Reality Bites

So much for the idea that extending term limits for everyone gives cover to make the tough decisions — that’s just out of touch with reality:

Confidence certainly does not flow at City Hall, where the City Council’s Finance Committee convened on Monday to hash over Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposals to plug multibillion-dollar holes that the economic crisis has poked in his budget plans. Not that the Council needed to be reminded that times are tough. But Mark Page, the mayor’s budget director, reinforced the point anyway.

“We are not in particularly good financial straits,” Mr. Page told committee members. It was a masterly display of understatement, worthy of Emperor Hirohito’s appeal to the Japanese people to accept their crushing defeat in World War II. “The war situation,” the emperor said in August 1945, “has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”

Comparable understatement brought Mr. Page no reward. Council members had no desire to make life comfortable for him.

They were particularly angry at the mayor’s plan to save the municipal treasury $256 million by canceling $400 tax rebate checks that were supposed to have been mailed to homeowners weeks ago. It turns out that the cancellation needs the Council’s consent; that approval is as likely as your winning the Mega Millions lottery. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Page will have to figure out another way to scrape together the money.

“This is just one of those ‘out of touch with reality’ moments that you guys have from time to time,” Councilman Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn said to the budget director, his voice laced with scorn.

Christine C. Quinn, the council speaker, who on most matters is almost surgically attached at the hip to Mr. Bloomberg, also opposes him on the rebate. She has spoken harshly as well about another of the mayor’s money-saving ideas, this one affecting city services for the elderly. It belongs, she said, “in the garbage can.”

It also turns out that the mayor got it wrong in calling for a 6-cent charge on plastic bags in stores. He had called it a fee, which he and the Council could impose on their own. On Monday, Mr. Page acknowledged this amounts to a tax, requiring Albany’s approval.

Just think: Only days ago, Council members were offering Mr. Bloomberg (and themselves) as New York’s salvation from fiscal doom. Ms. Quinn and Mr. Fidler were among the 29 council members who voted to amend the term limits law and thereby allow Mr. Bloomberg (and themselves) to run for an extra four years in office.

I’d Rather Be A Lamppost In New York Than A High-Level Official In What Could Be One Of The Most Transformative Presidencies In The History Of The Country

As Joe Biden might say, “That’s not change — that’s more of the same!”:

There’s at least one famous New Yorker who is less likely to get a call from the Obama administration than was once supposed.

Despite the advice he has offered to the next president in Newsweek columns, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is no longer in consideration as a candidate for a top job. To the degree that he was discussed at all, Mr. Bloomberg’s name all but vanished from serious conversation when he pushed a bill to overturn a two-term limit on city elected officials through the New York City Council, according to a number of insiders interviewed for this article.

(An anecdote that makes this horrible episode just a tiny bit better.)

A Tipping Point?

Pile. On.

The Quinnipiac Poll The Mayor Probably Won’t Cite . . .

. . . 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.

Where Have You Gone, Don Carlo?

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.