberg — a billionaire and lifelong Democrat who was elected mayor as a Republican in 2001, won re-election in 2005, became an independent last year, and decided just weeks ago that he wished to seek a third term for himself in 2009 — and for the Council’s speaker, Christine C. Quinn. But the intense acrimony surrounding the decision left a sharply divided Council and could ultimately damage the mayor’s popularity.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...its-change/?hp



Well, at least my councilman voted against this farce.

All hail Emperor Bloomberg!

[Crawford]

Go Bloomberg!!!

[Matty]

I never thought I could feel so relieved yet so disgusted at the same time.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by ThisSideofSteinway

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...its-change/?hp



Well, at least my councilman voted against this farce.

All hail Emperor Bloomberg!

LOL, they should just make him mayor for life. But it will be a complicated election, assuming things get that far. I know Bloomberg and the term-limited council members had nothing to lose. But Bloomberg has shown just how much he really is like the others. Only this guy is worse, because he had everyone fooled. Basically what Bloomberg and the Council have said to New Yorkers is that "on your best days, we are smarter than you are, and you couldn't even breath on your own without us."

[NYguy]

The follies continue...
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10252008...ote_135191.htm

REALLY SICKENING VOTE
PRESSURED TERM POL PUKED BEFORE SHE CAST LOT WITH MIKE



ILL: Reported political threats against Brooklyn Councilwoman Darlene Mealy before the vote may have contributed to her queasiness.

By SALLY GOLDENBERG and DAVID SEIFMAN
October 25, 2008

Darlene Mealy - one of only two City Council members to switch sides in the tense term-limits vote - was under such intense pressure and threats that she vomited twice at City Hall before announcing her decision, sources said yesterday.

Mealy's "yes" vote drew gasps from the audience in the packed council chambers Thursday, since it was the first public signal that the opposition was headed to a slim defeat, 29-22.

Some council members insist Mealy, who was injured in a car crash just hours after the vote, was threatened.

"She was very upset. She kept saying she has to deliver for her district, and she was tired of being on the losing side," said Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), one of the bill's leading adversaries.

Opponents said Mealy was told she would face trouble for trying to sponsor a $25,000 grant for a Brooklyn block association run by her sister in Fiscal Year 2007.

Mealy attempted to allocate her council discretionary funds for her sister's group, the Fulton-Atlantic-Ralph-Rochester Community Association (FARR), but the request was mysteriously pulled.

Jamie McShane, a spokesman for council Speaker Christine Quinn, denied Mealy was threatened in any way.

Proponents of the measure said it was the other side - namely the Working Families Party - that tried to intimidate Mealy by warning they would mount a campaign against her in the next election.

When a Post reporter approached her in City Hall before the vote, Mealy called out for Bill Lipton, of the Working Families Party, and hustled away without addressing questions on term limits.

"Even while we were on the floor, Bill Lipton came over to her and tried to flip her back," said Councilman Lew Fidler (D-Brooklyn), a proponent of the bill.

He said Mealy told him "people she considered to be political allies were threatening her."

A Post reporter saw her leave Thursday's council meeting twice, and one member said she threw up before the vote.

Mealy issued a statement yesterday saying she changed from "no" to "yes" only after "strong deliberation."

Mealy's auto accident occurred Thursday night in Queens. She said in a statement that she was not seriously injured. Sources said she broke her collarbone.

________________________________


http://www.nypost.com/seven/10242008...ers_135107.htm

SCORING ON END RUN VS. THE VOTERS



October 24, 2008

THE council members conjured up old Abe Lincoln. And George Orwell. Even Venezuelan beastie Hugo Chavez made a cameo appearance at City Hall - when one member said he preferred him to our mayor, better known as the man who wants to rule New York for life.

But the star of yesterday's show wasn't a dead politician. It was Mama Vacca, mother of Councilman James.

She's a lady who watches a lot of "Matlock," but her recent conversion to New York 1 scared the heck out of ol' mama - and made her persuade her boy to give Mayor Bloomberg everything he asked for.

"They said I can't vote for who I want!" James Vacca screeched, adopting the voice of his mom.

