My Trip to the Circus: Inside the City Hall Term Limits Hearing

In the end, it was all just a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing.

As I began to approach my third hour sitting in the audience of yesterday's public hearing at City Hall on the extension of term limits, I decided to give up and go home. I had signed up to testify around 5 p.m. and realized that it would be hours more until I would get my chance to do so, once the committee chair Simcha Felder announced at 8:15 that the slate of speakers called to the microphone had submitted their names just a little past 1.

By that time, I had had my fill. I had even gotten to sit in the front row of the audience, once the first three rows were vacated by the Mayor's supporters. These passionate New Yorkers, who were (allegedly) paid by Bloomberg to crowd out citizens who had actually come to testify, finally decided they had done enough half-sleeping and limply holding up signs to satisfy their terms of employment. From this intimate vantage point, I could see Upper East Side Council Member Jessica Lappin (who had her legs up on the wooden crossbar beneath the dais) doing her best impression of "thoughtful", instead of bored. Coney Island Councilman Dominic Recchia didn't bother feigning contemplation. He wore a sneer of contempt for the public.

Queens Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. became immersed in his laptop after a testy exchange in which he set legendary former Councilman Henry Stern straight on what his daddy, former Speaker Peter Vallone, thought about term limits. Said Junior to the stately septuaganarian: "I respect you, but you gotta get out more."

Manhattan Councilman Robert Jackson had a similarly decorous exchange with a Democratic political consultant named Steve Kramer, who had vowed that if the Council extended term limits "we will come after you." Jackson, taking the general threat very personally, launched into an angry tirade which concluded with some permutation of George Bush's "Bring It On!" I was too stunned to copy it down verbatim, but Jackson barked something like "bring it" or "you can bring it on up here".

Yeah. Classy.

For the opposition crowd, Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James was the star of the night. She openly applauded passionate anti-extension testimony, despite admonitions from Coucilman Felder not to do so, and delivered a compelling speech slamming the Mayor's record on caring for low-income and minority families.

On the Council's side of the table, the only other moment that resonated with me was a point Minority Leader James Oddo (R - Staten Island) brought up to dispell the notion that deciding the issue in a special election refendum wouldn't represent the will of the people. Oddo reminded that he had first been elected in a special election, as had many of his colleagues, including Tish James (who was seated beside him), and, of course, Council Speaker Christine Quinn (who wasn't there). "Is there an asterisk next to my name?" asked Oddo rhetorically.

All in all, the hearing was predictably disappointing. After the marquis testimonies were given (i.e. the ones by big-name politicians), the Council Members demonstrated little interest in asking the real people of New York any questions.

Just like the digital clock on the wall counting down each person's two minutes to testify, Felder and the rest of the Council knew that time would soon run out on the public.

And then they'd be free to stop pretending they care, and just go back to doing whatever they want.

Why You Should Not Be Undecided About Term Limits

Before I lay out exactly why you should be against the City Council's move to extend term limits without your say, let me start by putting two common misconceptions to rest.

The movement against extending term limits is not about whether Mayor Bloomberg has done a good job in office. For the record, I think that he has. And if the City Council puts extending term limits on the ballot, as I believe they must, then you will have still have the opportunity to re-elect our Mayor if the measure passes.

So many New Yorkers are confused that this is an anti-Bloomberg initiative because that is how the Mayor has shrewdly framed the issue. Since the majority of New Yorkers feel pretty positively about him, miscasting the debate as “Bloomberg vs. No Bloomberg” twists the odds in favor of his agenda.

Second, this is not a debate about whether term limits are good. Personally, in an ideal world, I would be opposed to term limits, because the people should have the right to vote for whomever they want, for as long as they want. Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

The real question about extending term limits is whether our City Council should be allowed to run roughshod over the will of the people, just so they can keep their jobs for another four years. When you understand that this is what's at stake, then there is no good reason to support or stay undecided on the Council's backroom deal to extend term limits.

