Bloomberg - Mayoral Term Limits

[Schadenfrau]

I'm not your "ami."

Do you really think that Bloomberg's pet projects have been selfless endeavors into civic pride?

[ZippyTheChimp]

I am 100% for this. Leave it to an inept career pol (see what they've done to the rescue package?)

The "rescue package" was flawed in it's provisions and histrionic presentation.

It's chief architect is Henry Paulson, not a career pol, but a 2006 appointee as Sec of the Treasury. Before that, he was CEO of Goldman Sachs. Hey, isn't that the company that was given hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars by Bloomberg and Pataki?

Bloomberg on term-limits Nov 23, 2005:

While it may be that that the City Council has a right to override them, deliberately saying to the public, 'We don’t care what you think,' I would use the word disgraceful.

The cynicism that that would engender towards city government is not something that this city needs.

The public wants term limits, and if that’s what they want, we should all learn to live with ‘em.

[lofter1]

If Bloomberg wants to be a good public servant / genreous citizen and help work us out of the financial crisis (caused to a great degree by his old pals and cronies) then that's OK by me. Let him pull a JP Morgan. I don't think any laws will have to be scuttled for him to achieve that.

But no way should a law be re-written to serve the prupose of someone now in office.

That's just wrong. No two ways about it.

[Stroika]

I'm not your "ami."

Do you really think that Bloomberg's pet projects have been selfless endeavors into civic pride?

Ok, amie then. What "pet projects" do you have in mind? Willets Point? I don't think Bloomberg is trying to remove a little slice of Kabul from Queens so that he can benefit from the Holiday Inn that will be there. I don't oppose making sure that large swaths of the city have electricity, sewers and roads, rather than being rabbit warrens of chop shops. Bloomberg's attempts to "green" the city's energy sources? I guess maybe it's possible he's an investor in the small Jersey firm making the East River turbines, but I think there's something larger at play. The 1,000,000 trees? I guess you've got me there -- the man is a perverted arborophile. He was indeed imprisoned for a year or two in the 70s for humping trees wildly in Prospect Park.

[Edward]

Bloomberg is better than some other New York City mayors, I don't see this as a big deal, let him run for the third term.

[brianac]

October 1, 2008, 5:18 pm

Third Term No Charm, Historians Say

By Sewell Chan

One third-term mayor contemplated suicide. Another battled cancer while juggling two jobs. A third mayor, after 12 years of service, was nearly drummed out of town by unruly municipal workers. Of the 108 mayors of New York City since 1665, only four have served 12 years — and all four faced significant blows to their reputations, morale and even health toward the end of their administrations, according to historians who have studied the four men.

The past might be useful for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to consider as he forges ahead with his plan to alter the city’s term limits law and seek a third four-year term, a decision that has already upended the city’s political world.

The four mayors who served 12 years include one at the very start of the American Republic, Richard Varick (1789-1801), and three in the 20th century: Fiorello H. La Guardia (1934-1945), Robert F. Wagner (1954-1965) and Edward I. Koch (1978-1989).

From the time the British seized New Amsterdam in 1664, the mayor of New York was appointed annually, first by the colonial governor and then by the governor of New York State. In 1820, the Common Council — the city’s legislative body — began to elect the mayor. Direct mayoral elections began in 1834.



Richard Varick, mayor from 1789 to 1801, in a painting by Charles Willson Peale. (New-York Historical Society)

Mayor Varick. Richard Varick — yes, Varick Street in Lower Manhattan is named for him — was appointed by Gov. George Clinton in 1789. A New Jersey native, he moved to New York City in 1775 and enlisted as a captain in the Continental Army, according to an article by David W. Voorhees in The Encyclopedia of New York City.

Varick served as an aide-to-camp to Benedict Arnold — “which was an unfortunate position to be in, because he was associated with a traitor,” said Graham Hodges, a historian at Colgate University. Cleared of complicity after an investigation he called upon himself, Varick became secretary to George Washington and worked his way through the political ranks, serving as the city’s recorder, as a state assemblyman and as state attorney general before being named mayor.

Varick ran into trouble, Dr. Hodges said, when he tried to pressure the city’s 1,000 or so licensed workers — tavern keepers, grocers, butchers and cartmen, all of whom had licenses to work for the city — to vote for Federalist candidates. “This went completely contrary to the egalitarian sentiment of the time,” Dr. Hodges said.

Varick’s heavy-handed ways, Dr. Hodges said, pushed many of the workers away from the Federalists, represented by Alexander Hamilton, and into the opposing Democratic-Republican faction, represented by Thomas Jefferson. Varick was also assailed for his use of marketing and tax-licensing fees, Mr. Voorhees wrote. After a bitter campaign, Varick was swept aside in 1801.

