At a political club in St. Albans, Archie Spigner, center, with Manuel Caughman, left, and Jack Tennyson. Nicole Bengiveno/The New York TimesThe Guy R. Brewer Democratic Club in St. Albans, Queens, was empty the afternoon the mayor made his announcement, except for three party foot soldiers registering voters at a folding table by the door and a grand old man of Queens Democratic politics, the former city councilman Archie Spigner, sitting in the back with a friend from the local community board.
At the front of the room, eyes were rolling at the news that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wanted to change city law to seek a third term. “Can you change the rules of a democracy just like that? The ultimate power rests with the people,” said Donnie Whitehead, a community organizer. “It’s arrogant.”
“Changing the rules!” said Helen Jones, a New York Racing Association retiree who was festooned in images of Barack Obama, from her earrings to her T-shirt. “Don’t get me started, because I don’t want to get angry.”
In the back, Mr. Spigner, who had to give up his own seat in 2003 because of term limits, was more forgiving. “If they want the mayor for another four years, so be it,” he said.
But the political insiders and the rank and file — players of “the inside game” and “the outside game,” in Mr. Whitehead’s parlance — agreed on two things. First, weighing the appeal of four more Bloomberg years is impossible without judging the mayor’s handling of the case of Sean Bell, who was shot to death by the police outside a Queens nightclub on the day of his wedding in 2006.
Second, however disappointing many in the neighborhood found the Bell verdict — the officers were acquitted in April — Mr. Bloomberg warmed City Hall’s relations with black New Yorkers by showing up to listen to their concerns about police brutality.
“It was a potentially explosive situation. He had a calming effect,” said Manuel Caughman, the community board member who joined Mr. Spigner, recalling meetings the mayor held at Thomasina’s catering hall and the New Jerusalem Baptist Church.
Mr. Whitehead said the mayor’s approach was more finesse, and logrolling with some black leaders to win support, than substance: “Look at the results. We had a kinder approach, but injustice dominated the day.”
Still, the difference counts for something, he said: “It’s better in the sense that he didn’t incite people to riot and to become destructive. You can’t resolve everyone’s problems, but a good listening with kindness calms the heart and makes a friend. Bloomberg can listen to people talk with anger and he knows how to not say the wrong thing. He’s a great politician.”
The talk at the Democratic club, a simple one-story hall decorated with tattered stars-and-stripes bunting, reflected the varied concerns of St. Albans and other southeast Queens neighborhoods, where bastions of black middle-class home ownership interlace with areas of high crime and unemployment.
Amid the concerns about young men whose main interaction with city authority is with the police, Mr. Bloomberg won points for his accessible and well-organized responses to more mundane worries: flooding (his lieutenants are working on it, but not fast enough to keep Mr. Spigner’s basement from being inundated twice this summer); neighborhood character (he rezoned much of southeast Queens to keep out multifamily homes); and schools and bus routes (there are not enough).
“He may be a billionaire, but he’s a gentleman billionaire,” Mr. Spigner said. “Maybe it’s easy to be nice with $10 billion — I’d be nice, too!”
Along Linden Boulevard, and in nearby Jamaica, the mayor and his efforts to extend his time in office got both better and worse reviews. Here are some:
Dr. Maxine Morgan-Dean, an emergency-room physician, came back to the Sean Bell case.
“He’s kept the city together. He’s a common-sense mayor. I can’t think of anyone else I would want. He’s always around here. ...If anything happens around here, he’s the first one to come out.
The school system was terrible. Ending social promotions, that was one of the best policies.
And the fact that we don’t have to pay him — he’s not influenced by interest groups. He’s not swayed by anybody. He could be sitting on his yacht and relaxing the rest of his days.
What happened wasn’t fair, but what he said to help the family and kids was very good. You can’t go against the verdict if you’re saying that we have a fair system, and hindsight is always 20-20. You have to believe in the system. But at least he was willing to say that we have to take care of his family.”
Walter Davis, 43, owns Dee’s, a soul food restaurant in Jamaica.
“I think he shouldn’t be there for a third term. He wasn’t bad, over all, but he wasn’t good, too. It’s like a 50-50 thing with him. The good thing he did was he got the police a new contract — so they can make more money. The bad thing is, he gave the police permission to kill. Being a man of color, I feel that we’re targeted, more than anybody else.
Now they say they want to keep him for a third term, so he can help with what’s going on with the stock market. But if he didn’t stop it before, what’s he going to do now?”
Darryl Kennedy is the owner of a barbershop, Haircutter, on 160th Street.
“I don’t see him do nothing for the working class. The rich is already rich, and they’re going to be rich. I don’t have nothing against him as an individual. But he’s not thinking about the little people. And the little people could shut down this city....
We don’t need business redevelopment. People need housing, they need jobs. Tell him to build some affordable housing. I hear about everyone’s problems here at the barbershop: This is like the black man’s country club.”
Sean Jackson, 25, is an inventory auditor.
“He’s doing it for fun. He’s not even doing it to make change. He’s doing it as a hobby.”
