FOUR MORE YEARS

Wednesday, October 8, 2008 2:07 PM EDT

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided that the City of New York needs him for four more years.

The mayor wants company — the City Council and the borough presidents, all of whom are affected under the city’s term limit law.

We remember another mayor who raised this issue at another time of crisis. The mayor on that occasion, Rudy Giuliani, was shot down in his try for a third term. But this mayor has a different rapport with the people.

While the needs differed - Giuliani wanted to continue to lead the city through the aftermath of 9/11 while Bloomy wants to lead the city through the current Wall Street/Credit/Banking crisis - the peremptory challenge to the term limit law is identical.

What is different this time is that the author of and power behind the original term limit law has capitulated and business leader Ron Lauder thinks this is the right time for term limits to end. Lauder also seems to think that the City Council ending it by changing the law in their chambers is okay too. But only for one time - this time!

We wish Bloomberg would put the issue out to a special election next spring so the voters could have a say in ending a law they twice supported at the polls.

We think the world of Mayor Bloomberg. He has great vision for the city and we know he will work incredibly hard for the entire length of a third term should he win one.

His financial acumen is needed. That is a fact with which we agree.

There will be public hearings on the mayor’s bill after it is sent to the Council’s Government Operations Committee. We will be watching.

Should the City Council by some miracle not allow the new law to pass, Mayor Bloomberg could also serve the city in the private sector as the czar of Wall Street, or as a Bailout fund boss for the next president.

So while we support the mayor’s assessment that his skills as a Super-Consultant/Financial Guru/Grounded Leader are needed to deal with this crisis for the next several years, we wish he would do so by referendum. Put it to the people one more time. Maybe today’s voters are indeed ready for an end to term limits.