. . . first must gin up the numbers to make his case. Suggested protest placard — “Bloomberg Lied, Democracy Died”:

On Oct. 21, two days before the City Council voted by a thin margin to allow Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek a third term, the mayor sounded an alarm on the city’s economy.

New York City’s annual budget deficit, he said, would swell by $500 million during the current fiscal year because of weakening tax revenues.

At the time, the worsening picture seemed to strengthen his central argument for changing term limits — a vulnerable city needed his steady hand and business background for four more years.

But some of those inside and outside the administration say that Mr. Bloomberg’s remarks were inaccurate and may have painted a more dire financial situation than was warranted. Interviews with these people show that the city does not expect any budget deficit in the current fiscal year, which began July 1.

In fact, data that was provided to the city about the same time the mayor was speaking showed the city’s tax revenue grew at an unexpectedly brisk pace during July, August and September.

During that time, the city took in at least $200 million more than it had planned for, data and interviews show. Much of the unexpected revenue stemmed from sales, personal income and property transfer taxes.

Of course, the city could face deficits reaching into the billions in 2010 and beyond as a result of the global financial crisis, as layoffs mount, consumer spending falls and tourism slows.

But several economists said they were mystified by Mr. Bloomberg’s statement. Marcia Van Wagner, a deputy in the New York City comptroller’s office who focuses on budget issues, said that “it is extremely unlikely that the city would end the year in deficit.”

She said that tax revenue would certainly fall later this year, but that surplus funds now slated to be used in the 2010 fiscal year could offset any shortfall this year, “as can other reserves that are normally freed up during the year,” she said.

Ms. Van Wagner also noted that the mayor has already requested $500 million worth of spending cuts from city agencies this year, which could be used to close any budget gaps.

Asked why the mayor said the city faces a deficit this year, aides said that Mr. Bloomberg may have been referring instead to his expectation that revenues would be lower than the city forecast. But even if the mayor were referring to a potential falloff in this year’s tax receipts, the $500 million number is a greater decline than what many city officials and economists predict.

Mr. Bloomberg’s Oct. 21 remarks carried significant weight, and prompted articles in The Daily News and The New York Post about the city’s worsening economy.

Both articles reported that the city’s budget deficit would swell by $500 million, and mayoral aides never sought to correct those stories.

“I can tell you,” the mayor said, “that our deficit — we originally had ‘09 balanced. Now we’ve got a $500 million hole in it.”

I understand that Mayor Bloomberg is the only person out there who can single-handedly save New York City from a worldwide financial meltdown, which makes it absolutely vital to allow him to run for a third term. And although it’s unclear why a philosophical line-in-the-sand needs to be drawn at this point, without much public debate, about the effects of term limits on representative bodies like the City Council, I understand the arguments against term limits (though which is it — a one time-only break to ease the city into the upcoming financial crisis or a principled stand against term limits?).

But for the life of me, I will never, ever, ever understand why the offices of Borough President, Comptroller and Public Advocate are so necessary that those posts also should be included in the legislation. But then there they are, also in the legislation:

Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary contained in this charter, no person shall be eligible to be elected to or serve in the office of mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president or council member if that person had previously held such office for three or more full consecutive terms, unless one full term or more has elapsed since that person last held such office; provided, however, that in calculating the number of consecutive terms a person has served, only terms commencing on or after January 1, 1994 shall be counted.

Not just unserious — profoundly unserious! Again, fuck all you all!

People have been throwing around Orwell’s Animal Farm a lot lately. But this is truly Orwellian:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn defended her decision to move forward with legislation extending term limits, saying the three-week process was not rushed.

Quinn also defended her flip-flop on extending term limits — she opposed the idea in December but reversed herself days ago — comparing it with the stubbornness George W. Bush displayed as president.

“Many of us, myself included, have been highly critical of our president. When facts change, he won’t change his position on different matters,” she said.

So you’re not George . . . uh . . . what was I saying? I think I’ve just been hypnotized . . .

