Lauder Turns Around, Agrees To Third Term For Bloomberg

New York, NY (AH) - A meeting over coffee and cookies was all it took for cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder to turn around and support a third term for two-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

On Thursday, the father of term-limits for city officials in the Big Apple issued a statement that read, "These are extraordinary times, and we are in the midst of financial emergency... For those reasons, I will reluctantly support the mayor's legislation to extend term limits to three times."

Lauder said he will no longer block a legislation filed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn who proposed amending New York City's term-limit laws. The trade off for his change of position will be for Lauder to sit in a charter revision commission tasked with drafting a referendum in 2010 to leave the matter of temporarily or permanently revising the city's term-limit laws in the hands of voters.

Lauder vowed, "At that point, I will vigorously support a return to a two-term limit."

After Quinn filed her bill Tuesday, the City Council slated public hearings on Oct. 17 and 17. It means that the earliest the city council could vote on Quinn's measure will be Oct. 23.