Twice in the past 15 years, the people of New York City have voted for term limits. The 1993 ballot initiative that resulted in term limits was introduced by Ron Lauder as a response to a vast corruption scandal that rocked then-Mayor Koch's Administration. Lauder's thinking was that the power of incumbency was so imbalanced in favor of our elected officials that they felt secure in abusing their positions for personal gain, because they knew it was virtually impossible for them to get voted out of office. In other words, the reason for term limits was to keep our politicians honest.

The last Council election in 2004 once again demonstrated the power of iron-clad incumbency. In the entire city, the only Council Member voted out of office was Allan Jennings of Queens, a guy whose private and public behavior was so bizarre (and allegedly criminal) it verged on insanity. Even then, it took a former Councilman unseated only because of the City's term limit laws - Thomas White Jr. - to beat him.

The current class of City Council Members has done little to convince the public that the Council has reformed its ways since Lauder's 1993 initiative. On the contrary, under Speaker Christine Quinn's leadership, the entire Council has come under investigation from the U.S. Attorney's Office for one of the worst scandals in recent City history. Uncovered earlier this year, the "slush fund scandal" exposed the Council's longstanding practice of funneling millions of dollars of taxpayer money into phantom organizations, so that the funds could later be doled out by the Speaker for political favors. Because the Council's previous bylaws allowed its Members to hide who made the specific requests to pour money into these dummy organizations, we don't know just how many Council Members should be directly implicated in these illegal transactions. Only the Federal investigation currently underway by U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia can tell us. But what we do know about is some of the public fall out, like the fact that two top aides to Brooklyn Councilman Kendall Stewart were indicted for their role in the scandal and that Speaker Quinn has hired a criminal attorney at taxpayer expense to defend herself. The entire Council as a body has also retained Quinn's lawyer.

The reason I bring up the Council is that it is often forgotten that the price for keeping around our popular mayor is another four years for the majority of our Council Members. Many of us like Bloomberg, but you would be hard-pressed to find anyone willing to go to bat for extending term limits just to keep our Council Members in office.

Anyone, that is, except for our Council Members.

Neither myself, nor almost anyone else in opposition to the Council's move to extend term limits is arguing that a third-term for our elected officials would necessarily be bad. What we are advocating for is that the people of New York decide this issue.

It is a fundamental conflict of interest for our Council Members to vote to rewrite our City's laws when they are the sole beneficiaries of that change. And, for those of you who question my characterization of our Council Member's motives, keep in mind that the Mayor has made it abundantly clear that he intends the third-term to be applicable only to the current crop of term-limited elected officials. That's the main reason why the few Council Members who aren't term-limited in 2009 are so incensed. They stand to gain nothing for playing ball with the Mayor and Speaker Quinn.

The Council is moving quickly to vote on extending term limits, so that more New Yorkers don't have a chance to understand what's really going on. They've reduced the entire public discourse on this event to a slim two-week window and arranged for only a single, solitary public hearing on the issue – and only in Manhattan. By comparison, when the City was considering banning horse-drawn carriages, there were nine public hearings on the bill. Imagine how many there would be if we wanted to build a new highway.

In any case, if the Council were willing to put term limits on the ballot for us to decide, this whole debate would be over in an instant.

But the Mayor and Speaker Quinn know that their scheme doesn't stand a chance if the voters get their say. They argue that a ballot referendum would be undemocratic because so few voters participate in special elections that the outcome of a vote just on term limits wouldn't really be representative of public opinion.

This is simply not true.

The real reason is that they don't trust the voters to do their bidding. They know that if we vote their initiative will fail and then they'd be out of a job. Twice in the last 15, New Yorkers have voted in favor of term limits. Recent polls show there is no reason to suspect that the third time would be any different. In fact, what Bloomberg and Quinn secretly understand is that generally only the most passionate and informed voters tend to show up for special elections – precisely the voters they won't be able to dupe with their self-serving propaganda.