The City Council chamber was jammed with an overflow crowd that watched the council capitulate to Bloomberg - and extend the limit a politician can hold office from two terms to three.

Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, who opposed the extension, actually quoted a familiar commercial to make her point. "Democracy - priceless."

Councilman Bill de Blasio showed off an education wasted on his chosen profession, finding it "Orwellian" that Bloomberg said he wanted to force the council to extend his term in office - because it would give voters a "better choice."

Not to be outdone, Charles Barron said Venezuela's Chavez brought a term-limit extension to voters, but they turned him down. "He said 'fine,' Mayor Bloomberg - be like Hugo," Barron chided.

And this, my friends, is the way your City Council does business.

Embarrassing? Yes. Inevitable? To quote Sarah Palin - You betcha.

Still, a stench of inevitability clung to the council chamber like mildew.

The mayor yesterday became the first man to profit handsomely from the city's financial mess, doing an end run around voters by threatening that he's the only guy who can lead them out of financial darkness.

And, like sheep, the council members, one by one, fell into lock step.

I'm no great fan of term limits, but they're the law of the land. And this was a blatant political power grab, executed by a crafty mayor.

A mayor who's smarter than all of us.

[NYguy]

http://downtownexpress.com/de_284/termlimits.html

Third Term Opportunity for Bloomberg?
How The New York City Council Voted

On the critical issue of whether term limits in New York City should be extended from two terms to three, members of The New York City Council, on October 23, 2008, voted as follows:

On an amendment calling for a public vote on term limits:

28 NO - 22 YES - 1 Abstention

Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. of Queens, yes;
Maria del Carmen Arroyo of the Bronx, no;
Tony Avella of Queens, yes;
Maria Baez of the Bronx, no;
Charles Barron of Brooklyn, yes;
Gale A. Brewer of Manhattan, yes;
Anthony Como of Queens, no;
Leroy G. Comrie Jr. of Queens, no;
Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn, yes;
Inez E. Dickens of Manhattan, no;
Erik Martin Dilan of Brooklyn , no;
Mathieu Eugene Brooklyn, yes;
Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, no;
Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn, no;
Helen D. Foster of the Bronx, no;
Daniel R. Garodnick of Manhattan, yes;
James F. Gennaro of Queens, yes;
Vincent J. Gentile of Brooklyn, yes;
Alan J. Gerson of Manhattan, yes;
Eric N. Gioia of Queens, yes;
Sara M. Gonzalez of Brooklyn, no;
Vincent M. Ignizio of Staten Island, yes;
Robert Jackson of Manhattan, no;
Letitia James of Brooklyn, yes;
Melinda R. Katz of Queens, no;
G. Oliver Koppell of the Bronx, no;
Jessica S. Lappin of Manhattan, no;
John C. Liu of Queens, yes;
Melissa Mark-Viverito of Manhattan, yes;
Miguel Martinez of Manhattan, no;
Michael E. McMahon of Staten Island, yes;
Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, no;
Rosie Mendez of Manhattan, yes;
Hiram Monserrate of Queens, yes;
Michael C. Nelson of Brooklyn, no;
James S. Oddo of Staten Island, yes;
Annabel Palma of the Bronx, yes;
Christine C. Quinn of Manhattan; no;
Domenic M. Recchia Jr. of Brooklyn, no;
Diana Reyna of Brooklyn, no;
Joel Rivera of the Bronx, no;
James Sanders Jr. of Queens, abstain;
Larry B. Seabrook of the Bronx, no;
Helen Sears of Queens, no;
Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn, no;
James Vacca of the Bronx, no;
Peter F. Vallone, Jr. of Queens, no;
Albert Vann of Brooklyn, no;
David I. Weprin of Queens, yes;
Thomas White Jr. of Queens, no;
David Yassky of Brooklyn, yes.



On extending term limits for New York City elected officials to three terms from two.

