New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg today said that he will seek changes in the city's term limits law so he can run for a third term in 2009, arguing that the Wall Street financial crisis demands a leader of his business acumen.
Voters imposed limits of two four year terms on elected city officials in 1993 and reaffirmed the vote in1996. But Bloomberg, a former Wall Street trader and self-made billionaire, will ask the City Council to extend the limits to a third term.
'Handling this financial crisis while strengthening essential services is a challenge I want to take on,' Bloomberg told a news conference. 'So should the City Council vote to amend term limits, I plan to ask New Yorkers to look at my record of independent leadership and then decide if I have earned another term,' he said.
Bloomberg noted that his Wall Street experience would be invaluable at a time when stock market upheaval is threatening the US and global economy.
'We may well be on the verge of a (market) meltdown and it's up to us to rise to the occasion,' he said.
Thirty elite New Yorkers including David Rockefeller, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and JPMorgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon published an open letter today urging the City Council to extend the term limits.
