Council Tackles Term Limits; In The City's Best Interests
Western Queens Gazette October 16, 1996
BY LINDA WILSON

"Which is better, our [the City Council] referendum proposal or the current law?" City Council Speaker Peter Vallone asked the City Club at its September meeting at Citicorp recently. Vallone challenged the group to support the council-sponsored proposal, which would stagger term limits for city legislators; borough presidents and other elected officials, rather than requiring all terms to end on Dec. 31, 2001.

"Which is better for the future responsible governability of New York City, our way- which ensures some continuity of government- or what we have now, which insures that virtually everybody leaves not only in 2002, but every six years thereafter?" Vallone also asked. The speaker called for "everyone here to support us now- and on Nov. 5th". He added, "What the council is proposing is the best way to achieve what is in the best interests of the city. Both you at the City Club and we at the council are opposed to the term limits law as it now stands." He called for the club and the council to "unite in opposition against what we all see is a bad law. Let us do what we can, while we still can, to prevent New York City from suffering irreparable harm."

Before Vallone took questions from the audience, he described the restructuring of city government in 1989, which, he said, resulted in "the adoption of a new City Charter that year", the abolition of the Board of Estimate, "its voting makeup having been found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court" and its powers over the municipal budget and all land-use decisions transferred to the city council. For the first time, the city of New York had a genuine legislative branch of government, accountable to the people, and empowered on behalf of the people, he declared.

In seven years, Vallone continued, the council "has achieved a remarkable record. Not everyone here would agree with every decision the council has made, with every vote or action we have taken; in a democracy, that's impossible." But, he added, "I do think that everyone here would agree that the fear expressed by some- that the demise of the Board of Estimate would leave a void in the government of this city the members of the council could never fill- have been proved wrong."

Vallone then proceeded to detail the council's achievements which, he said, indicate that "the council has shown the willingness to tackle the toughest issues- and to take the lead when that was necessary." Among those accomplishments under the mayoral administration of David Dinkins to "set the fiscal priorities we have now" and the initiative to freeze property and corporate taxes, "and keep them frozen". The council, Vallone also pointed out, "was the first to fight the state and city hotel taxes that have now thankfully been repeated, and that were hurting our tourist and hospitality industries, so vital to our economy and our job base."

The council also, he continued, "first proposed phasing in reductions in anti-business taxes, such as the commercial rent tax, the unincorporated business tax and the sales tax on clothing under $100." he went on: "It was the council that - even in this time of austerity- managed to include in this year's city budget the start of a three-year plan that will bring $120 million in long overdue tax relief for co-op and condo owners." This, Vallone summed up, indicated that, "We made a pledge: a homeowner is a homeowner, and all homeowners deserve equal treatment. And we kept that pledge, when some thought we never could, or never would."

Some of the council's initiative, Vallone told the club, have set national examples, among them a local campaign finance law that, Vallone said, "is the best on the books anywhere. We have it because the city council passed it." Council efforts, he went on, resulted in "the most restrictive legislation to limit smoking in workplaces and public spaces anywhere in the nation." The law exists, he declared, "because the city council passed it- and had to stand up to fierce pressure from perhaps the toughest special interest in the nation, the tobacco companies, in doing so."

According to Vallone, "the single greatest change for the better in New York in recent years," a sharp decline in crime, "has far outpaced the rest of the country [and that] has taken us completely off the FBI's list of most dangerous American cities" and "has thankfully continued in the latest round of statistics." He added, "It is well for all of us, including our mayor [Rudolph Giuliani] to remember who first came up with the idea, and the funding, for "Safe Streets, Safe City [which legislation called for certain tax revenues to be used to hire more police officers] and the thousands of extra police officers hired under that program. It was the city council."

Vallone added, "Education of our young people is the key to New York's ability to compete and be a world-class city in the 21st century, as corporate leaders have told me over and over." In answer to "a generation of school kids trying to learn in overcrowded or crumbling buildings, trying to learn from ridiculously outdated textbooks," the council "proposed a massive four-year program of school construction and rehabilitation. We took our case to the public when the mayor resisted. We opened people's eyes to the dimensions of the problem, and when it came time to adopt the budget, the city council had literally changed the direction of this city."

The ramifications of the council's school reconstruction legislation were also felt on a national level, Vallone added. "Since then, President [Bill] Clinton himself has proposed a nationwide school construction plan that is modeled on our proposal. Does anyone doubt now that the council was right?"

He further elucidated: "We have demonstrated on the council that we can take the long-term view, even when mayors and others have sought stopgap solutions at budget time. We literally carried the entire capital budget for the Departments of Parks [and Recreation] and Cultural Affairs for two years because we recognized the links between our city's cultural institutions, our tourist industry and our economy. We jumpstarted the renovation of the Hayden Planetarium [at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan] that is now underway. We funded the 'Computers in the Classroom' program in the schools. We have consistently found ways to mitigate our city's need for fiscal austerity with the need of our neighborhoods to maintain their quality of life, without which New York will not survive. And we have done all this without descending into the NIMBY [Not In My Back Yard] parochialism that some feared would result from abolition of the Board of Estimate. Look at our land use decisions. Again and again, we have acted in the best interests of the city as a whole."

Bringing his remarks to the issue of term limit modification, Vallone pointed out: "Our job on the council, as the legislative branch, is to stand up for our communities and to maintain a balance in government. I think we've done a good job. But that balance remains a very delicate thing, and the more experience our legislators bring to their task, the better for our people." He added. "I know you in the City Club agree with that. You certainly know how I feel about it. Many of you have told me you agree that in November 1993 [when the original term limit legislation was put on a city wide ballot] the voters of this city should not have approved a referendum arbitrarily imposing a two-term limit on all elected officials, meaning that as things stand now, on Jan. 1, 2002, the entire membership of the council will have to leave office, all at once, all on the same day, taking all their accumulated experience with them. And I think you and I agree that voters did not fully realize the implications of what they were voting for."

Failing to enact the term limits modification law, Vallone pointed out, "threatens to wipe out all the hard work that has gone into restructuring New York City's government and all the progress that we have made transforming the city council into the institution it is now."

Some City Club members do not agree with the strategy chosen by the council, Vallone admitted. "Some of you at the City Club believe there should not be term limits at all," he said. He noted, however, that the voters had decided otherwise and the council must act accordingly. "Perhaps it is the nature of the legislative process- the need to fashion consensus and compromise- that has led us at the council to decide on a course of action that I know many of you here do not agree with. But, looking at the situation as realistically as we can, and seeing that there are only five years left before the clock on two-term limits strikes, we decided to pursue what we honestly felt was the best achievable result- staggering the limits and extending the overall limit to three terms in a referendum that will be on the ballot this Election Day [Nov. 5th]."

Vallone said he believed people voted as they did in 1993 "because they wanted to see fresh faces in government, because they want to see a continuous transfusion of new blood and a constant, fresh mix of new people representing them." He summarized: "What we are trying to do in 1996 is to give the people what they want, ensuring that with each election a significant number of new members come[s] into office while providing for a smoother transition in government."