MIKE Bloomberg just wound up taking a political hit on an issue where he’s entirely in the right. Consider it one measure of why this year’s mayoral election still isn’t the slam-dunk it should be
In and of itself, the flap over metered parking on Sundays – dubbed “pay to pray” by Bloomberg’s Democratic foes – won’t seriously affect the outcome of November’s election.
But it likely gave the mayor a small setback – and contributed to public perceptions that he lacks sensitivity to public concerns – at a time when the growing row over the West Side stadium has him on the defensive.
By all rights, Bloomberg should be fairly coasting to a second term. He may not be wildly popular, the way Rudy Giuliani was in most quarters of the city when he was running for re-election – but Mayor Mike’s not wildly unpopular, either.
Nor has public opinion seen any great seismic shifts: Bloomberg’s ap- proval/disapproval ratings have remained fairly constant over the past two years, according to the Quinnipiac poll.
And none of his four Democatic rivals is riding a particular tidal wave of support. Heck, the leader of the pack, Fernando Ferrer, was rejected by voters of his own party four years ago.
But Bloomberg, it’s fair to say, lacks the common touch of many of his predecessors. Though he’s taken pains over the past year or so to try and reach out to everyday New Yorkers, he remains the mayor who once told a group of journalists that the proof that he wasn’t out of touch was that no one ever came up to him on the street to complain he was out of touch.
The problem came into full view after Ferrer, smelling blood, latched on to a City Council hearing to demand an end to metered parking on Sundays as an unfair “tax” on churchgoers.
Rather than express some sympathy with those affected, even while defending the policy, Bloomberg instead said: “I don’t know why it is inherently less fair to charge people to go to their place of religion than it is to go where they want to be entertained or shop or go to school or anything else.”
“On balance,” he added, “the turnover is probably good and the city certainly needs the money.”
All true, no doubt – maybe even the part about churchgoers not deserving any kind of special break. But it was a curious tack to take at a time when most pols are trying to reinforce their appreciation of faith-based values.
Worse, the comments gave the Bloomberg-bashers an excuse to turn their already-overheated rhetoric up another notch or three. “People shouldn’t have to feed the meter to worship,” Ferrer told an East Harlem church audience. “City Hall needs to understand that this place of worship that we’re in today, and the time we spend here, are sacred.”
Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields and Council Speaker Gifford Miller tried to jump on the bandwagon, supporting legislation to ban or limit Sunday meters – provided the city doesn’t take a major fiscal hit. (Three-plus years of Sunday metering has brought in $7 million to the city’s coffers.)
What Bloomberg should have been stressing is just how phony an issue Sunday meters is in the first place – and how no one, including these City Hall hopefuls, registered any complaints when it was expanded just over three years ago.
The mayor also might have pointed out that Sunday is not the only day when New Yorkers gather to worship – indeed, singling out Sunday seems very much like a slap in the face to Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others.
Not to mention the common-sense objection: This is New York City, we’re talking about, not Massapequa or Ardsley. Given their easy access to the world’s largest mass-transit system, how many New Yorkers depend on their cars to go to church?
The fact that Ferrer & Co. chose this non-issue to batter the mayor indicates how far they need to reach in order to score any points. But the fact that they got away with it, with the mayor’s inadvertant cooperation, also underscores that Bloomberg hasn’t run away with this just yet.
