Katz Sends Residents Letter Explaining Her Term Limit Stance

Supported Mayor’s Bill Allowing Third Term

By Conor Greene

In an effort to explain one of the most controversial votes City Council members have cast this year, Melinda Katz recently sent a letter to constituents outlining her support for a bill allowing officials to serve a third consecutive term in office.

Katz (D-Forest Hills), who is running for the city comptroller position and would have been forced out of her current position on the City Council next year due to term limits, supported Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s bill extending term limits, when it passed by a vote of 29 to 22 in October.

The decision by City Council members to provide themselves with the opportunity to serve a third four year term came after residents previously voted twice to maintain term limits. It was seen by some as a conflict of interest, with the mayor reportedly lobbying hard to gain the necessary support of council members.

The vote threw a wrench into many local races, including next year’s battle for city comptroller. Incumbent William Thompson has said publicly that he is continuing his mayoral bid, despite now having the option of seeking another term as comptroller. He has until July to decide which office he will seek.

That leaves the other comptroller candidates, including Katz, Councilman David Weprin (D-Hollis), Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn) and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, also a Democrat, in a tough position. Due to the differences in the amounts candidates can raise and spend for the comptroller race versus a city council run, the candidates who are now council members must decide by January 10 if they will seek reelection to their current position.

Katz, who has already spent about $775,000 on her comptroller bid, voted in favor of the mayor’s bill amending the term limit law, and also voted against a bill introduced earlier that same day that would have forced a public vote on the council’s decision. At the time, her comptroller campaign manager, Erik Joerss, maintained that Katz is moving ahead with her comptroller bid.

“Bill Thompson has been very clear that he is running for mayor and we are running for comptroller,” said Joerss on October 29 when asked whether the term limit amendment, or the possibility that Thompson seeks reelection as comptroller, would cause her to instead seek reelection to her council seat. “Other than that, we are not going to get into hypotheticals,” he said.

In a statement, Katz said that she has “long been against term limits” and saw the mayor’s bill as a chance to “create more stability” in local government.” She said that a referendum “would create more confusion for New Yorkers and for candidates about just what offices they are eligible to run for.” When asked whether Katz was concerned about going against the will of residents who twice voted for term limits, Joerss said the statement addresses that issue and refused to provide additional comment.

Katz recently expanded on the reasoning behind her vote in a letter to constituents. She argued that “from a practical point of view, a longer time in office affects… the ability to see capital improvements through completion.” In addition, she notes that the earliest a referendum could be held would be March or April meaning the vote wouldn’t take effect until May, a timeframe that would “hold the future of our City government in limbo at a time when it is in most need of stability.” Katz also argued in the letter that the City Council’s job “is to pass laws whether they change laws enacted by referendum or legislation.”

She maintains that she has been against term limits since the start of her career in public service, writing letters in opposition to the two public referendums as a member of the state Assembly in 1993 and 1996. “My position then as well as now has been clear and has not changed,” she wrote.

So far, a handful of candidates have already emerged to succeed Katz in the 29th council district, which represents Forest Hills and Rego Park, including Deputy Borough President Karen Koslowitz, former assemblyman Michael Cohen, community board member Lynn Schulman, Heidi Chain, president of the 112th Precinct Community Council, Mel Gagarin and Bob Delay.

Bloomberg Pushing Term Limits Amendment

Hearings Scheduled for Oct. 16 and 17, Vote Expected on Oct. 23

By Conor Greene

A one-page bill introduced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday calls for permanently allowing elected officials to serve three consecutive four-year terms instead of two. The bill is being pushed through quickly and will likely be the subject of public hearings before the end of the month.

At the same time, Councilman David Weprin (R-Hollis) introduced a bill that would require that any change to term limits be done by a referendum, since residents voted twice to establish term limits. The bill is also sponsored by Councilmembers Bill de Blasio, Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) and John Liu (D-Flushing).

In addition, Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) sponsored a resolution that would force the state legislature “to give the authority to provide in its Charter than any change in its term limits must be submitted to voter referendum.”

“If this Council votes to amend the Term Limits Law without seeking a public referendum, it will go down in history as one of the most blatantly self-serving and autocratic acts of any legislative body in this city’s history,” said Avella, who is running for mayor next year.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn has refused to comment publicly on the bill, telling reporters at City Hall on Tuesday that, “I do not have an announcement to make for you today regarding term limits.” After announcing his intentions to amend the term limits law last week, Bloomberg was in Europe this week meeting with foreign leaders.

The attempt by Bloomberg to overturn the current term limits comes as 13 of 14 City Councilmembers from Queens will be forced out of office due to term limits in 2009. Many have already announced their intentions to run for higher office, including Melinda Katz (D-Forest Hills), who plans to run for comptroller. William Thompson, who currently holds that seat, has indicated that he still plans to move ahead with his mayoral bid, even if term limits are amended.

Katz has not said whether she will abandon her comptroller run and again seek her City Council seat if term limits are extended. However, due to the stricter campaign finance limits for City Council candidates, she would have to return about $400,000 that she has raised for her comptroller bid if she does so.

