From Eric Dixon’s Crime, Politics and Policy Blog:

Several hours after the polls have closed for New York City primary elections (which in most districts are the de facto general election), it appears at least four incumbents supporting term limits will go down to defeat and a fifth incumbent (the Bronx’s Maria Baez) trails by ninety votes in a three-way race likely to go to a recount. The voters have spoken.

Now the main event — the mayor’s race — is between putative Mayor-for-life Mike Bloomberg and current Comptroller William Thompson.
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Post illustration by Leah Tiscione

Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Goodwin has a new regular column at the Post in which he writes that Thompson has a fighting chance at beating Bloomberg.

Via the Post:

Winning the Democratic primary for mayor ain’t what it used to be. Still, it’s better to win than lose, so Comptroller Bill Thompson wakes up today with a new view of the world.

He’s standing on a molehill, looking up at a mountain.

Most bets are not on whether Mayor Mike wins a third term, but on his margin of victory. Five points, 10 points or a repeat of the nearly 20-point blowout of poor Fernando Ferrer four years ago.

I wouldn’t bet against Bloomy, but his re-election isn’t a slam dunk. Thompson can win.

You read that right. Thompson can win.
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The City Room has a feature called “Snapshots of Primary Day,” and one snapshot shows how the term limits override will play out in November.

Mr. Yassky shook hands with a letter carrier, Peter Frakes, who greeted the candidate as “councilman, soon to be comptroller,” and added, “You have my vote.” Mr. Yassky apologized for weighing down Mr. Frakes’s mail cart with so many fliers.

But a young man approached the candidate and told him, “I would’ve voted for you if it weren’t for the term limits,” he said, explaining that he could not support Mr. Yassky, who supported Mayor Bloomberg’s effort to extend the term limits law so the mayor could seek a third term.

Illustration: Victor Kerlow

A few weeks ago, we did a short interview with Time Out New York about how we think the term limits issue will play out during this election. We think Bloomberg’s policies have been consistently failing New Yorkers — unemployment is higher than the national average, the city lacks affordable housing and rent stability, homelessness has increased, there is no marriage equality — the list runs on. And then there’s the overturning of term limits by Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council. New Yorkers certainly haven’t forgotten (see the NY1 video in the previous post) and it will be a deciding issue in the election this fall.

(Also, don’t forget to take the Time Out poll about whether we should keep term limits or get rid of them. So far, the votes are to keep them.)

Via Time Out New York:

Twice before—in 1993 and 1996—New York City voted for term limits for the mayor, City Council, comptroller, public advocate, borough president and other positions. In fact, 1996’s vote specifically rejected a third term.
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Photo Credit: Hagen for News

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg skewered the MTA after a ceiling collapse at the 181st St. stop on the 1 train disrupted service. According to The Daily News, he said:

The collapse “just goes to show the MTA has for decades underfunded what they needed to do to not just expand, but to maintain our stations.

Newsday went straight to the point:

When was the last time a New York City mayor ran for re-election and did not run against the MTA, or any of its predecessors before the MTA was established in 1968? Probably never.
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* Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, writes in The Huffington Post that Bloomberg can’t find the research that backs up extending his grade retention policies for 4th, 5th and 6th grade students. Also, the consensus among experts on the extension is overwhelmingly negative.

* Not to mention, students can basically pass standardized tests just by guessing.

* WCBSTV asks, what’s up with Bloomberg’s re-election stunts? Seriously, “Mike the Nice?”

* Azi Paybarah has the questionnaire Bloomberg filled out for DC37.

* Elizabeth Benjamin says there are Liberals, Socialists and…Bloomberg. (Who are we kidding though, he’s a Republican running on the Republican party line.)

* CD3 candidates Yetta Kurland, Maria Passanante-Derr and Christine Quinn are debating tomorrow. The debate starts at 7 p.m. but people will be lining up at 6 p.m. to get a seat.

The policies of this mayor, of this Republican mayor, continue to drive the numbers of homeless families up,” said Thompson, who also derided the administration’s one-way-ticket-home program as a means of reducing the shelter population.

This is almost a return to the days of Rudy Giuliani as the mayor when we saw the increase of homeless families and possibly even policies that are worse.

– Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson on Mayor Bloomberg’s failure to address homelessness in the city.

(Source: The Daily News)

For more information about the city’s homelessness rates, check out The Coalition For the Homeless.

A lecture & presentation by Rob Hollander

Urban planning in New York has a checkered history marked by occasional visionary successes as well as disastrously myopic failures in the long struggle towards sound principles of urban design, often challenged by development pressures of the marketplace. This lecture will consider Bloomberg administration policies and their actualized consequences for the City within the context of the broad history of urban planning in New York.

The lecture is presented by Rob Hollander Ph.D, a native New Yorker, author, historian, community activist and licensed tour guide.

Saturday August 15
12:00-1:30pm
$6 min donation
RSVP not required

East Village Visitor’s Center
@ The Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
NY NY 10012

The second issue of the Fed Up New Yorkers hit the streets today. Letters to the editor? Please e-mail mike@bloombergwatch.com

You can download a copy of the new issue here:
Fed Up New Yorkers Issue Two

Big kudos to The Village Voice’s reporting staff. Two weeks ago, Wayne Barrett investigated the Bloomberg administration’s involvement in the Deutsche Bank Fire scandal. Now, Tom Robbins investigates the scams Bloomberg’s TV execs were able to pull off at taxpayer-funded NYC-TV. Another must-read.

Via The Village Voice:

This spring, a potential minor disaster loomed in the otherwise charmed life of Mike Bloomberg’s administration. A top official at NYC-TV was arrested and charged with siphoning tens of thousands of dollars out of his agency’s coffers and into his pocket.
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