Because obviously it’s easier to do that to handful of the 29 councilmembers who voted yes than actually make a case to the public:

Less than two weeks ago, City Councilwoman Darlene Mealy stood on the steps of City Hall, along with Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. and a group of ministers who opposed Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to extend term limits.

In fact, it was that very day that Ms. Mealy, a Democrat who represents the Brownsville and Ocean Hill sections of Brooklyn, announced that she would vote against the bill.

“People are telling me that they like Bloomberg, but that we should not take the power away from the people, where it belongs,” said Ms. Mealy, speaking loudly at that press conference. We shouldn’t be held hostage by anyone. Imagine if President Bush said he wanted four more years.”

However, when her name was called to vote on Mr. Bloomberg’s bill in the City Council chamber on Thursday, Ms. Mealy votes yes, and with a decidedly more somber tone to her voice.

What could have transpired in such a short time to convert one of the strong voices of the opposition to a supporter the mayor’s bill?

Some of her colleagues have charged that Ms. Mealy was the subject of a high-pressure effort from either the speaker of the mayor. In fact one Council member reported seeing Ms. Mealy emerge from City Hall late last week in tears, saying that she was the subject of intense pressure.

“They put unbelievable pressure on her in a way that may have been unethical,” said City Councilman Charles Barron, who represents an adjoining district to Ms. Mealy in Brooklyn and who was a strong opponent of the mayor’s bill.

“She has said that she was under intense, intense pressure,” Mr. Barron said. “I think it merits some kind of investigation, to be quite honest.”

In an interview, Ms. Mealy was asked whether she had been threatened in any from either City Council speaker Christine C. Quinn or Mr. Bloomberg.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” she said.

. . .

Maria Alvarado, a spokeswoman for Ms. Quinn, repeated the speaker’s comments from a press conference early in the day, insisting that accusations of “horse-trading, arm twisting, anything of that nature, is just quite frankly false and untrue.”

Ms. Alverado said: “Council member Mealy made up her own mind, and said she believed in this.”

Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, said that Mr. Bloomberg never met with Ms. Mealy in the weeks leading up to the vote, nor had there been any meetings between the Councilwoman and any senior administration officials.

“The mayor has made his case to the Council and he did it appropriately,” Mr. Post said.

Fuck all you all:

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.

And now that you know, vote accordingly next November:

Roll Call, 4:35 p.m., on Introduction 845-A, to extend 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.

Still trying to unionize, now officially the most ironic thing happening in today’s Lower East Side:

It was only a matter of time: These vital workers—many of whom have worked there for years—have been absorbing and reciting the history that helped the former residents to band together and prosper. Now, they want a larger share of the museum’s success. They want some of the benefits afforded full-time employees: vacation time, sick leave and health care. If nothing else, they want an opportunity to at least bargain collectively. They want guaranteed hours, and they figure a raise would be nice, too. Especially since, regardless of how long they had worked at the museum, not one of the educators has received a salary adjustment.

They essentially want to put their money where their mouths are. Tired of just talking about unions and the way they changed the face of this country, a group of about 30 educators—hourly workers who lead tours and discussions at the museum—decided to form one. Easy, they figured: No institution is friendlier to labor than the Tenement Museum. After all, a pro-union vibe permeates the place, from its bookstore stocked with tomes about the labor movement to the actual tenement at 97 Orchard Street, where the seeds of organized labor grew. The founders and managers of the museum clearly revere the history that surrounds them.

Despite that reverence, a no-holds-barred labor clash is underway beneath their own roof. Educators who spend their days extolling unions were thwarted from the very beginning and told their own union would not be recognized. They organized anyway, protested and passed out flyers at every opportunity, just as the men and women in their history lessons did. Their rallying even convinced a trustee, State Sen. Tom Duane, to resign his position with the museum. But the museum’s stance did not change. For two years it has opposed immediate recognition of the union, and thrown up roadblock after roadblock. It’s a living history if there ever was one.

“The thing that just gets my goat is that we’re promoting labor history and they’re not recognizing the union,” says H.R. Britton, 37, an educator who has worked at the museum for two years. “On a good day that’s ironic, but on a bad day, that’s deeply disturbing.”