29 YES - 22 NO

Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. of Queens, no;
Maria del Carmen Arroyo of the Bronx, yes;
Tony Avella of Queens, no;
Maria Baez of the Bronx, yes;
Charles Barron of Brooklyn, no;
Gale A. Brewer of Manhattan, no;
Anthony Como of Queens, no;
Leroy G. Comrie Jr. of Queens, yes;
Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn, no;
Inez E. Dickens of Manhattan, yes;
Erik Martin Dilan of Brooklyn, yes;
Mathieu Eugene of Brooklyn, no;
Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, yes;
Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn, yes;
Helen D. Foster of the Bronx, yes;
Daniel R. Garodnick of Manhattan, no;
James F. Gennaro of Queens, no;
Vincent J. Gentile of Brooklyn, no;
Alan J. Gerson of Manhattan, yes;
Eric N. Gioia of Queens, no;
Sara M. Gonzalez of Brooklyn, yes;
Vincent M. Ignizio of Staten Island, no;
Robert Jackson of Manhattan, yes;
Letitia James of Brooklyn, no;
Melinda R. Katz of Queens, yes;
G. Oliver Koppell of the Bronx, yes;
Jessica S. Lappin of Manhattan, no;
John C. Liu of Queens, no;
Melissa Mark-Viverito of Manhattan, no;
Miguel Martinez of Manhattan, yes;
Michael E. McMahon of Staten Island, no;
Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, yes;
Rosie Mendez of Manhattan, no;
Hiram Monserrate of Queens, no;
Michael C. Nelson of Brooklyn, yes;
James S. Oddo of Staten Island, no;
Annabel Palma of the Bronx, no;
Christine C. Quinn of Manhattan; yes;
Domenic M. Recchia Jr. of Brooklyn, yes;
Diana Reyna of Brooklyn, yes;
Joel Rivera of the Bronx, yes;
James Sanders Jr. of Queens, yes;
Larry B. Seabrook of the Bronx, yes;
Helen Sears of Queens, yes;
Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn, yes;
James Vacca of the Bronx, yes;
Peter F. Vallone, Jr. of Queens, yes;
Albert Vann of Brooklyn, yes;
David I. Weprin of Queens, no;
Thomas White Jr. of Queens, yes;
David Yassky of Brooklyn, yes.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/ny...on&oref=slogin

Money and Power Revised Term Limits, and It Won’t Be Forgotten

By CLYDE HABERMAN
October 27, 2008

Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.

That line at the end of Roman Polanski’s classic film “Chinatown” sums up how many New Yorkers feel now that the politicians have treated themselves to a chance for an extra four years on the public payroll.

“Forget it, Jake” has come to mean different things to different people. It can capture disillusionment, or the futility of bucking the mighty, or a realization that you may think you know what’s going on, but you don’t, not really.

Or all of the above.

Those who care about such matters may be speculating for some time about who on the City Council voted their conscience on extending term limits and who were perhaps bought or rented. Statements of high principle abounded in the Council chamber last Thursday. Many were no doubt sincere. But you’d have to be awfully naïve not to recognize that self-interest flowed freely as well — on both sides, whether among the 29 council members who agreed to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s pitch for more time in office or among the 22 who said no.

You’d also have to be awfully naïve not to assume that some politicians will pay for crossing the mayor and his complaisant sidekick, the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn. Well before the Council vote last Thursday, one of Ms. Quinn’s chief opponents on this issue, Councilman Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn, warned that (to borrow from another film) there will be blood.

“We have already signed our death warrants in terms of member items and everything else,” Mr. de Blasio said three weeks ago. It shouldn’t take long to find out if he was right.

Not everyone is ready to walk away from this issue saying, “Forget it, Jake.” Lawsuits challenging the term limits extension are likely. Not that the mayor is losing sleep over them. On Friday, in his weekly radio call-in program, he sounded optimistic about prevailing in court.

One person who may want to pay close attention to the mayor’s words on the radio is Ronald S. Lauder. Like Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Lauder is a billionaire, though unlike the mayor, he inherited his money, having been wise enough to be born to the cosmetics queen Estée Lauder.

Mr. Lauder holds no political office. Yet he has a role in this drama because he bankrolled campaigns in the 1990s that led to term limits’ receiving the blessing of New York voters in two referendums. Money talks. Sometimes it shouts. It did in Mr. Lauder’s hands.

At first, he was cool to Mr. Bloomberg’s wish for a shot at four more years at City Hall. The mayor, however, bought Mr. Lauder’s silence. He did it by promising to appoint him to a commission that would re-examine the term limits issue and perhaps restore the old two-term limit on which Mr. Lauder had spent millions of his inherited dollars. But this would not happen until 2010 — after Mr. Bloomberg got his extra time in power.

