Photo Credit: Azi Paybarah

Next American City, a national non-profit quarterly magazine about making cities better, asks if New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg is overstaying his welcome by changing the term limits law for his own benefit and not the for the benefit of future politicians.

Here are some excerpts from their reporting:

“…Whatever the particulars, one can identify a trend in Bloomberg’s approach to economic development — a favoritism toward the interests of his allies, be they his wealthy neighbors on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, developers, or the Republican Party to which he belonged until recently, and a tendency toward grandiose ambitions, even when it contradicts common sense. Bloomberg recently proposed raising revenue to help cover New York’s budget shortfall not, as some Democrats had hoped, by raising income taxes on the richest New Yorkers, but by raising the regressive sales tax by half a cent on the dollar and eliminating the exemption for clothing sales of less than $110. This would mean that a janitor buying school clothes for his kids will now have to pay more in taxes, while an investment banker putting an addition on her summer house will not.

The New York Times’ editorial page, generally a pro-Bloomberg bastion, recently criticized him for pressuring the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to spend billions on building privately owned office towers at the former World Trade Center site, rather than making needed repairs and upgrades to the Lincoln Tunnel, Penn Station and the city’s airports. “Mr. Bloomberg of all people should recognize that real estate is not the best investment for a public agency,” wrote the Times.

Likewise, the West Side stadium proposal was part and parcel to his hopes to attract the 2012 summer Olympics to New York, even though recent Olympics in Atlanta and Los Angeles lost money for their host cities due to security costs and the “crowding out” of normal business and tourism. In 2004, Bloomberg, then a Republican, offended local sensibilities by recruiting the Republican National Convention (RNC) to New York, which voted 4-1 against George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. The city was filled with Iraq War opponents who greatly resented the Bush administration’s use of their suffering on 9/11 to justify the unrelated invasion of Iraq. Bloomberg claimed the city would benefit from the tourism dollars and positive publicity, although New York hardly lacks for tourists in August. Massive planned protests required so much police overtime and street and office closings that some estimates showed the convention to be a net revenue loser for the city. Bloomberg pushed forward to make the convention run smoothly, and praised Bush from the convention podium. Bloomberg helped Bush capitalize on the memory of the attacks of 9/11 to win reelection, despite Bush’s desultory record on urban issues.”

And here’s a look at Bloomberg and civil liberties:

“We had high hopes for him,” says Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). “Even before the RNC” — when the police arrested nearly 2,000 protesters — “we were quickly brought down to reality about the mayor’s First Amendment views.” Civil libertarians have a number of issues, from the NYPD’s handling of protests to Bloomberg’s implementation of mayoral control in schools, where they say Bloomberg has failed to respect dissenting views. “The police under Bloomberg had a policy of denying permits for street protests,” says Lieberman, citing the international anti-Iraq War protests of February 2003. Bloomberg denied the protesters a marching permit, many were prevented from attending the rally, and hundreds were arrested.

On Bloomberg’s pet issue, education, his critics contend his behavior has been equally controversial. “One can see this [tendency toward authoritarianism] in his attitude toward the schools,” says Bender. “There should have been real town halls on public education.” The NYCLU argues that Bloomberg has removed opportunities for public discussion of new rules governing schools, and that he has subjected school children to discipline without oversight of the disciplinarians. “The mayor has functioned, and his Department of Education has functioned, in a way that treats the department as not a city agency,” says Lieberman. “New rules don’t go through the comment period that even the NYPD is subject to. For example, the ban on cell phones in schools: He just did it, no discussion of what it means for kids who go to school far away and have to pick up their younger brother, or have health problems.” The New York City Department of Education did not respond to an interview request for this article.

Read the full article here: “Bloomberg, Uninterrupted,” by Ben Adler