City Council Must Challenge Bloomberg
By Kenny Schaeffer

The surprising victory of Republican billionaire Michael Bloomberg as the next mayor of New York City has enormously magnified the importance of the incoming City Council, which will face a momentous decision in picking the next speaker.

The expected continuation of Rudolph Giuliani’s policies by Bloomberg ‘will force the Council to confront its power and ability to impose a far different agenda, one based on economic justice--living wages, affordable housing, effective public schools and mass transit, parks and libraries.

The prior speaker, Peter Vallone, resisted Giuliani only on some issues and ruled with an iron fist, punishing councilmembers who wished to go further.

Due to term limits, the newly elected Council contains 38 new members. Some come with a long history of activism, and have already formed ‘the Fresh Council Caucus, demanding democratization of the way the Council operates.

Among them are Robert Jackson, elected to succeed Stanley Michels in Washington Heights, and Gale Brewer, who succeeds Ronnie Eldridge on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Jackson, a Met Council member and tenant leader, was the lead plaintiff on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s successful lawsuit against underfunding of city public schools by the state, and Brewer worked on staff for former Mayor David Dinkins and Councilmember Ruth Messenger. Along with returning members such as Christine Quinn, Margarita Lopez, Bill Perkins and Eva Moskowitz, they could provide an effective check on the policies expected from Bloomberg. Perkins, a leading candidate for speaker, welcomes the new members’ commitment to open up the Council.

The new councilmembers are not all grass-roots activists, however. They include former state legislators Al Vann and Melinda Katz, former state attorney general G. Oliver Koppell, and the children of several term-limited incumbents, including Peter Vallone, Jr.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Bloomberg’s surprise victory was made possible by several factors. The Rev. Al Sharpton’s endorsement of Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer in the Democratic primary turned Ferrer’s campaign into a faux progressive coalition. Ferrer espoused concern about "the other New York" which he had never acted upon in his 20-year career as a part of the Bronx Democratic machine under county leader Roberto Ramirez, an ally of Joe Bruno in the state Senate and of the Rent Stabilization Association in the Council (where the Bronx delegation voted to gut rent and eviction protections in 1994 and lead-poisoning protections in 1999).

Following Green’s willingness to grant Giuliani a term extension after the World Trade Center attacks, the Ferrer campaign began a barrage of attacks on his competence to be mayor. Combined with the strange-bedfellow coalition of Ed Koch, Sharpton, and Vallone, this created a surge in momentum for Ferrer. Green narrowly won the delayed Oct. 11 runoff, but the racial and political divisions of the primaries continued to haunt him.

Once Green had secured the nomination, Bloomberg and his team intensified the attacks, calling him a "Stalinist" and "anti-cop," despite Green’s support from former police commissioner Bill Bratton and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Bloomberg’s attacks were given credence by the media. NY 1, a subsidiary of Time Warner, gave free weekly television airtime to Bloomberg supporters Alfonse D’Amato and Ed Koch, without giving equal time to Green.

Bloomberg outspent Green by $45 million, including continuous TV and radio ads, slick mailings, and prerecorded telephone calls. And between Ramirez’s posturing, Ferrer’s silence, and Sharpton’s suggestion of an election boycott, Green’s support among African-American and Latino voters, normally heavily Democratic, was fatally compromised, allowing Bloomberg to win narrowly with 51% of the vote.

Given the barrage of unfair criticism Mark Green has already endured, we are reluctant to point out any errors on his part. However, it must be noted that he was largely silent on the issue of affordable housing in the campaign, even though 2.3 million rent-stabilized tenants, many of them registered voters politicized by the traumatic battle in 1997, were listening.

What Bloomberg does on housing remains to be seen, but on his Website he endorsed retaining rent regulations, strengthening code enforcement, and expand the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption program for both seniors and "other tenants in need of assistance." He also calls for a substantial commitment to building affordable housing.

For tenants and others concerned with the housing crisis, the Bloomberg victory leaves us at a historic crossroads. As Pat Paulsen once observed, one path leads to difficulty, uncertainty and great risk; the other to certain destruction. We can either give up, or fight back in the new year by focusing our efforts on mobilizing the Council around a progressive and effective speaker and by elevating into a human-rights campaign the struggles to renew and strengthen rent and eviction laws, repeal the Urstadt law, preserve existing public and private housing and create massive amounts of new affordable housing. The choice is easy, the work will be hard.