The arrangement understandably fueled a perception among many New Yorkers that this entire debate was a wholly owned subsidiary of the city’s oligarchy.

Even if it were, any change ultimately recommended by this new commission would have to be put before the voters. On the radio, Mr. Bloomberg left little doubt about his distaste for going that route. He cited the complex nature of city government. “You don’t run that by taking referendums on everything,” he said.

His comment misrepresented reality. New York hardly holds referendums on everything; we’re not California. We have referendums on very few things.

But in one such instance, five years ago, the voters soundly thumped Mr. Bloomberg when he sought their support for nonpartisan elections. That experience seems to have soured him on plebiscites. A reasonable inference from his latest remarks is that he is not interested in any kind of referendum at all.

The cosmetics heir may want to bear that in mind, and make sure the mayor is not playing him for a powder puff.

In one regard, Mr. Bloomberg is like Noah Cross, the villain in “Chinatown,” who was prepared to do anything to get his way. Not that the mayor would kill, as Cross did. But he is ready to bury his opposition in dollars — by spending as much as $100 million in the 2009 election, his lieutenants say.

“It’s expensive to get your message out,” he said on Friday with a straight face. So much for appeals from the likes of Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., a former corporation counsel, who has urged the mayor to play by the same spending rules as other candidates to make “a fair fight” of it.

Mr. Bloomberg knows that his reputation has taken hard blows in the fight over term limits. But he is apparently betting that the passage of time will restore whatever he may have lost in respectability.

Noah Cross would have counseled him to hang in there. “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores,” he said, “all get respectable if they last long enough.”

[PhillyRising]

It should have been up to the citizens of New York to decide whether to change the law in a special referendum they could have put on the ballot next week. Frank Rizzo tried this in Philadelphia in 1979 and the people of Philadelphia went to the voting booths and blocked his attempt to change the city charter. It's not fair that the voices of the people of New York City were not heard. Let them decide if they want the term limits removed.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

It should have been up to the citizens of New York to decide whether to change the law in a special referendum they could have put on the ballot next week. Frank Rizzo tried this in Philadelphia in 1979 and the people of Philadelphia went to the voting booths and blocked his attempt to change the city charter. It's not fair that the voices of the people of New York City were not heard. Let them decide if they want the term limits removed.

Bloomberg may have sunk to a new level, but it was the city council that enabled him to do so, and they should be held accountable as well. I think they are counting on people to forget this whole sham, but I don't think that's going to happen. Even though the NY news cycle changes rapidly, it will be an issue come election time next year.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by NYguy

Even though the NY news cycle changes rapidly, it will be an issue come election time next year.

Bloomberg has the highest recording mayoral approval ratings in NYC history, and will be opposed by largely unknown candidates, so I find it hard to imagine that this will be a major issue, especially one year from now.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Bloomberg has the highest recording mayoral approval ratings in NYC history, and will be opposed by largely unknown candidates, so I find it hard to imagine that this will be a major issue, especially one year from now.

You say that Bloomberg's approval ratings will be an issue a year from now, but his trampling of the voter's wishes will not. I find that hard to believe, especially since any opponent in the election will make it one. But if you want to rely on polls or ratings, Bloomberg was overwhelmingly opposed on this one. It only got pushed through because the city council agreed to give themselves a shot at an extra term too. This is seen as a one shot deal, because the plan is to revert back in a couple of years to the 2-term limits. In other words, it's fine if they get the oppurtunity for another term and not for anyone else. And I don't want to hear any garbage about the voter's getting a right to decide if they don't want Bloomberg, because it was the voters who put term limits into place. It should have been up to the voters to change that. No reasonable person can argue against that, period.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/ny...l?ref=nyregion

With a Pen Stroke, Bloomberg Signs a Term Limits Bill and Gains a Moniker


By CLYDE HABERMAN
November 4, 2008

People are understandably worried about the possibility that many votes will effectively be nullified on Tuesday. The ballot process is so dysfunctional in so many places that they are unworthy of some third-world countries whose elections I’ve covered.

