Why it won't be a walk in the park for Bloomie

Here is a collection of articles about Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to extend term limits:

City Council members grappled with uncertainty and anger on Wednesday as they tried to digest — and adjust to — news that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is to propose revising the city’s term limits law so he can run for a third term.

Some council members said they were already hearing from constituents who were upset about the mayor’s plan, which would lift the restrictions approved by voters that limit the city’s elected officials to two four-year terms in office. And although a survey conducted in August by The New York Times suggested that a majority of the Council would be open to changing the law, members stressed on Wednesday that their support should not be taken for granted.

More than a dozen council members said they would be uncomfortable with any legislation that would grant a third term only to the mayor and other current office holders, rather than those elected after them, saying such a measure would be transparently self-serving.

Council’s Question for Mayor: What About Us?

...the Conflicts of Interest section of the City Charter (P. 13) states, under the list of "prohibited conduct," the following:

3. No public servant shall use or attempt to use his or her position as a public servant to obtain any financial gain, contract, license, privilege or other private or personal advantage, direct or indirect, for the public servant or any person or firm associated with the public servant.

The Conflict Of Interest Argument

The folks who have the real ability to fight this –

either can’t because they get business, contributions or have interests before the City or the mayor: such as community based organizations, lobbyists, labor unions, Ron Lauder, and civil rights groups.

or won’t because it benefits them: such as Democratic county leaders and clubs, the media, and Democratic leaders.

or seem too self-serving to truly get the public’s support: good government groups or those potential candidates who were going to run in 2009.

WHY PEOPLE OF GOOD CONSCIENCE AND OF COLOR SHOULD BE OPPOSED TO THIS EXTENSION OF TERM LIMITS

Assuming Bloomberg is able to convince the City Council to vote to amend the law governing term limits, good government groups that oppose him—Common Cause, the New York Public Interest Research Group, among others—are likely to sue to prevent this change.

Legal Labyrinth Awaits Bloomberg In Third Term Run

The New York City oligarchy has spoken - and the peoples' will be damned.

Even the timing reveals how little respect they have for the democratic process. The deadline for putting a new term-limits referendum question on the ballot for the November election was Sept. 4.

Instead of appointing a charter commission beforehand and letting the voters decide for a third time, the mayor chose the route of a political fix in council.

Third term, Mayor Bloomberg? That's rich!

But the best commentary I have read on this comes from 2 regular New Yorkers. First up is Lost City.

The rationale that is being put forward—and it's as cynical and opportunistic as Giuliani's was back in 2001, when he said the events of 9/11 demanded he stay in power—is that, as the Times put it, "the worldwide financial crisis — with its potentially severe impact on New York City — demands his steady hand and business experience."

Uh huh. Excuse me, but that financial crisis happened on Bloomberg's watch. Unless I missed something, he was mayor during the years in which the mortgage bubble grew and grew. I don't remember him warning us of impending danger. I don't remember him berating Wall Street, the Fed, the SEC and Treasury Secretary for their reckless behavior. I think, instead, he said a lot of stuff about how the economy was robust and the city was doing well. Bloomberg's a Wall Street guy. He knows all the players. I'm sure he lunches with them, gets them on the horn every day. He did nothing to avert this disaster. He was an enabler.

Our Disgusting Mayor

But the prize goes to Forest Hills 72 (you definitely want to read the whole thing):

He left the Meat Packing District to fend for themselves during the 10-day blackout while Con Ed casually said it was only a few hundred customers (it was really over 100,000). Oh wait, that was Astoria. In the Meat Packing District, he advocated building a new $200 million High Line Park overlooking a new $500 million Hudson River Park.

So there are some concrete reasons why I wouldn't reelect him. What the media will feed you is vague reasons like “guts” and “vision” – which he does have. When it comes to making Manhattan a better place to live. Just look at the World’s Fair structures compared to what’s going on at the High Line. What a perfect metaphor for this administration’s “vision.”

Bloomberg's Third Term

And to put the whipped cream on top, Angry NYer...

Bloomberg has not done much good for NYC - that is, unless you’re on wall street or a fat cat real estate developer. Even if you’re the latter, his failures, with the west side yards, Atlantic yards, etc are proof positive this man doesn’t know what he’s doing. We’re talking about a guy who closes fire houses one year and then upzones the neighborhoods they were in to add more population (Dutch Kills, Harlem, Williamsburg are good examples). He promotes cheap gimmicks like bike lanes as a means to reduce congestion. Bike lanes? How many people do you think are going to ride their bikes to work in the 8 months of the year that the weather isn’t so great? A guy who had to let arbitrators come up with a decent pay increase for the police because he’s not man enough to make a fair deal himself?

Hold up, let me get this straight - we’re suppose to change the election laws and give this guy 4 more years because ‘he knows wall street’???

Call me crazy, but shouldn’t we be taking people like him out in the alley and shooting them in the heads for getting we the people into this mess?

Bloomberg 3. What a sad joke.

Let's have a cherry on top of that whipped cream: