After listening for nearly four and a half hours to emotional and at times harshly critical testimony from scores of residents, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed legislation at 1:55 p.m. Monday to extend New York City’s term limits law, allowing himself and a majority of the City Council to seek a third four-year term in 2009.

The mayor, who seemed subdued and perhaps a bit tired after sitting through more than four hours of final testimony from members of the public who at times berated and even yelled at him, made brief remarks before signing the bill, acknowledging that the debate had been difficult, and even painful. The mayor said:

This is New York City, and you get a diversity of opinion. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and you know that I have, over a period of time, fundamentally changed my opinion in terms of how long somebody should be in office. I have not changed my opinion in terms of the value of term limits. I’ve made a commitment that I will appoint a Charter Revision Commission to look at the issue of whether two or three terms is appropriate, and to put on the ballot the ability for the public to either reaffirm what we have today or to change it.

There’s no easy answer, and nobody is irreplaceable, but I do think that if you take a look at the real world of how long it takes to do things – we live in a litigious society, we live in a society where we have real democracy, and lots of people have the ability to input their views and approve or disapprove projects – I just think that three terms makes more sense than two.

I feel that for the mayor – I may not be re-elected but whoever does get re-elected, I think that they deserve three terms, and if the public at any time after any four-year period decides they’re not doing a good job, then the public can certainly make a change.

The one argument against term limits that I’ve never had a great answer to is the argument that when you have term limits, you do limit the public’s choice. I feel that this time, the public should have a choice, and while I’m still in favor of term limits, it is seriously something that everybody should think long and hard about.

Not all the witnesses were opposed to extending term limits.

David G. Greenfield, began by saying that he had been planning to run for City Council this year and was disappointed that he would not able to do so, as the incumbent was planning to run again. But he said the mayor and the Council had “proved themselves to be outstanding stewards of the city budget,” and deserved a third term. “I’m not worried about me,” Mr. Greenfield said. “God willing, I’ll be fine.

Abraham Biderman, who was the city’s finance commissioner and then the commissioner of housing preservation and development under Mayor Edward I. Koch, who served from 1978 to 1989 and was the last mayor to serve three terms, urged Mr. Bloomberg to sign the bill, saying it merely offered voters additional choices.

“To preclude somebody who has the extraordinary ability and financial background that our current mayor does would be almost masochistic in this environment,” Mr. Biderman said.

As the testimony dragged on, Mayor Bloomberg did seem to be paying attention to each of the speakers – unlike most of the council members flanking him.

Mr. Bloomberg generally looked directly at all the speakers. His expression didn’t change much: stone-faced, implacable. Occasionally he sneaked a peak at the clock, set to two minutes allocated to each speaker, when someone criticized him.

(LINK: NY Times )