New York has little to brag about. No less than Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has hopped up and down about the state of preparedness at the city’s Board of Elections. The other day, he called it “an outrage” and “a joke,” though some accuse the mayor of not having done nearly enough to jawbone (and finance) the board toward a higher road.

But even if things go horribly wrong on Tuesday, it is worth bearing in mind that no one in New York has done more to nullify votes than Mr. Bloomberg himself. He may reasonably be called the Great Nullifier.

He solidified his hold on that title on Monday. With a few pen strokes, he obviated the results of two referendums in which New York voters said in no uncertain terms that they wanted key city officials — the mayor, the public advocate, the comptroller, the 51 City Council members and the 5 borough presidents — to be limited to a maximum of two consecutive four-year terms.

Once upon a time — that would be until a few months ago — Mr. Bloomberg thought that these limitations were practically freedom’s greatest blessing since the Magna Carta. The people have spoken, he used to say, and “we cannot ignore their will.”

On Monday, however, he did precisely that. As expected, he signed legislation that he had birthed and hustled through the City Council to give him and other officials a shot at a third term next November. Thus was the expressed will of the people declared null and void.

Before he reached for his pen, the Great Nullifier listened to scores of New Yorkers who went to City Hall to bear witness. Most times, few people show up for bill-signing ceremonies. But emotions over term limits and the subversion of the two referendums have run high. The City Hall rotunda was filled with New Yorkers who waited hours in some cases to give the mayor a piece of their mind.

Some praised him. Some denounced him. Some did both, applauding his performance as mayor but condemning this attempt at what they called “a power grab.” All arguments had pretty much been heard many times before.

Certainly, the Great Nullifier advanced no new ideas. As in the past, he said that his grasp at a third term had nothing to do with the clock that is running out on his second term, but had everything to do with the financial crisis that, to his mind, requires continuity in leadership.

“Crisis has a way of forcing us to put pragmatism first,” he said. He applauded the Council’s 29-to-22 vote extending term limits as “choosing substance over process and pragmatism over ideology.”

Ignored was the fact that the process he referred to dismissively is known to most people as the democratic process. As for ideology, a Quinnipiac University poll shows that 9 out of 10 New Yorkers want any change in the term limits law to come through a new referendum, not legislation. That’s not ideology. That’s the people speaking with crystal clarity.

If you want self-interest, consider that 29-to-22 Council vote. Of the 51 lawmakers, 35 would have been forced out of office at the end of next year. Nearly two-thirds of them, 23 of 35, voted to reward themselves with a possible extra term. Of those who do not have a 2009 expiration date, 63 percent — 10 of 16 members — voted against the change. Funny how that worked.

Of course, to hear lawmakers talk on Monday, self-interest had nothing to do with it. It was all about government continuity during a crisis. Times are so hard, you see, that New York cannot survive without the foresight, the high-mindedness and the command of municipal finances that this batch of council members provides. Besides, if New Yorkers feel differently, they can always vote them all out of office next November.

“This is democracy at its best,” said Councilman Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn.

That’s how the borough presidents saw it as well — four of the five who showed up, anyway. “We need all the experience we can count on to get us through this crisis,” said Helen M. Marshall, who represents Queens.

Got it. Without these borough presidents hanging on beyond next year, New York might not make it.

Hardly everyone accepted that premise. Many speakers cautioned Mr. Bloomberg that nothing less than the public’s faith in government and his own legacy were on the line. Among them was Councilwoman Letitia James of Brooklyn, a leading opponent of extending term limits.

“With a stroke of the pen, Mr. Mayor, you will pre-empt democracy,” she said in a voice tinged with sadness.

Soon enough, the Great Nullifier picked up his pen and used it.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/ny...l?ref=nyregion

With a Pen Stroke, Bloomberg Signs a Term Limits Bill and Gains a Moniker


By CLYDE HABERMAN
November 4, 2008

People are understandably worried about the possibility that many votes will effectively be nullified on Tuesday. The ballot process is so dysfunctional in so many places that they are unworthy of some third-world countries whose elections I’ve covered.

