A last-minute deal was worked out between Governor David Paterson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to save Off-track Betting, but the road to the agreement was rocky. Bloomberg had been unhappy with how OTB provides money for the state but the city ends up subsidizing it, thanks to a formula that gives the state a cut of revenues (not profit). According to the NY Times, the city will now "earn some $4 million from the winning-bets......

Since it's been about two months since Mayor Bloomberg said, "I’m not seeking a third term," it's time for third term rumors to pop up again. Today, the NY Times reports the billionaire mayor is considering another run as Mayor or maybe doing something in Albany. A Bloomberg-commissioned poll found respondents do like Bloomberg BUT they don't want term limits lifted - what a conundrum! But they "were receptive to the idea of a Bloomberg......

Photograph of Bloomberg introducing Obama at the Cooper Union this morning by Alex Brandon/AP Presidential hopeful Barack Obama will be speaking in NYC today, as part of Cooper Union Dialogue Series. And Mayor Bloomberg's office "took the highly unusual step" of issuing a release letting the media know Bloomberg would be introducing Obama. Aw, that's what any billionaire mayor would do for his breakfast buddy! Though Bloomberg hasn't decided on supporting a presidential candidate......

Yesterday Forbes magazine, in their annual ranking of the rich, declared New York City is no longer the billionaire capital of the world. Where have all the dollar signs gone? To Moscow, of course, who beat us out by 3 billionaires (they have 74 to our 71). Most of the big buck city dwellers are familiar names: Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($11.5 billion), publishing powerhouses Samuel Newhouse Jr. and Rupert Murdoch ($8.5 billion and $8.3 billion),......

Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, who has spent many months (if not years) hinting about his boss's presidential ambitions, is still stirring the pot of rumors. Last night on NY1's Inside City Hall, Sheekey, "promoted the idea of an Obama-Bloomberg presidential ticket." Sheekey revealed that after Bloomberg's official announcement/NY Times op-ed about not running for president, Barack Obama had a chat with the billionaire mayor:"Certainly you could joke that Obama's call was a fundraising call yesterday.......

Ending months of speculation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed he will not run for president in the 2008 election. And he did it with an op-ed in the NY Times, titled, "I'm Not Running for President, but..." The op-ed starts out with Bloomberg calling all the current candidates "smart" but believes "the candidates seem afraid to level with" the American public, because the candidates aren't offering "innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership" on issues like......

The Politicker has this hilarious photograph outside the East 60th Street location of strip club Scores touting a Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama ticket, as well as John McCain-Michael Bloomberg one. Nice to know that even though manager Harvey Osher and owner Richard Goldring failed to pay $3.1 million in taxes, they still believe in the democratic process. (Osher is serving weekend stints in prison; Goldring is getting probation.) And after Perez Hilton endorsed Clinton, her......

Mayor Bloomberg's continued insistence that he is not currently running for President is bordering on the absurd, as even attempts to ascertain where his aide Kevin Sheekey is spending his vacation time turns up blacked out in official requests. Sheekey is Bloomberg's chief political deputy, and the man most closely identified with pushing the Mayor forward in a Presidential bid. The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information request with the Mayor's office to......

Photographs of Spitzer, Sharpton, Dinkins and Bloomberg at Sharpton's National Action Network by Tina Fineberg/AP All over the city, events were held to remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. One of the biggest events was the Reverend Al Sharpton's annual forum at his National Action Network in Harlem, which attracted Governor Spitzer, Senator Schumer, former Mayor Dinkins and Mayor Bloomberg. Sharpton hailed Bloomberg's efforts to make the city less racially divisive, "It is......

Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg speaking, with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Governor Ed Rendell (not pictured), under Los Angeles freeways by Ann Johansson/AP It's Mike and Arnie, together again! The Time magazine co-cover pols, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, made a Los Angeles appearance with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to announce the creation of a "nonpartisan organization that will advocate for more, and smarter, federal spending on infrastructure." The Mayor and maybe......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent yesterday in Oklahoma, discussing the state of politics today at a bipartisan political forum at the University of Oklahoma. Bloomberg lamented the way things are going these days:Government is dysfunctional. There is no collaboration and congeniality. There is no working together. No 'let's do what's right for this country.' I think there is no accountability today. Nobody is holding themselves accountable and to the standards of what they promised when they......

The most famous undeclared presidential candidate, our very own Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has weighed in about the Iowa caucus results. Okay, so Mayor Bloomberg claims he's not running for president, but when you swipe at the actual candidates, have a staff that's investigating the possibility of running a campaign, and have a billion dollars to spare... The Mayor discussed the results(he didn't mention candidates by name) during radio show on WABC (MP3). Well, sort of......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn't totally eschewed the Republican party. According to the NY Sun, the Democrat-turned- Republican-turned- independent will be "entertaining" Nancy Reagan "as well as hosting a fund-raiser for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library." Like the former First Lady, Bloomberg has progressive views on health and science issues (like stem cells). And Bloomberg has been known to host many fund-raisers for various people and causes. But some suspect that Bloomberg might be looking for......

It's finally come to this. The lights of the Great White Way have gone dark in a dispute between the theater stagehands of Local One and producers and theater owners. The labor dispute which has been simmering for months and left the stagehands without a contract for an equal time, resulted in a shutdown of Broadway shows on the verge of the theater district's most profitable season. The stalemate came to to a head after......

