We’re five days away from the expiration of mayoral control, and there’s stronger-than-usual rumbling today that a deal is in the works to bring a power-sharing agreement to the State Senate.
That means that mayoral control could come up for a vote today. The Senate will convene at 3 p.m. for a special session Governor Paterson called for yesterday evening.
Mayor Bloomberg demanded that the Senate pass the Assembly’s mayoral control bill.
“If the Senate passes something that differs by one word or more it is saying to the city: We want to resurrect the Soviet Union, we want to bring back chaos,” he said today.
An official at the governor’s office told me that Paterson put the Assembly’s mayoral control bill on his agenda for the session. Senator John Sampson, a critic of the 2002 mayoral control law, introduced his own bill on Tuesday. His proposal calls for two-year fixed terms for members of the Panel for Educational Policy, the citywide school board. It also provides $25 million in funding for a parents’ training academy that would instruct parents in how to navigate the Department of Education’s bureaucracy.
Update: Billy Easton, of the Campaign for Better Schools, responds to the mayor’s quote. “Unlike the Soviet Union, we live in a democracy. And in this democracy, the mayor needs to negotiate with both houses of the New York State Legislature. By throwing around inflammatory rhetoric and refusing to negotiate with Senator Sampson and the Senate Democratic leadership the mayor is becoming yet another obstacle as the June 30th deadline looms ahead.”
Update 2x: Liz Benjamin is reporting that, rather than make a deal and get to work, the Senate Republicans and Democrats refused to vote on any bills today. The saga continues.