New York has little to brag about. No less than Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has hopped up and down about the state of preparedness at the city’s Board of Elections. The other day, he called it “an outrage” and “a joke,” though some accuse the mayor of not having done nearly enough to jawbone (and finance) the board toward a higher road.

But even if things go horribly wrong on Tuesday, it is worth bearing in mind that no one in New York has done more to nullify votes than Mr. Bloomberg himself. He may reasonably be called the Great Nullifier.

He solidified his hold on that title on Monday. With a few pen strokes, he obviated the results of two referendums in which New York voters said in no uncertain terms that they wanted key city officials — the mayor, the public advocate, the comptroller, the 51 City Council members and the 5 borough presidents — to be limited to a maximum of two consecutive four-year terms.

Once upon a time — that would be until a few months ago — Mr. Bloomberg thought that these limitations were practically freedom’s greatest blessing since the Magna Carta. The people have spoken, he used to say, and “we cannot ignore their will.”

On Monday, however, he did precisely that. As expected, he signed legislation that he had birthed and hustled through the City Council to give him and other officials a shot at a third term next November. Thus was the expressed will of the people declared null and void.

Before he reached for his pen, the Great Nullifier listened to scores of New Yorkers who went to City Hall to bear witness. Most times, few people show up for bill-signing ceremonies. But emotions over term limits and the subversion of the two referendums have run high. The City Hall rotunda was filled with New Yorkers who waited hours in some cases to give the mayor a piece of their mind.

Some praised him. Some denounced him. Some did both, applauding his performance as mayor but condemning this attempt at what they called “a power grab.” All arguments had pretty much been heard many times before.

Certainly, the Great Nullifier advanced no new ideas. As in the past, he said that his grasp at a third term had nothing to do with the clock that is running out on his second term, but had everything to do with the financial crisis that, to his mind, requires continuity in leadership.

“Crisis has a way of forcing us to put pragmatism first,” he said. He applauded the Council’s 29-to-22 vote extending term limits as “choosing substance over process and pragmatism over ideology.”

Ignored was the fact that the process he referred to dismissively is known to most people as the democratic process. As for ideology, a Quinnipiac University poll shows that 9 out of 10 New Yorkers want any change in the term limits law to come through a new referendum, not legislation. That’s not ideology. That’s the people speaking with crystal clarity.

If you want self-interest, consider that 29-to-22 Council vote. Of the 51 lawmakers, 35 would have been forced out of office at the end of next year. Nearly two-thirds of them, 23 of 35, voted to reward themselves with a possible extra term. Of those who do not have a 2009 expiration date, 63 percent — 10 of 16 members — voted against the change. Funny how that worked.

Of course, to hear lawmakers talk on Monday, self-interest had nothing to do with it. It was all about government continuity during a crisis. Times are so hard, you see, that New York cannot survive without the foresight, the high-mindedness and the command of municipal finances that this batch of council members provides. Besides, if New Yorkers feel differently, they can always vote them all out of office next November.

“This is democracy at its best,” said Councilman Kendall Stewart of Brooklyn.

That’s how the borough presidents saw it as well — four of the five who showed up, anyway. “We need all the experience we can count on to get us through this crisis,” said Helen M. Marshall, who represents Queens.

Got it. Without these borough presidents hanging on beyond next year, New York might not make it.

Hardly everyone accepted that premise. Many speakers cautioned Mr. Bloomberg that nothing less than the public’s faith in government and his own legacy were on the line. Among them was Councilwoman Letitia James of Brooklyn, a leading opponent of extending term limits.

“With a stroke of the pen, Mr. Mayor, you will pre-empt democracy,” she said in a voice tinged with sadness.

Soon enough, the Great Nullifier picked up his pen and used it.

[NYguy]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle5098669.ece

Putin could return as Russia's President as early as 2009
Report suggests that President Medvedev will make reforms to allow Putin to stay as president until 2021

November 6, 2008
Tony Halpin in Moscow

Fresh doubt was cast today on the future of Dmitri Medvedev as Russia's President after a report suggested that he could step down next year to pave the way for the return of Vladimir Putin.

The respected business daily Vedomosti said that a proposal to extend the presidential term from four years to six was part of a calculated plan to restore Mr Putin to the Kremlin. Mr Putin is currently Prime Minister.