Because when words like “hack” and “tragic” are thrown around in connection with your legacy, you might be on the wrong side of the debate:

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.

. . .

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.”

Nope, I don’t believe it. Except there it is, plain as day on Craig’s List and in the Brooklyn Paper:

Finding a cheap apartment on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg? Priceless. Paying $550 a month to sleep inches from a toilet? A little disgusting.

Nonetheless, just such a humble abode turned up on Tuesday morning on Craigslist — with pictures, no less, of a room that fits little more than a bed, a sink, a shower, a mini-fridge and hotplate and, yes, that toilet, all inches away from each other.

Oh, and one more detail: there are no windows.

“Room is in basement,” the listing reads. “There is no separation between the bedroom and the bathroom.”

What did you expect for $550? A gap of more than six inches from the foot of the bed to the toilet? Are you some kind of Rockefeller?

If not, join the club. The landlord’s housekeeper, who showed the room to The Brooklyn Paper on Tuesday afternoon, said there has been lots of interest in the listing.

“We’ve gotten a lot of e-mails today [to come see the apartment],” she said.

But by sunset, the listing for the “prison chic” unit had been “flagged” by Craigslist for further investigation, possibly because a basement apartment with no windows is illegal.

Illegal or not, there could be another reason why the listing was de-listed. “The apartment has rented,” the landlord claimed when contacted by The Brooklyn Paper on Wednesday.

More democracy, not less:

Setting up a showdown over one of the most divisive issues in recent political memory, Speaker Christine C. Quinn announced Tuesday that the City Council would vote Thursday on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to revise the term limits law so he can pursue four more years in office.

Supporters of the change said the move reflected Mr. Bloomberg’s and Ms. Quinn’s confidence that they have gathered the 26 Council votes needed to pass the legislation.

There are also signs that public opinion is tilting against the change, and privately some allies of Ms. Quinn say she is anxious, if not desperate, to hold the vote before an advertising campaign opposing the change takes hold.

“If it’s not on Thursday, they’re in trouble,” said one council member who supports the bill, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to upset the mayor or the speaker.

And somewhat more elegant than the usual cheese-on-toast type of sighting:

To most people, the purple flower that sprouted between two concrete slabs in a Queens backyard would be just a hardy vestige of summer.

Sam Lal sees something more.

The Jamaica man is convinced the mysterious blossom is an incarnation of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh — and neighbors and friends are flocking to see it.

The nearly 4-foot-tall flower grew in June and began to resemble an elephant’s head and trunk in August. Lal said that the ailments that had plagued him for months disappeared.

“This formation came to heal my illness,” the 60-year-old Hindu man said of his relief from pain due to a bone spur near his spine and bulging discs in his neck.

“They say God comes in many forms. I figure this has taken the form of a plant to come into my yard to bless me,” said Lal, who immigrated from Guyana three decades ago.

Experts at the Queens Botanical Garden identified the plant as a member of the amaranth family, which is native to Africa, India and southern Central America but not the U.S. Horticulturalists at the garden have never seen an amaranth take an elephant-like shape, garden spokesman Tim Heimerle said.

“For it to have that long trunk like this is not a natural thing,” he said.

Lal believes the flower’s position — growing through concrete, facing a garage he converted to a prayer space — is evidence of a connection to Ganesh, revered as the Remover of Obstacles.

Pile. On.

. . . came out today with a majority opposed to his plan:

By a narrow but significant margin, 51 percent to 45 percent, New York City voters oppose extending the eight-year term limit to 12 years so that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg might serve a third term, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday morning.

The poll suggested that a remarkable shift in public opinion had occurred in recent weeks, as the mayor’s proposal to extend term limits through City Council legislation — nullifying the results of two voter referendums — has been engulfed by controversy. In the new poll, 89 percent of respondents said the issue should be decided through another referendum, not by the Council.