A lot of fear has been used to manipulate us. Above all, we've been threatened that only New York City's richest man has the business skills to pull us back from the brink of economic collapse. Maybe. That's why I'm for the Council letting the people decide if we want to keep Bloomberg in office.

But until we get the chance to vote, I ask you to put your personal feelings aside about Mayor Bloomberg. Were you among the legions of New Yorkers outraged when Mayor Giuliani announced after 9/11 he wanted to stick around for another term, because only he could keep us safe? Are you a New Yorker who would have rioted in the streets and stormed the White House if President Bush had insisted on a third term? When we change the rules to benefit a good man, we also benefit those with the worst of intentions.

Share with your friends the real reasons to oppose the Council's attempt to deny us our voice. And make sure to call your Council Members to let them know they work for you, not for themselves.

Brooklyn Cat Lovers: DON'T PANIC!

The Optimist and his girlfriend share a love of animals and nature. Fortunately, our new second-floor apartment overlooks an overgrown yard and one of the rare evergreen trees in Greenpoint, so there is always a lot of wildlife to observe.

This morning, in defiance of the pigeon haters in the City Council, we hung a bird feeder on the fire escape outside our window, hoping to entice the cardinals, finches, squirrels, and even the much-maligned pigeons to stop by our ledge. A few hours later, my girlfriend peered out the glass to see if we had attracted any visitors and instantly called my attention to the view. A couple yards beyond the reach of our window, perched two and a half stories up in a leafless tree, was a cat.

Just a few hours earlier, I had seen the same cat walking a tightrope of electrical cables spanning our yard into the next and marveled at his audacity. Now, we watched the cat as he scaled the narrow trunk, balancing boldly on razor-thin branches, climbing higher and higher.

And then stop.

Stop for a very long time.

As the hours passed, it became clear that he was stuck. My girlfriend and I tried to plot mental maps of how he could descend on his own, but they all looked too dangerous. The kittie seemed to agree.

Nor could we devise any way of helping him. No ladder we could get would be tall enough and he was well beyond our reach. Our own house cats joined us at the window, gawking at their comrade. I wondered if they envied his freedom or if they were ogling like race car fans waiting for a wreck.

When evening started to set in, we decided that it was time to act. The cat had had ample chance to come down on his own. Soon it would be cold and dark.

But what to do? Call the fire department? Do firefighters really rescue cats from trees or was that some myth of Americana? In the end, we decided to call 311.

Thank Bloomberg for 311. It's really an ingenious service. I've solved so many problems with its help. But not this one.

As I now know, Animal Care and Control is the City organization responsible for cats getting out of trees. FYI, they're closed on New Year's.

I asked to be transferred to our local firehouse. Well, maybe firefighters will still get Snookums down from the tree for you in Nebraska, but apparently not in Brooklyn. The Bravest suggested I wait until AC&C opened at 8 the next morning for assistance.

Yeah, tell that to the cat hanging out my window. "Don't worry, fella. Help will be on the way in 14-16 hours."

Then how did the drama end? Since the WGA is on strike, a Hollywood ending was out. Instead, the cat opted to improvise. As I was about to hang up with the fire department, the cat suddenly inverted and made a deft dash down the tree. After three cliffhanging hours in his perch, he reached the ground in an instant and promptly disappeared. I can only hope Jon Stewart does as well without writers.

This being New Year's, I found myself inclined to draw some lesson of great philosophic significance from the ordeal, but after extensive head-scratching nothing particularly deep came to mind. Then I remembered the sage advice of one of the most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Printed in large friendly letters on the book's cover are the words DON'T PANIC.

That stuck me as suitably deep.

Really, it's true. It's indisputably the best course of action in all crisis situations. Short of the right solution, I suppose.

Here's another apt aphorism that's pretty foolproof (on Earth, at least): What goes up, must come down. Even cats.

So, DON'T PANIC, Cat Lovers! Fluffy will be down on his own by dinnertime.