Mayor Bloomberg yesterday condemned a death threat made by a City Council staff member against Council Member Leroy Comrie.

“That kind of talk is outrageous and intolerable,” the mayor said. Mr. Bloomberg would not say whether he thought the chief of staff to Council Member Charles Barron, Viola Plummer, should be fired for her remarks, but said he would leave the decision to the speaker of the council, Christine Quinn.

After Mr. Comrie abstained from voting in support of a proposal to rename a street after a black activist, Sonny Carson, Ms. Plummer said, “If it takes an assassination,” Mr. Comrie will not become president of Queens. Mr. Comrie is considered a likely candidate to succeed Helen Marshall in the post.

In 2003, a political rival assassinated a council member, James Davis, at City Hall.

Ms. Quinn is consulting with lawyers to see if the council has the authority to fire Ms. Plummer. She has said the issue presents a new dilemma for the council because an employee has never before acted so outrageously.

Ms. Plummer’s boss, Mr. Barron, has led the charge to rename a Brooklyn street after Carson and said he is forging ahead with plans to place Carson’s name on a street sign, though the official measure failed in the City Council.

A renaming ceremony will be held on June 16 at the intersection of Myrtle and Gates avenues in Brooklyn. Last month, Mr. Barron held a similar renegade ceremony at Linden Park in Brooklyn, affixing signs to the park fence that read “Sonny Abubadika Carson Park.”

Carson, who died in 2002, was convicted of kidnapping, led racially charged protests, and declared himself to be “anti-white.” His supporters say he was a hero who did valuable work in education and helped former convicts find jobs.