The poll results suggested deep conflicts in the electorate, with many voters struggling to reconcile their fondness for Mr. Bloomberg and for his agenda against their belief that term limits are generally a good idea and represent the will of the people.

Nearly three weeks ago, when the Quinnipiac poll asked city voters whether they supported extending term limits to allow Mr. Bloomberg to serve four more years, 54 percent said yes and 42 percent said no. That survey, on Oct. 3, was conducted before the mayor formally announced that he would ask to extend term limits.

. . . because the great thing about strongarming elected representatives is that they can then be voted out of office:

The term-limits battle heated up yesterday as opponents accused Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn of threatening undecided council members.

“I’ve heard from some council people that they have been pressured, they have been threatened. I am obviously very disturbed by that,” said city Comptroller Bill Thompson, who plans to run for mayor next year .

Councilmembers Bill de Blasio and Letitia James, both Brooklyn Democrats, leveled the same charges.

“People were being told if you do the wrong thing, there will be negative ramifications,” de Blasio said.

Brenda and Eddie were still going steady in the summer of ‘75 when they decided the marriage would be at the end of July everyone said they were crazy “Brenda, you know that you’re much too lazy And Eddie could never afford to live that kind of life” But there we were wavin’ Brenda and Eddie goodbye:

Michael R. Bloomberg, who says he strictly separates his philanthropy from his job as mayor of New York, is pressing many of the community, arts and neighborhood groups that rely on his private donations to make the case for his third term, according to interviews with those involved in the effort.

As opposition mounts to his plan to ease term limits, those people said, the mayor and his top aides have asked leaders of organizations that receive his largess to express their support for his third-term bid by testifying during public hearings and by personally appealing to undecided members of the City Council. Legislation that would allow him to run for another term is expected to come up for a Council vote as early as next week.

The requests have put the groups in an unusual and uncomfortable position, several employees of the groups said. City Hall has not made any explicit threats, they said, but city officials have extraordinary leverage over the groups’ finances. Many have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Bloomberg’s philanthropic giving and millions of dollars from city contracts overseen by his staff.

An official at a social service group that receives tens of thousands of dollars from Mr. Bloomberg and has a contract with the city was startled to receive a call in the past few days from Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. Ms. Gibbs asked whether the organization’s leaders would be willing to call wavering council members to argue for Mr. Bloomberg’s term limits legislation.

“It’s pretty hard to say no,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the mayor. “They can take away a lot of resources.”

Now Paul is a real estate novelist who never had time for a wife and he’s talking with Davy who’s still in the Navy and probably will be for life and the waitress is practicing politics as the businessmen slowly get stoned yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness but its better than drinking alone:

Several of New York City’s top political figures on Sunday denounced Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration in unusually harsh terms for asking nonprofit groups to support legislation that would allow Mr. Bloomberg to seek a third term in office.

Many of the organizations contacted by the administration rely on Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire, for tens of thousands of dollars a year in private donations and millions in city contracts, making it difficult to turn down the request, these leaders said.

“It is an abuse of power, and it must stop,” said the city’s top financial watchdog, the New York City comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., who may run for mayor next year.

Representative Anthony D. Weiner, another likely candidate for mayor, said that “if you rely on the mayor or the administration to fund your organization, saying no when the mayor calls is not an option.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s tactic, he said, “walks right up to the line of coercion, and it’s very corrosive.”

I’m gonna try for an uptown girl she’s been living in her white bread world as long as anyone with hot blood can and now shes looking for a downtown man that’s what I am:

On Sunday afternoon, 13 nattily-dressed union leaders representing thousands of New York City’s public and private workers shuffled out of City Hall and assembled before a bank of television cameras. The men — and they were all men — wanted to talk about term limits and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, was the first to speak. “What I am going to do is have each one come up to the microphone and turn around and give their name and have a short speech about why they are support extending term limits,” he said.

If the event lacked a spontaneous feel, it was because it was not at all spontaneous. The deputy mayor for operations, Edward Skyler, who helps negotiate labor contracts for the city, and Patrick Brennan, a political consult who has worked on Mr. Bloomberg’s mayoral campaigns, had called the union heads and asked them to show up. So they did, but without any of their rank-and-file workers, who are normally the backdrop for such events.