Except for his labor problems, Varick was a decent mayor, Dr. Hodges said, noting that the position was vastly more limited in the late 18th century. “He didn’t have powers like Bloomberg at all,” Dr. Hodges said.

“He was a functionary well below the level of senator and governor – that’s where the real action was.”



At the end of his third term as mayor, Fiorello H. LaGuardia gave his final radio talk to the people of New York City, on Dec. 30, 1945. (Photo: Harry Harris/Associated Press)

Mayor La Guardia. La Guardia, a Republican mayor elected on a Fusion ticket in 1933, is among the most beloved and renowned of New York City’s mayors. He professionalized and streamlined the city bureaucracy; shepherded New York during the depths of the Depression; secured billions of dollars in public works money from Washington; and inspired and reassured generations of New Yorkers.

But La Guardia’s third term — which began after he won the 1941 election with support from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who although a Democrat was extremely close to the mayor — took a heavy toll on his health and well-being. In the spring of 1941, Roosevelt named La Guardia director of the Office of Civilian Defense, a position he held for nearly a year, juggling two jobs and splitting his time between New York and Washington. La Guardia, a World War I veteran, also had other aspirations, which were disappointed.

“La Guardia’s focus was on the war: He wanted to be a general and wanted to maneuver to try to get an appointment,” said Chris McNickle, author of “To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City” (Columbia University Press, 1993). “Roosevelt was sympathetic but the generals wanted nothing to do with him, seeing him as someone they could not exercise control over. He did end up with substantial responsibility for civilian wartime efforts.”

Mr. McNickle said La Guardia’s third term was “successful under the circumstances, but significantly less successful than his first two terms.”

La Guardia left office at the end of 1945 — months after World War II ended — and served briefly as director general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. “By the time he left office New York City was plagued with debt, facilities too expensive to maintain, and a rapidly growing bureaucracy,” the historian Thomas Kessner wrote in The Encyclopedia of New York City.

All the while, La Guardia was battling pancreatic cancer. He died on Sept. 20, 1947, less than two years after leaving office.



Mayor Robert F. Wagner at a Board of Estimate meeting on the Lincoln Square Project in 1956. (Photo: The New York Times)

Mayor Wagner. Son of a United States senator, graduate of Yale and Harvard, and a former commissioner of tax and housing, Wagner was elected in 1953 on the Democratic and Liberal lines, and was re-elected overwhelmingly four years later. By 1961, winning a third term was more difficult. He had had a falling-out with Carmine G. De Sapio, the Tammany Hall leader, but won a third term with support from Democratic reformers.

As mayor, Wagner oversaw a vast program of public housing construction; collaborated with Robert Moses on some of the most controversial postwar urban renewal projects; empowered municipal labor unions; and increased the representation of blacks and Puerto Ricans in the ranks of city officials.

By Wagner’s third term, the energy had largely been sapped, according to Vincent J. Cannato, a historian at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and author of a biography of John V. Lindsay, Mr. Wagner’s successor.

“By the third term, Wagner was an old-style politician and this was the Kennedy-’Camelot’ era,” Dr. Cannato said. “He was a figure past his prime. He didn’t know how to deal with civil rights demands. He was more of an urban mechanic: not glamorous, not exciting.”

Around this time, The New York Herald-Tribune published a series, “City in Crisis,” that described the city as dirty, dangerous and decaying. School problems were worsening, as was pollution and white flight. “Wagner just wasn’t equipped to handle some of these issues,” Dr. Cannato said.

“Wagner was caught between the growing liberal reform wing of his party, based in Manhattan and the Bronx, and the more conservative wing, the outer-borough white ethnics who later became Reagan Democrats and wanted a harder line on crime and welfare,” Dr. Cannato said. Many of those problems presaged the turmoil of the Lindsay era and the urban crisis of the 1970s, Dr. Cannato added.



Edward I. Koch, mayor from 1978 to 1989, held a news conference at his law firm in 1997. (Photo: Dith Pran/The New York Times)

Mayor Koch. If any mayor is identified with having a troubled third term it is Mayor Koch — if only, perhaps, because his third term was so recent (1986-1989). Racial turmoil, municipal scandal and the whiff of corruption plagued the third Koch term — so much so that at one point, as Mr. Koch noted in one of his many autobiographical books, he contemplated killing himself.

