Council's Efforts To Extend Term Limits Will Face Opposition From New Group

A new group, People to Stop a Self Serving Council, is banding together to resist the New York City Council's efforts to allow members to run for a third term in office.

The council's expressed interest in extending term limits - which comes a dozen years after New Yorkers voted in a referendum to impose a cap of two terms for council members, citywide elected officials, and borough presidents - has drawn opposition from a number of civic groups, including Citizens Union and New Yorkers for Term Limits, the organization founded by the businessman Ronald Lauder that helped the original measure pass in the 1990s. People to Stop a Self Serving Council is the first group established to oppose the council on its term-limits initiative.

Its founding members are active in community politics and come from different walks of life. One is a lawyer, one a barbershop owner, and one a college student.

"There seems to be in the council an arrogance, just simply an arrogance about it," a founder of the group, Kenneth Moltner, said. "They're shunting democracy for their own self-interest."

Mr. Moltner, a lawyer and former head of Community Board 8 on the Upper East Side,said New Yorkers should know that the City Council is seeking to alter its own terms of employment - against the will of the voters - not trying to change the length of office of other elected officials like mayors or comptrollers.

He said his group's goal is to incite "public outrage" about the possibility of the council's overriding an edict of the people. He also said his group is considering whether legal action is appropriate.

An election lawyer, Jerry Goldfeder, said there's precedent for the City Council to pass a law that benefits council members.

"It's perfectly legal for them to change the charter in this way," he said. "Politically it's highly inappropriate, but legally it's fine. They can change the provisions of the charter as they see fit."

Regardless of the move's legality, the "Self Serving Council" group says it is not ethical for the council to pass a law that overrides the city's term limits law, which New Yorkers voted for in a 1993 citywide referendum and then again in 1996.

"I believe in the word of voters. You have to respect the voters," Frank Scala, who owns La Scala Hair Stylists for Men on Fifth Avenue, said. "I speak with my customers, and they agree with me. Even the customers say, 'I voted for the term limits, so why they want to take it out?'"

He added: "If somebody gives you a piece of bread when you are hungry and then takes it away from your table again - it's exactly the same thing."

The third co-founder, Joe Metzger, who is a political science and history major at New York University, said many members of the current council only have their jobs because of the term-limits law, and said they "don't deserve" to change that law so that they could have additional time in office.

"If you're going to have term limits, they should be real term limits," Mr. Metzger, who is a Republican District leader in the 75th Assembly District, said.

He called his group's mission "important to the future of the city."

The executive director of Citizens Union, Dick Dadey, said his group opposes the idea of the council's voting to grant itself a third term. It doesn't necessarily oppose the idea of a three-term limit. He explained: "We're opposed to the method they're pursuing at the moment and open to the idea of extending term limits, but only if the voters weigh in."

The council member who has vowed to introduce legislation early next year that would tackle the issue of term limits, Gale Brewer, said she might be open to putting the issue of extending term limits to a public referendum, but she said the council will also consider voting on extending term limits for itself.