Fifteen minutes before the press conference, the men met had met with Mr. Skyler to talk about their speeches. The result was an hour-long recitation of the same four talking points — extending term limits from eight to 12 years, as Mr. Bloomberg wants, creates more choice for voters; the economy is in trouble; elections are the best form of term limits; Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is an accomplished leader; and, finally, that these speeches are not a political endorsement (though some certainly came close.)

. . .

At the end of the press conference, a reporter asked whether the support for changing term limits was at all motivated by self-interest, since many of the public unions have received healthy pay raises under the Bloomberg administration.

John J. McDonnell, President, Uniformed Fire Officers Association, replied that his union “has enjoyed good contracts” under Mr. Bloomberg, “but we have earned them.”

Well that explains it then:

“The public was against changing term limits,” he said, “but at the same time, they had this enormous confidence in the way the city was going. And I just couldn’t understand why the two were not tied together.”

Of the 15 Councilmembers who have expressed support for the plan to raise term limits for the City Council and Mayor to three terms, at least temporarily, before a Charter Revision Commission can restore them to two, 14 are term limited out of office in 2009.

It’s not so much irony as it is a gigantic middle finger to the laws of internal logic:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg visited California on Wednesday to stump for a measure that would prevent legislators there from redrawing their district maps, a practice that he contends is a self-serving way for lawmakers to keep themselves in office.

Back in New York City, where Mr. Bloomberg is stumping for a measure that would allow him to keep his job as mayor for a third term, some saw a touch of irony.

At the very least, something tells me that the mayor is not the best spokesperson for that right now.

Some highlights:

The city may have improperly inflated the value of the new Yankee stadium by hundreds of millions of dollars and lied about it to the IRS, investigators charged Wednesday.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, head of a House subcommittee probing taxpayer funding of sports arenas, says the city provided a “possibly inaccurate tax assessment” to justify hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-exempt bonds.

The Ohio Democrat cited “serious questions” about city statements to the IRS. Because of those questions, Kucinich wrote, “The accuracy of the [city's] representations of the Yankee stadium project cannot be relied on.”

Investigators said the city might have improperly included $500 million in construction costs in its assessment.

They also noted three different city-funded appraisals forecast the stadium’s worth as anywhere between $21 million and $204 million — meaning it might have been overvalued by nearly $180 million. Only the highest appraisal was mentioned to the IRS.

Kucinich said if the city Department of Finance based its findings on inaccurate valuations of the stadium, “there would be a violation of New York State Law.”

Finance spokesman Owen Stone said the stadium’s assessment was accurate and that department officials “look forward to traveling to D.C. to explain to the committee how Finance values property.”

Kucinich blasted city officials for refusing to hand over documents and e-mails that could show whether top city officials exerted improper influence on city assessors who determined the stadium’s value.

Under the agreement with the city, the Yankees were able to obtain $942 million in tax-exempt bonds that will save them $181 million in lower borrowing costs over the next 30 years. The Yankees want $366 million more that will save another $66 million in borrowing costs.

Keep posting; we’re reading.

Given that the mayor seems to want to stay in office, perhaps we should rename certain long-term planning departments? Because now it should for sure take longer to get to one million more people:

Expecting a national recession to compound the effects of the Wall Street crisis, the New York City comptroller’s office is now forecasting that the city will lose 165,000 private-sector jobs over the next two years.

That would be almost twice as many as the comptroller’s office had projected three months ago, when it said that about 85,000 jobs would be lost. The difference, according to the comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., is that the nation has slipped into a general recession with effects that will spread far beyond the financial services sector and across the whole city economy.

About one-fifth of those lost jobs, about 35,000, will come in investment banking and other financial services, according to the revised forecast. The previous projection was for a loss of 25,000 jobs in financial services, or almost one-third of the expected total.