Mr. Koch was never personally implicated in any wrongdoing — but the ethical lapses around him devastated him nonetheless, said Jonathan Soffer, a historian with the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn who is writing a biography of Mr. Koch with his cooperation.

The scandals seemed to unfold, one after another, after Mr. Koch, a Democrat, began his third term at the start of 1986.

In 1986, the Queens borough president, Donald R. Manes, a friend of the mayor’s, committed suicide after it emerged that he was involved in significant corruption schemes involving the Parking Violations Bureau and other municipal fiefdoms. Mr. Manes was about to face federal indictment when he took his life.

In 1987, Bess Myerson, a former Miss America who had served as Mr. Koch’s cultural affairs commissioner, was indicted on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction of justice. Her companion, Carl A. Capasso, was accused of bribing a judge, Hortense W. Gabel, by arranging a job in Ms. Myerson’s department for the judge’s daughter, Sukhreet Gabel. Ms. Myerson was ultimately acquitted on all counts.

“He was quite mortified,” Dr. Soffer said of Mayor Koch. “He wanted to run the most honest administration in history and yet he had made compromises to govern the city, and making deals with the Democratic machines. It was some — but not all – of the people who came in as a result of those compromises who caused the scandal.”

Dr. Soffer added, “Even though I tend to think that there were things that he probably should have noticed, that that were warning signs about the problems he was heading into, I certainly don’t think he was tainted by corruption. It certainly did hurt him politically, but at the same time, I go against the conventional interpretation and argue that he actually got a lot done in his third term, the biggest example and the most important for the city being his 10-year housing program.”

Mr. Koch lost his bid for a historic fourth term, losing the Democratic primary in 1989 to David N. Dinkins.

“When he had to give it up, he felt enormously relieved,” Dr. Soffer said of the mayor’s office. “I think it’s a very difficult job and it exacts a toll on people.”

Some of Mr. Bloomberg’s closest aides — like his first deputy mayor, Patricia E. Harris — are veterans of the Koch administration, and several deputy mayors have been said to oppose the idea of a third term.

“There’s something about third terms in general,” Dr. Cannato said.

“Administrations lose focus. It’s hard just to keep it up.”

Certainly, in other big American cities, some mayors have served 20 years or even longer — Tom Bradley in Los Angeles, Richard J. Daley in Chicago, Coleman Young in Detroit, William B. Hartsfield in Atlanta, Sharpe James in Newark. New York City has not had any mayor serve so long.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/20...istorians-say/

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

[Schadenfrau]

Ok, amie then. What "pet projects" do you have in mind? Willets Point? I don't think Bloomberg is trying to remove a little slice of Kabul from Queens so that he can benefit from the Holiday Inn that will be there. I don't oppose making sure that large swaths of the city have electricity, sewers and roads, rather than being rabbit warrens of chop shops. Bloomberg's attempts to "green" the city's energy sources? I guess maybe it's possible he's an investor in the small Jersey firm making the East River turbines, but I think there's something larger at play. The 1,000,000 trees? I guess you've got me there -- the man is a perverted arborophile. He was indeed imprisoned for a year or two in the 70s for humping trees wildly in Prospect Park.

I'm talking about five million sports stadiums, the 2012 Olympics, and the Republican National Convention, specifically.

However, I am loving the idea that Bloomberg's the savior of the NYC infrastructure. Nothing says infrastructure hero like allowing wanton "luxury" construction in the midst of blackouts, explosions, and dangerously packed trains. Sure, the city can handle another million residents-just build more condos.

[Stroika]

The city's infrastructure is overtaxed, but Bloomberg is the first mayor since Robert Moses' days to take this seriously. With the 7 extension and the 2nd Ave subway -- not to mention the LIRR extension and potential new tunnels under the Hudson (I feel there's another proposed bridge or tunnel I'm forgetting as well...), plus Moynihan Station -- Bloomberg is the first mayor since WWII to begin major subway or train projects. (Destroying Penn Station to build MSG doesn't count, since it worked against the interests of train travel, not for it.) We can thank Sheldon Silver, not Bloomberg, for the failure of congestion parking, which would have relieved traffic and overstressed roads and bridges.

As for energy, PlaNYC is considered by experts to be one of the best outlines for moving toward green energy (in terms of increasing alternative sources of energy as well reducing energy consumption) in the country. (See article below.) And Bloomberg has also overseen less-visible, multibillion dollar efforts in sewage treatment, trash disposal and drinking water supplies. No mayor has taken strides toward improving infrastructure like this in 40 years, and looking at the jokers waiting to be mayor I can't imagine anyone else would today. (Do you really think Marty Markowitz or some other lifetime local pol is a more serious civil servant? Good God, talk about pet projects, a dependence on lobbyists and cronyism!)