Mr Medvedev announced the reform today in his first state-of-the-nation address to Russia's legislators. The newspaper quoted an unidentified Kremlin official as saying that the initiative had been drawn up last year, while Mr Putin was still president.

Mr Medvedev, 43, would oversee the constitutional amendment and push through some unpopular social reforms before resigning in 2009 and calling a snap election to make way for his mentor.

Mr Putin, 56, would then govern for two more terms, totalling 12 years. This would take his second presidential era to 2021, the paper noted, one year beyond the completion of the so-called "Putin Plan" for Russia's economic and social development.

Mr Medvedev also called for an extension of the term between elections to the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, from four years to five. The report suggested that this was further evidence of Mr Putin's imminent return, because the reform meant that the next time presidential and parliamentary elections coincided would be 2021.

Mr Putin's spokesman said that he saw no grounds for a return to the Kremlin next year "because the term of the existing president will continue in 2009". But the denial will do little to dampen speculation that Mr Medvedev remains a stop-gap leader until Mr Putin decides to reclaim the presidency.

Mr Putin resisted pressure from hard-line factions within the Kremlin last year to change the Constitution so that he could run for a third consecutive term. Under the Constitution, a president is limited to two terms.

Instead, he chose Mr Medvedev as his successor, a man without known ties to either the security services or the Communist Party during the Soviet era. He was presented as a liberalising figure with a modern outlook on the world.

As Prime Minister, however, Mr Putin has taken wide-ranging powers to run the country and has extended his reach into foreign policy, traditionally the reserve of the President. The Kremlin-controlled party, United Russia, also holds two-thirds of seats in the Duma, making it inevitable that the constitutional amendment will pass.

The unnamed Kremlin official told Vedomosti that Mr Putin had resisted changing the Constitution while he was president because it would have looked unethical. His successor's decision to extend the presidential term, however, provided the necessary pretext for a resignation and for Mr Putin's return to power in a way that appeared to be constitutional.

[NYguy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/ny...l?ref=nyregion

State Legislators Plan to Fight on Term Limits

By JEREMY W. PETERS
November 14, 2008


ALBANY — For all of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s money and might, there is one political antagonist that he has been unable to wear down: the New York State Legislature.

And as Mr. Bloomberg prepares to run for re-election in 2009, some of the same legislators who have thwarted the more ambitious pieces of his agenda are once again threatening to derail his plans and deal him an embarrassing blow.

Senator Kevin S. Parker, a Brooklyn Democrat and outspoken critic of the mayor, plans to file a bill on Friday that would effectively stop Mr. Bloomberg and other city lawmakers from seeking third terms without winning approval from city voters in a referendum. A week ago, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, another Brooklyn Democrat, filed the same legislation in the Assembly.

While bills are routinely circulated in Albany only to disappear into the legislative ether, both of these bills appear to be gaining momentum. The leaders of both chambers have said they would allow the legislation to advance.

Malcolm A. Smith, in line to become Senate majority leader, has said he would “have no problem” letting Mr. Parker’s bill come to the floor for a vote.

Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, made his first public comments on the legislation Thursday. As Mr. Bloomberg stood at his side at a press conference at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Mr. Silver said he would allow Mr. Jeffries’s bill to go through the normal legislative process.

Mr. Silver was careful to point out that he had not taken a position on the bill and added that his members would ultimately decide whether it passes. “I’m not opposed to it. I’m not in favor of it,” he said after the press conference. “We haven’t seen the bill yet, and we don’t know which law he would be amending. There are 12,000 bills in the hopper, and they all go to committee.”

Although Mr. Silver appears indifferent about the legislation now, a growing number of his colleagues are not. Mr. Jeffries has received commitments from 16 Assembly members from New York City to sponsor the bill so far. Sixty-five of the 150 Assembly members are from the city, and he plans to begin contacting members from outside the city.

In the Senate, Mr. Parker said he had five cosponsors already and expected to recruit more once other senators have a chance to review it.

To ensure that the bill would undo the City Council’s recent vote to change the term limits law to permit three consecutive four-year terms and enable Mr. Bloomberg to run again, Mr. Jeffries, who wrote the legislation, added a clause that would make it retroactive.

