Richard Whalen

Noo Yawkers know a mensch (Yiddish for a stand-up guy) when we see one. We were all delighted to learn that a source close to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says he wants to remain in public office after his tenure ends on December 31, 2009 – even if it means changing the term limits law, the New York Post reported Sunday. “He won’t make up his mind until the budget is done [in June],” the source said.

But the news was quickly overshadowed by politics. The Post said the next day that State Assembly Speaker Sheldon, who had a role in defeating Bloomberg’s traffic congestion-pricing plan, says: “I don’t believe that Mike Bloomberg is interested in a third term…. It is his spinner’s way of trying to keep him from lame-duck status as long as possible.”

If there is one individual who can sell the public on an extra term for himself, it’s definitely Bloomberg. Voters approved ballot referendums setting term limits in 1993 and 1996, but Council Speaker Christine Quinn says the council has legislative authority to overturn them without another vote by the public. And it is hardly a surprise to either New Yorkers or observers nationally that a Quinnipiac University poll released on March 12 showed that New Yorkers, by a 57-34 percent margin, think the mayor should stay in public service. In fact, his approval rating then was at an all time high of 75 percent. And there are many reasons for his popularity.

“The billionaire founder of Bloomberg L.P., who spent $74 million of his own money in 2001 to gain an office few thought he could win and $85 million more in 2005 to keep it, Bloomberg was a novice politician who took office just four months after the 2001 terror attack and oversaw an economic recovery that has included a boom in jobs, tourism and construction, The New York Times said last year. “In his second term, he has led a high profile national campaign to stem the flow of illegal guns and a local effort to reduce the stubbornly high rate of poverty, which affects one in five residents of a city of vast wealth.”

“When Mr. Bloomberg took office, he inherited a budget punch-drunk from the aftereffects of 9/11 on an already slowing economy, facing a $5 billion deficit in what was then, in 2002 dollars, a $41 billion budget, including $14 billion from Albany and Washington. The mayor spent his first months in office looking for ways to reduce spending through cutting staff and modestly trimming services, but he increased revenue through borrowing and eventually raising taxes, fines and fees.

Mark Page, director of the Office of Management and Budget, was quoted in the article, saying: “He very deliberately, early on, made the choice that rather than really jamming down services, he was going to hold the service level and raise taxes.”

“Bloomberg has also personally contributed tens of millions of dollars to the city, forgoing his salary, paying his own travel expenses, donating to social service and cultural groups whose city grants he trimmed, and supporting projects and experimental programs,” the article said.

While many including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich believe Bloomberg’s fiscal talents would be better used in a McCain administration – perhaps even creating a special post of finance czar to get our national economic excesses under control - we New Yorkers know that we will never find another mayor who loves our city so much that he doesn’t mind taking the subway to work, changing the lunch menu of public schools to make sure that students are served wheat and salad and cut apples in plastic bags, outlawing smoking in all bars and restaurants and pushing through a plan to plant a million new trees in the next 10 years.

Mike Bloomberg is the best thing that’s happened to New York City since the legendary Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia (“The Little Flower”) steered the city through the depression. Hard times are here again; scores of thousands of jobs are being lost in Wall Street, which provides some 25 percent of the City’s budget through taxes and fees.

Under Bloomberg, since 9/11, New York has become the safest, best policed and most intelligently led large city in the world – and the proof is the steady stream of foreign municipal officials who come to study the miracle-in-operation. New York needs Bloomberg to get through the ongoing recession and the tough times beyond.