Christine Quinn.Photo: Getty Images
You’d think that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who’s considered one of Mayor Bloomberg’s likeliest successors in 2010, would be all for term limits. But no! “I think they’re bad for city government,” she told us at last night’s benefit dinner for the Ghetto Film School at Bottino. “In their purest sense, elections should be term limits. The voters should vote people out when they think they’re not doing a good job anymore.” Plus, she added, “term limits really rob people of the ability to develop long-term expertise and deep knowledge in issues.” So if his clock weren’t winding down, how long would her pal Mayor Bloomberg stay in office? She laughed. “A while. I think he’s been a very, very good mayor,” she said, adding that her favorite Bloomberg accomplishment is the smoking ban, which she, as the city’s health-committee chair, helped push through. “It was remarkable because when that bill was introduced, everyone said it would be the political death knell of the mayor, myself, and everybody else who voted for it. And the mayor knew it was the right thing for public health, and he didn’t really care about the politics. He was proven right in the end.” —Darrell Hartman