To elected officials inside and outside the city, Mr. Jeffries’s bill — which could prompt a lawsuit from the city if successful — was an unsurprising response from a body that has relished its role as a check against the mayor’s powers.

“For good or for ill, and I think for good, Assembly Democrats are an ornery, prideful group,” said Rory I. Lancman, a Democratic assemblyman from Queens who is a cosponsor of Mr. Jeffries’s bill. “And I take a lot of satisfaction, as I think all the members do, in being a check on powerful interests and powerful people who want to do things to my community.”

He added, “In our profession, that’s where the glory is.”

The term limits legislation currently before both houses of the Legislature is only the latest clash in the long-simmering conflict between the mayor and lawmakers in Albany, a conflict rooted in sharp disagreements over what role the state should play in city affairs.

“We are elected to represent communities throughout the state as coequal branches of government,” Mr. Jeffries said, adding that many of the same voters who elected him and other state legislators also voted to elect the City Council and the mayor. “I think we resent it when executives, be that a mayor or a governor, attempt to dictate to us what they believe is the right thing to do for the communities we are elected to represent.”

A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, Stu Loeser, would not comment on the term limits legislation in Albany, but he pointed out other successful bills that the mayor had supported, including those to build of a waste transfer station near Gansevoort Street on the West Side of Manhattan and pay for a $13 billion capital plan to improve school buildings.

“Absent a couple of high-profile instances, the city, by and large, has gotten all it wanted and more from Albany over the last seven years,” Mr. Loeser said.

Still, what could have been the defining accomplishments of his tenure as mayor have risen with great promise only to die in the State Capitol.

The mayor’s proposal to build a stadium on the West Side was jettisoned after he failed to reach a deal with Mr. Silver, and his plan to charge drivers $8 to enter the most congested parts of Manhattan was defeated after unrelenting opposition from Assembly Democrats from the suburbs and the other boroughs.

Part of the mayor’s disappointing record in Albany on some of his biggest issues, legislators said, has to do with personality conflicts. “On his report card, under ‘works well with others,’ he gets an F,” said Mr. Parker, whom Mr. Bloomberg notably did not support for re-election in a primary race this year.

Others insist that the Legislature too often tries to meddle in city affairs, as evidenced by the term limits bills. “In my neighborhood, the word for that,” said Councilman Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn, “is chutzpah.”

[NYguy]

As much as I hate to dig this up, it's worth it for this...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/ny...l?ref=nyregion
Testy Bloomberg Calls Reporter a ‘Disgrace’

By MICHAEL BARBARO
May 28, 2009

He is the undisputed front-runner in November’s election. He is the richest man in the city. So why does Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg keep losing his temper?

Since announcing his third term bid, he has publicly scolded a blogger in a wheelchair for accidentally turning on a tape recorder during a news conference. He called a question about his spending “ridiculous.” And he labeled an inquiry about a political rival a “waste” of a question.

But on Thursday, he seemed to reach new heights of peevishness, calling a reporter who posed a question he did not like “a disgrace.”

At a news conference in Queens, Azi Paybarah, a reporter for The New York Observer, asked the mayor whether an improving economy would undercut his reasoning for seeking a third term. Mr. Bloomberg had argued, during the battle over term limits, that tough times required his steady hand and business background.

Yet at the Queens news conference, Mr. Bloomberg said he was “very optimistic” about New York’s economy. (Thus Mr. Paybarah’s question.)

Mr. Bloomberg cut off Mr. Paybarah midsentence, saying that “the rationale for extending term limits is, the City Council passed it, and the public’s going to have a chance on Nov. 3 to say what they want.”

“I don’t think we have to keep coming back to that,” he said, adding, “When you have a serious question about the economy, I’d be happy to answer it.”

With that, the mayor concluded the news conference, thanked the audience, stepped away from a microphone and looked directly at Mr. Paybarah. “You’re a disgrace,” he snarled, nearly under his breath, but just loud enough to be captured by reporters’ tape recorders.

After receiving inquires from reporters, a spokesman for the mayor, Stu Loeser said: “The mayor asked me to pass along his apologies to Azi for the comment after the press conference, which I did.”