The Sunday of a holiday weekend is not a bad time to wedge in a guilty admission:

In a complete about-face, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn today embraced legislation to extend term limits for city officials and all but endorsed Mayor Bloomberg for a third term, citing the tumultuous economy.

“I have decided to change my position because I believe the opportunity, the potential of consistent leadership by this council and this mayor, would be in the best interests of the city,” Quinn said, citing the “global economic crisis.”

Until now, she adamantly opposed extending term limits through legislation.

And that brave stance pays off:

Mayor Bloomberg praised City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to the high heavens yesterday, and didn’t deny a Post report he could offer her a job — a day after she publicly threw her support behind the mayor’s plan to extend term limits.

“Chris Quinn, if she wasn’t in government, would have enormous opportunities in the private sector as well as the public sector,” Bloomberg said.

He was reacting to a Page Six report that said Bloomberg is prepared to hire Quinn as a deputy mayor if she loses the speaker’s post in 2010.

Mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser flatly denied the report. A spokesman for Quinn described it as both “untrue” and “malicious.”

Bloomberg didn’t address the question directly. Instead, he made a strong pitch to council members to keep Quinn in her powerful post.

“I just want, for the sake of the city, particularly during tough times, that we’ll have Chris Quinn leading the City Council,” the mayor said.

On second thought, maybe these guys were on to something. More leading economic indicators:

The Federal Treasury isn’t the only group looking for an innovative way out of the current financial crisis. The food carts around Wall Street have also felt the markets distress.

Sayedi Abdellah met tough times by adding a free soda to his $5 chicken or lamb with rice. Business is up 30 percent, he said.

“To be honest, we’re doing better than what we were doing before things happened,” he said of the halal cart he’s run on the corner of Wall and Water streets for a year.

“If you go in there,” Abdellah said, pointing to a nearby café, “you end up paying at least $10. Now, people I never expected to see are standing here.”

And spending $80 million is a celebration of free speech, not bullying your way into office with unlimited piles of cash:

Even as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his advisers await a City Council vote on a measure that would allow him to seek a third term, they are mapping out an aggressive re-election strategy that involves spending $80 million or more, according to people involved in the discussions.

. . . don’t tell them that they probably replaced all that “dirt” a long time ago:

When they move across the street to their new stadium next year, the Yankees will leave behind the ghosts of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. And also Ned Marvin.

Mr. Marvin was a lifelong Yankees fan who could remember the starting lineups from when, as a boy, his house was a short walk from the House That Ruth Built in the Bronx. The Yankees were such a cornerstone of his life that after he died in 1999 at age 86, his grandson Jeff scattered his ashes in Monument Park.

He was not the only grieving relative to leave a family member’s ashes in a New York major league baseball stadium — usually in Monument Park or behind home plate in Yankee Stadium, or on the mound, the warning track or left field at Shea Stadium in Queens. Doing so was a very private act carried out on the sly, because officially, the teams have never permitted ashes to be scattered in their stadiums.

When the two stadiums are being razed in the coming months, demolition crews will be working where Reggie and Mookie once played. But the ashes, apparently, will stay where they were scattered. And that means that relatives who believed they were giving their loved ones a resting place have had to accept that in New York, the quintessential tear-down-and-build-again city, nothing is forever.

“It’s sad,” said Jeff Marvin, who works in film distribution in Manhattan. “I’ve been thinking they’ll be tearing up where he is. The question is, can I convince myself they’re taking the ground to the new stadium, so that’s Grandpa?” (The Yankees say they have not decided whether or not to move dirt from Monument Park along with the plaques that honor Yankee greats.)

. . . but crapping on park benches . . . now you’ve got my attention:

At Lindower Park in Mill Basin, the grass and the trees are being uprooted by the birds and the bees.

But underage sex is just the tip of the iceberg at this park, located on Strickland Avenue, Mill Road, and East 60th Street, according to those who are familiar with the situation.

Teens aged 13-17 have allegedly been congregating at all hours in groups of up to 30, drinking — and later, driving — smoking, and using drugs.

Used condoms are becoming a more routine sight, and some kids even defecate on the park benches, according to a person whose relative is among the youthful congregants.