Curse out luxury towers all you want, but it's the market (as screwy as it was, as we're all learning) and not the mayor that put them in place. Yes, Bloomberg did oversee a lot of rezoning efforts, but while you yourself may hold that it was "evil" or "soul-crushing" or whatever else that he did that, the fact is that there is demand to move into the city and we all benefit from dense, ecologically sound living. Would you rather have entire swaths filled with abandoned, unusable old warehouses or economically infeasible factories than allow people to live there? Let's use logic here, not a romanticized notion of how you'd like the city to be. Luxury towers may suck, but if it's what people want, who are we to tell them not to buy condos in them? Would you prefer housing projects across all the rezoned areas? And thanks to the effort of the mayor and city council, while we don't have legions of truly soul-crushing housing projects, many new towers have a 10-30% low-income component. I really don't know what fuels your contempt for Bloomberg other than a teenage hatred for new buildings or childish and unrealistic disdain for money.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122289740557395793.html

Prospects Brighten for Bloomberg's Green Agenda

Ambitious Plan to Cut CO2 Emissions Is Likely to Take Deeper Root
If New York Mayor Succeeds in Bid to Change Term Limits

By NATHAN KOPPEL and DIONNE SEARCEY

OCTOBER 2, 2008

With New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg expected to seek changes in term-limit rules so he can serve four more years, supporters are hoping a third term will allow him to further some of his boldest initiatives, including making the city a greener place to live.
But for now, the economy will be the top priority for any mayor, and could make big plans more difficult to push through. The office of the New York state comptroller this week estimated that the recent upheaval on Wall Street could result in the loss of 40,000 jobs and, in the next 18 months, billions of dollars in tax revenue.
The mayor's office declined to comment on the prospect of a third term, but he is widely expected to announce his request for a change in city regulations on Thursday.
Many in the financial community support the prospect of a third Bloomberg term, believing the mayor, the founder of business-information service Bloomberg LLP, is better positioned to engineer a turnaround than other potential candidates. He not only has the experience of an incumbent, they say, but also deep ties in the business community and government.
"Bloomberg moves at a very high level and has good access to Washington, D.C.," says John Tepper Marlin, the former chief economist for the city's comptroller's office from 1992 to 2006, who notes that the federal government will be an increasingly important source of funds for New York. "He has a lot more clout than other mayoral candidates."
Mr. Bloomberg has also led a push to expand the city's economy beyond Wall Street. "Diversification of the economy is particularly critical right now," says Kathryn Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a business group. The mayor, she says, has poured more money into the hospitality and entertainment industries, and helped to attract considerable biotechnology investments.
But few policy areas have engaged Mr. Bloomberg as much as climate change. In 2007, the mayor rolled out PlaNYC, a detailed series of proposals aimed in part at reducing the city's greenhouse-gas emissions 30% by 2030. The plan calls for the city to plant one million trees, convert its taxis to less-polluting hybrid vehicles and retrofit city buildings to make them more energy-efficient. He has even proposed putting windmills on the top of skyscrapers, a plan that has met some skepticism in the local press. Nonetheless, environmentalists call PlaNYC one of the most comprehensive efforts in the world.
Before the financial crisis demanded Mayor Bloomberg's attention, the greening of New York looked to be a big part of his legacy, despite the fact that his boldest environmental effort -- a bid to reduce traffic by charging vehicles to enter busy parts of Manhattan -- failed at the hands of the state legislature.
The possibility of changing the city's eight-year term limit for elected officials has raised hope among some environmentalists that the mayor's climate efforts are more likely survive into the future.
Mr. Bloomberg's educational legacy likewise stands at a crossroads. He has increased teacher pay and the number of charter schools in the city, among other initiatives. "But that takes time and effort, and we are still in the beginning stages," says Merryl Tisch, vice chancellor for the New York State Board of Regents, which sets policy for state public schools. "Continuity in the area of education reform would be extraordinary."
The question remains whether the mayor can galvanize sufficient support to remain in office. For starters, he may need to engage in some unpopular belt-tightening, including raising taxes and possibly cutting spending on education and the police. Such moves could turn voters against him, political consultants say.