While Katz has not publicly endorsed a candidate to replace her on the City Council, her spokeswoman told the Daily News that she is friends with “both” candidates, referring to former Assemblyman Michael Cohen and Queens Deputy Borough President Karen Koslowitz, who represented the 29th District on City Council from 1991 to 2001.

Other candidates for that seat include Heidi Chain Harrison, Lynn Schulman, Bob DeLay and Mel Gagarin.

Other term-limited Councilmembers include Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach), who is gunning for the state Senate seat currently held by Serf Maltese (R-Glendale), Eric Gioia, who is planning a bid for public advocate, Peter Vallone (D-Astoria), who is eyeing the borough president’s seat and James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), who is challenging Frank Padavan (R-Queens).

At a civic meeting on Tuesday, Addabbo said that he fundamentally doesn’t agree with the concept of term limits, but said that “what has been created by the people should be changed by the people.” He added that for the City Council to make that decision would be “self-serving and wrong” and is something he won’t support.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg, who doesn’t have a job lined up after his mayoral term ends next year, is working hard to push his bill through the City Council. Public hearings have reportedly already been scheduled for October 16 and 17, and a vote is expected on October 23.

Possibly complicating matters, Assemblyman Hakeem S. Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) was expected to hold a press conference on Wednesday afternoon announcing his plans to introduce a bill that would prevent Bloomberg from extending term limits without first holding a public referendum.

Katz Fundraising Request is Denied by CFB

Real Estate Contributions Will be Restricted in December

By Conor Greene

During her time as chair of City Council’s influential Land Use Committee, Melinda Katz has raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from members of the real estate industry. Since deciding to run for comptroller two years ago, she has raised more than two million dollars, outpacing her three opponents.

However, starting in December, the amount that members of the real estate industry can contribute to politicians will be severely curtailed due to a change in the city’s campaign finance laws. That means Katz’s ability to pull in money for a runoff election during the Democratic primary – which would take place if none of the candidates received at least 40% of the vote – would be reduced significantly.

To avoid the possibility of having to amass a war chest for a runoff without being able to fully leverage the real estate industry, Katz recently asked the city Campaign Finance Board to allow her to establish an account now that would be set aside in case of a runoff. That means that industry members who have already contributed $4,950, the maximum allowed by law, could give another $2,475 for a runoff effort. Under the new law taking effect in December, those contributions will be limited to just $200.

In a letter to CFB Chairman Joseph Parks, the Katz campaign predicted the battle for the comptroller’s position “will be a highly competitive race.” Currently, three other elected officials – Councilman David Weprin, Councilman David Yassky and Assemblyman Jim Brennan – have formally declared their candidacy, and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion has publicly stated his intention to seek that position.

In the June 30 letter to CFB, Katz’s treasurer Ronald Kaye, argues that a runoff “can be reasonably anticipated” due to the number of candidates currently running, the amount of money collectively raised so far, the lack of public polling in comptroller’s races until late in the primary process and the fact that incumbent William Thompson, Jr. can’t run again due to term limits.

“Councilwoman Katz believes that one of the most important aspects of the campaign finance program is that it encourages candidates to continue to focus on raising matchable contributions from New Yorkers early in the process, so that they can get that responsibility out of the way and concentrate on meeting with voters and debating the issues as the election draws near,” wrote Kaye.

“If there is a runoff election for Comptroller, which would surprise few political observers, the compressed time period after the primary would best be spent on debating and discussing the issues, not scrambling for last minute dollars."

Last Thursday, the CFB decided that “based on the information now available… a runoff election in the Democratic Party primary is not ‘reasonably anticipated’ at this time.” It notes that candidates “may submit another request” in the future if the race has “sufficiently evolved to enable them to demonstrate with concrete evidence that a runoff is ‘reasonably anticipated.’”

The decision, available on the CFB’s website, calls the prospect of a runoff “highly speculative” and argues that allowing a candidate to collect funds ahead of time would “actually undermine some core purposes of the Campaign Finance Program.”

It notes that the board has never decided that a runoff is reasonably anticipated more than a year before the election. The earliest it has done so was in February 2001 during the mayoral Democratic primary between Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer. The decision also points out that “no documentation of the history of runoff primaries for the Democratic comptroller primary, polling information or press reporting was presented to the board to support the request.”

According to the latest filings with the CFB, it’s clear that the comptroller’s race is attracting a lot of attention from donors. Katz leads the field with $2.1 million raised, followed by Weprin, with $1.8 million, Yassky, who has raised $1.3 million and Brennan, at $492,203. Carrion has raised $1.7 million, according to the CFB.

Katz’s comptroller campaign did not respond to a message seeking comment on the request or the CFB’s decision. However, at least one of her opponents is convinced that the new law limiting real estate contributions was the reason behind the request.

“Obviously, the request was premature, and we applaud the board for recognizing that,” said Yassky’s spokesman Doug Forand. “The context of this request is troubling and appears to be an effort to expand the ability for individuals to give money now who are going to be precluded from making those donations in the near future. There is plenty of time after these rules are put in place for someone to raise money should there be a runoff, so that argument doesn’t hold water as far as we’re concerned.”