The Working Families Party and Tom Golisano, not to mention Charles Barron.

Not so much a nation of whiners as a nation of whack jobs*:

Richard Cruz, 48, of Manhattan, said he’s moving money he’s saved for his daughter’s college education out of his bank and into somewhere he thinks is safer.

“I’m afraid we’re going to lose it all. I’m going to put my money into a shoebox,” he said.

Cruz said he contemplated going to the mattresses, but decided that was too “last century.”

“No one hides their money under a mattress any more,” he said. “That’s the first place people would look.”

Cruz, whose 17-year-old daughter attends Hunter College, said “they say the banks can’t mess with it but I don’t trust them.”

He even says he wants to pull out the money in his daughter’s account that she saved from her Sweet 16 party.

“Sure it’s insured,” he said, “but if the banks get hit for billions of dollars, I’ll be lucky to get even half of that.”

*I really, really hope this is the Post’s version of the bogus trend of the week . . .

Case in point:

One of the casualties of Michael Bloomberg’s move to run for a third term, it seems, is next year’s Democratic primary.

Yes, it’s still 11 months away, and the mayor has only just finished announcing his intention to overturn term limits, but the prospect of Mr. Bloomberg — and his billions of dollars — running again may have ended the contest before it even took shape.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Bloomberg ally who was the favorite of much of the city’s business establishment, reacted immediately by announcing that she would abandon a planned run if the mayor went for reelection.

City Comptroller Bill Thompson, the only minority candidate in the prospective Democratic field, says that he’s running, but doesn’t sound incredibly convincing. For now, his game plan consists entirely of trying to block the mayor from running by casting public doubt on the idea of changing term limits without a referendum.

. . .

“No one believes Thompson stays in,” said George Arzt, a Democratic consultant. (Mr. Arzt, a former City Hall bureau chief for the New York Post and aide to Mayor Ed Koch, said that he had “spoken with” more than one potential mayoral campaign, but that he won’t work for any of them against Mr. Bloomberg if the mayor runs.)

. . .

“People do believe that, at least initially, Weiner will be in there, but if he sees he’s going to get crushed that he would back out, rather than suffer two different losses in two different elections,” said Mr. Arzt, referring to Mr. Weiner’s run for mayor in 2005 in which he narrowly missed making a runoff against the eventual Democratic nominee, Fernando Ferrer.

Consultant Jerry Skurnik was more hopeful about the chances of having some sort of primary contest, but only slightly: “The odds are two of the three will run, and that we’ll have a primary,” said Mr. Skurnik, referring to Mr. Thompson, Mr. Weiner and Mr. Avella. “But it’s possible that we won’t have a primary — that only one of them will run. I don’t know.”

Of course, there’s one more scenario — perhaps the least appealing of all for the Democrats: that Bloomberg, instead of destroying their primary, joins it.

Mr. Arzt said that an employee in his consulting firm already received a call as part of a telephone survey asking whether the employee would support Mr. Bloomberg if he ran as a Democrat in next year’s primary.

Remnants of the Gambino crime family have been reduced to shaking down hot dog vendors:

Three men — two of them Gambino crime-family associates — have been charged with shaking down a Bronx hot-dog vendor and beating him, cops said yesterday.

The men — also suspected of torching his truck — allegedly demanded $200 a week in “protection” money from the vendor and attacked him when he refused to pay.

Reputed Gambino associates Robert “Bobby Fingers” Francella, 49, and Patrick Lombardo, 47, along with Gregory Monzeglio, 44, met with the victim several times in a restaurant.

When they couldn’t collect, they beat him with a hammer on Aug. 14, and assaulted him again on Sept. 8, cops said. The vendor suffered cuts and lacerations.

The truck, parked in a vacant lot near the restaurant, was burned on Sept. 28.

30 Democratic City Councilmembers revealed some of what they are thinking regarding the mayor’s plan to permanently raise the number of terms via a Council vote. Time for a roll call:

At the meeting, many council members expressed support for changing term limits, which would force dozens of them from office next year, but said they were deeply uncomfortable doing so themselves because New Yorkers had voted for it twice.