And some deride the notion of Mr. Bloomberg seeking a third term, especially without presenting voters with the option of tossing out term limits. The mayor would bypass voters and instead seek clearance for a third term for New York elected officials via city-council approval.
Dick Dadey, executive director of government-watchdog group Citizens Union, calls Mr. Bloomberg "a uniquely qualified mayor" because of his business experience. However, he thinks voters should have their say on whether to extend his term. "People who may support the mayor may be inclined not to vote for him because of the way he's accomplishing this action," he said.
Still, if the mayor can successfully bend the rules on term limits, he will be a formidable opponent. In a July poll by Quinnipiac University, 38% of New York voters said they would like to see Mr. Bloomberg elected mayor in 2009 -- far more support than any other political figures garnered.
Republican Bruce Blakeman, who has considered running for mayor, says he would drop out if Mr. Bloomberg is in the hunt. The mayor, he says, brings with him a deep understanding of the financial sector, commercial real estate and tourism, the health of which are vital to New York's recovery. "There will be no learning curve for him," said Mr. Blakeman, who isn't taking a position on whether he supports extending term limits.

[NYatKNIGHT]

But no way should a law be re-written to serve the prupose of someone now in office.

Agreed. Part of the legislation should include that it doesn't apply to anyone now serving, however the law should be re-written, IMO.

[Schadenfrau]

"Curse out luxury towers all you want, but it's the market (as screwy as it was, as we're all learning) and not the mayor that put them in place. Yes, Bloomberg did oversee a lot of rezoning efforts, but while you yourself may hold that it was "evil" or "soul-crushing" or whatever else that he did that, the fact is that there is demand to move into the city and we all benefit from dense, ecologically sound living. Would you rather have entire swaths filled with abandoned, unusable old warehouses or economically infeasible factories than allow people to live there? Let's use logic here, not a romanticized notion of how you'd like the city to be. Luxury towers may suck, but if it's what people want, who are we to tell them not to buy condos in them? Would you prefer housing projects across all the rezoned areas? And thanks to the effort of the mayor and city council, while we don't have legions of truly soul-crushing housing projects, many new towers have a 10-30% low-income component. I really don't know what fuels your contempt for Bloomberg other than a teenage hatred for new buildings or childish and unrealistic disdain for money."

I've managed to criticize your opinions without insulting you, and I would appreciate if you made an attempt to do the same. I have no problem with buildings or money, thanks.

However, I'd wager that "what people want" is more middle-class housing construction- something that has been sorely lacking during Bloomberg's reign. Another thing that has been sorely lacking is adequate enforcement of the supposed 80/20 building requirements.

Maybe the fundamental difference between our opinions is that I don't find housing projects to be "soul-crushing." At all. And considering the tremendous disparity of wealth that Bloomberg's policies have encouraged, those housing projects are going to be absolutely necessary to lodge the employees of the low-paying service economy.

[Derek2k3]

The policies and much of the zoning surrounding new construction have been around long before Bloomberg. It's just that the construction boom is coincidentally taking place while he is in office. I suppose you can blame him for not reforming those policies however.

However, I am loving the idea that Bloomberg's the savior of the NYC infrastructure. Nothing says infrastructure hero like allowing wanton "luxury" construction in the midst of blackouts, explosions, and dangerously packed trains. Sure, the city can handle another million residents-just build more condos.

So if we stop building, rich peeps would stop moving to the city?
I doubt it's the overpriced glass condos that are attracting the wealthy. Our generic buildings can be found anywhere at better prices.
I think without the new construction, gentrification would occur even faster and housing would be even more expensive.

[Schadenfrau]

I was complaining that the city's infrastructure hasn't been bolstered in accordance with the grandiose plans for a population expansion, not muttering about rich people moving to the city.

[Schadenfrau]

And just for old time's sake, does anyone else remember this familiar old chestnut?

"Mayor Michael Bloomberg's announcement Thursday that there was a specific threat to the city's mass transit system came just two hours before the first mayoral debate was set to take place. When the candidates for his office took the stage at Harlem's Apollo Theater, Bloomberg's podium was vacant.

It wasn't, however, the threat of terror that kept the mayor away from the debate. Bloomberg — whose absence elicited angry catcalls from the audience — never planned on participating. A week ago the mayor said he would only take part in two debates – both roughly one week before the Nov. 8 election — against his Democratic opponent, Fernando Ferrer. That has been riling his opponents and critics ever since."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...=mostpop_photo

[stache]

Stroika, I may be wrong on this but I am pretty sure Schad is no longer a teenager.

[Derek2k3]

There's no simple answer to solve the housing or the infrastructure crisis.

Yea, infrastructure should be bolstered, but isn't that's due to lack of funding and incompetance? It's not as if the city has been diverting money from infrastructure to build condos.

And the population expansion isn't a plan, it's an expectation. If you opt not to accomodate these people it will just increase the demand and make housing even more expensive for the rest of us.