Posted by Tensions between City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg are erupting just a week after Ms. Quinn shepherded the mayor’s divisive legislation to loosen the city’s term limits law through the Council.
Feelings are raw between the two sides largely because Ms. Quinn took heavy political shrapnel for the mayor during the term limits battle as she rounded up support for what became an unusually difficult vote.
The strains at City Hall could stymie the Bloomberg administration’s agenda in the middle of the deepest financial crisis to strike New York City in decades.
In closed-door meetings over the last few days that occasionally escalated into shouting, Ms. Quinn has told the mayor’s aides to back off a plan that would change how hundreds of programs for the elderly are financed, a proposal that has infuriated several council members.
According to people briefed on the conversations, she has warned that the mayor’s plan to push for a property tax increase as early as next week could encounter resistance, especially since council members are still reeling from the term limits vote.
The tensions reveal the degree to which the bruising term limits battle, initiated by the mayor so that he can run for a third term, altered the political landscape, with Ms. Quinn and her colleagues feeling empowered to challenge the Bloomberg administration as never before.
“There is a sense that the mayor has damaged his popularity and that is emboldening members,” said David Yassky, a councilman from Brooklyn who supported the mayor’s term limits extension.
To calm nerves, Mr. Bloomberg, in a step that is unusual for him, has begun to personally call every council member, telling them they must find ways to work together even if they disagreed over term limits. But some of those calls are not going very well, as council members say the mayor expressed fleeting gratitude for their support before launching into lectures about taxes.
“I thought that the phone call was going to be simply and purely, ‘Thanks for casting a tough vote,’ ” said Councilman Lewis Fidler of Brooklyn, who voted to change the term limits. “I didn’t expect him to talk about the next tough vote.”
Charles Barron, another council member from Brooklyn who was an outspoken opponent of the term limits change, ended his telephone conversation with the mayor by vowing “to meet you on the battlefield” over the measure, which is now the subject of legal wrangling.
In discussions with senior administration officials, Ms. Quinn pointedly described a new political reality following the difficult term limits fight, which drew unusual attention and almost daily criticism of the Council. Members are reluctant to quickly tackle another contentious issue, council members and administration officials said.
Next week, the mayor is expected to rescind, six months early, a 7 percent property tax cut and lay out a 5 percent annual cut in spending for city agencies, according to city officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans are not yet public.
Both measures require the support of council members, and Ms. Quinn has already embraced Mr. Bloomberg’s call for swift action on the budget.
A Bloomberg spokesman, Stu Loeser, said the administration was aware of the frayed feelings and, in response, began to brief Ms. Quinn and her staff on Mr. Bloomberg’s budget cuts and tax plans unusually early in the process. Traditionally, the administration tells the speaker about its plans a day or two before they become public. This time, it gave her nearly two weeks’ warning.
“We are working with the Council on both the seniors and the budget to give them as much planning time and advance notice as possible,” Mr. Loeser said.
But the administration’s actions have inflamed Ms. Quinn and her colleagues. Several days ago, the speaker learned that the Bloomberg administration would resume a push to bring corporate-style accountability measures to the city’s network of programs for the elderly, to improve services and increase the number of people using them. Council members are especially outraged by the mayor’s plan to centralize up to $20 million in financing for senior centers across the city. The council members say that would minimize their influence over the process.