Several lashed out at Mr. Bloomberg, saying that the mayor and his wealthy friends had orchestrated a campaign to rewrite the law without consulting with council members, according to those in attendance, who described the meeting on condition on anonymity for fear of offending colleagues.

“This one billionaire is now controlling our government, like a dictator,” Councilwoman Darlene Mealy, who represents Brooklyn, said during the meeting, colleagues said. Ms. Mealy did not return phone calls after the meeting.

Normally, “like a dictator” is an offensive rhetorical overreach. Not in this context!

Roll call — Lewis Fidler comes out in favor of self-serving legislation to extend his Council career:

But several members argued that even if the method of changing the law was unsavory, they remained philosophically opposed to a two-term limit and would act to change it.

Lewis A. Fidler, a councilman from Brooklyn, said he told the group that “this is about whether term limits are good government or bad government. I think it’s bad government.”

Roll call — John Liu, finally understanding the difference between good grandstanding and bad:

According to those in the room, roughly eight members spoke in favor of the legislation revising the law to three terms; eight spoke against it; and four asked questions that did not reveal their position.

Queens Councilman John C. Liu, who has emerged as a leader in the effort to stop the mayor’s plan, gave what many considered the most moving speech. As he recounted after the meeting, he told his colleagues, “I came into government with a pretty cynical attitude, but over the last six years I came to believe in the system. But in one fell swoop, what has happened here has decimated my belief in that system.”

Roll call — Robert Jackson, expanding on his personal philosophy of representative government and principles:

Robert Jackson, a Manhattan councilman, offered a rousing defense of the legislation under consideration, saying he has always opposed term limits and would not let public opinion sway him. “Even if 80 percent of my constituents are in favor of the death penalty, I wouldn’t vote for it,” he said. “The same is true for term limits. It’s a matter of principle.”

The issue of the back-door referendum:

A few members, like David I. Weprin, of Queens, questioned why Mr. Bloomberg did not attempt to change term limits through a public referendum.

But Peter F. Vallone Jr., of Queens, said that a referendum would cost millions of dollars to organize, a cost the city should not bear while the economy is faltering.

Solution — have the mayor bankroll a special election. It would be “altruistic” . . .

Roll call — Domenic Recchia, on the subject of “ample opportunity” to voice opinions:

After the meeting, Councilman Domenic M. Recchia Jr. of Brooklyn, who said he favors the extension, explained: “A lot of us council members feel that passing it through legislation is giving ample opportunity to the voters of the city to voice their opinions.”

He added: “If the voters don’t like their council member, they can vote him out of office. And if they don’t like the mayor, they can get rid of him too.”

And, finally, contra Joyce Purnick, evidence that billionaire term limit-hater Ronald S. Lauder may not be in on the plan after all:

As the Council debated, Mr. Bloomberg’s aides scrambled to shore up the support of Mr. Lauder, the term limits advocate and cosmetics heir.

After agreeing last week to support a third term for Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Lauder vowed on Sunday night to fight the mayor’s plan to permanently change the limits to three terms from two, calling it a “terrible mistake.”

Last week, Mr. Lauder privately agreed to support a one-time change of the law to three terms, to allow Mr. Bloomberg to seek re-election in the middle of an economic crisis. But he was angry to learn that the mayor was pushing for a permanent change of the law.

Mr. Bloomberg’s staff argued that there were two reasons a permanent change was preferable: It was less likely to face legal challenge and would appeal to more City Council members. When Mr. Bloomberg learned of Mr. Lauder’s frustration, he and his aides suggested a deal in which Mr. Lauder would sit on a 2010 charter commission committee, which would have the authority to change the law back to a two-term limit. In return, Mr. Lauder would agree to not fight the mayor’s plans to alter the law.

But Mr. Lauder, after appearing to back such a deal, balked on Sunday night, people familiar with the matter said. His reversal left City Hall staff members confused, as one said, and flustered.