Even though speculation is running high/wistful on a Michael Bloomberg presidential candidacy (maybe because all the other confirmed candidates are boring - or reporters are bored of covering the other candidates), the Post resurrects a rumor from earlier this year: Bloomberg wanting to run for governor against Spitzer in 2010. Back in May, the Post claimed the Mayor had discussed running for governor on two occasions, but the Mayor said the reports were completely made......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Seattle yesterday to give a keynote at the United States Conference of Mayors. The Mayor, aka Mr. "I'm not running for president in 2008" Bloomberg, discussed NYC's efforts to be more sustainable and how governments need to invest and innovate to encourage energy efficiency. And one of the innovations would be to introduce pollution pricing. He said: we have to stop ignoring the laws of economics. As long as......

Fridays are bustling on 34th Street, but yesterday was a little different. Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg was spotted with billionaire developer Donald J. Trump and his three adult children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. What were they doing? Walking, talking, and eating hot dogs. Or at least Mayor Bloomberg was eating a hot dog - he loves hot dogs and they love him! And why? Because NBC is filming the celebrity edition of The......

Mayor Bloomberg was named in a bias lawsuit filed by three former Bloomberg LP employees. This now accompanies a lawsuit, which charges that female employees were discriminated against, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed against the billionaire's media company earlier this week. The lawsuit says, "Upon information and belief, Michael Bloomberg is responsible for the creation of the systemic, top-down culture of discrimination which exists within Bloomberg." The Sun reports that the three women,......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's civilian life got a jolt: His company, Bloomberg L.P., was sued by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission for "a pattern or practice of demoting and reducing the pay of female employees after they announced their pregnancies and after they took maternity leave." Mayor Bloomberg had previously settled a lawsuit with a former Bloomberg L.P. employee, Sekiko Garrison. From a 2001 Village Voice story by Wayne Barrett:Garrison alleged that Bloomberg told her twice......

Mayor Bloomberg is back from London, just in time to deliver an address at Cooper Union while the world's media is milling about NYC for the U.N.'s General Assembly. Bloomberg will be appearing as part of a panel near Astor Place to discuss national policy matters. According to The New York Sun, an online site is attracting a growing number of supporters to draft Mayor Bloomberg as a third party candidate in the 2008 Presidential......

Dan Rather may have retired from the CBS Evening News, but he's still breaking stories while at HDNet. On his upcoming Thursday night Dan Rather Reports, he will air an "rare sit-down interview" with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where Bloomberg makes it "categorically clear that he will not run for President of the United States, nor will he seek a Vice Presidential bid nor any cabinet position for that matter, something he's never done before." Wow,......

Possibly on a Brooklyn-bound F train: Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Mayor's "bullpen-style" offices need some new paint, a new carpet and a few other fixes, so Bloomberg and his staffers are temporarily relocating to work out of the Office of Emergency Management headquarters in Brooklyn on Cadman Plaza East. The Mayor explained, “Somebody’s going to kill themselves with all of the rips in the carpet." Nice to know that he's concerned with personal injury lawsuits......

We've had half a day to absorb the news, but it's still kind of crazy that Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided to drop his 6-years-old Republican coat for an unaffiliated one. Here's his official statement:“I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party. Although my plans for the future haven’t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation......

Our lovable, pragmatic mayor is now officially an independent-- many feel that this is a first step to a third-party run for president. CBS reports: Mayor Michael Bloomberg has left the Republican party and registered as unaffiliated with any political party, a move certain to heighten presidential speculation to a fever pitch, despite his denials that he's running. The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the Republican party......

If the report released yesterday by the city's Independent Budget Office is true, it could get a lot more expensive to ride the MTA subways and buses in the future. The IBO believes that the MTA has to increase its revenues by 20% by 2010. That means subway and bus fares could go up at least 20% by 2010, making a single ride $2.40. The worst case scenario - where rates for other revenue......

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg traveled back to his Massachusetts roots and gave the commencement speech at Tufts University. Bloomberg, who grew up in Medford, name checked various haunts in the hood, tried to seem with it by mentioning Busta Rhymes, Ali G, and Salma Hayek, and reminded kids to call their mother. He also discussed free speech, in what the Sun called a nod to the Minutemen incident at Columbia: The fourth lesson is, in......

The Daily News reveals that more New Yorkers wants Michael Bloomberg as President than they do Rudy Giuliani, 46% to 29%. And when asked "Who do you think was the better mayor?," 56% say Bloomberg over Rudy's 29%. And there are quotes from two parts of the city:"I like that everything Bloomberg said he is going to do for the city, he did. There are more charter schools and I like that," said Sharran Roberts,......

Time announced its second Time 100 list of influential people. (For whatever reason, Time doesn't provide a full list with separate links to all the influentials, so here's a list from FishbowlNY.) Based on our reading, the New Yorkers (and we're including some people who live in Westchester, but work in the city) who made the list include 30 Rock's Tina Fey, subway superhero Wesley Autrey, Senator Hillary Clinton, banker Stephen Schwartzman, director Martin Scorsese,......

What'll it take to make Mayor Michael Bloomberg run for President next year? According to a former adviser, candidates who are either very conservative (like Mitt Romey) or very liberal (like John Edwards) will make the infamous Democrat-turned-Republican consider putting his billions behind a presidential campaign. Esther Fuchs, who served during Bloomberg's first term, said Mayor Mike is "80% probable" to run. So, that's like all of him, except his head? While some doubt either......

Today, there's a fascinating Op-Ed by Robert Sullivan about the state of NYC streets. Titled, "The City That Never Walks," Sullivan describes how NYC has "lost [its] golden pedestrian touch." ...yet, here in New York, we even have the debate over bicycle traffic backwards. We focus on drivers’ complaints about the bicycle commuter who races through red lights, rather than on the concerns of the mother biking her child around organic-food delivery trucks that......