Doubly-Dirty Council Tricks

Give Melissa MarkViverito credit for cleverness: By having the City Council vote Friday on the outrageous antihorsecarriage bill, she’s minimized the public anger over the obscene councilpayhike bill set for its own vote that day.

The carriage bill savages the industry. The city now licenses about 180 carriages, which each supports two or more horses; the bill would cut that down to 110 horses by year’s end (and to 95 if the promised new Central Park stables ever get built).

Slashing the number of horses by twothirds would quickly force the closure and sale of the stables where the horses live. Stables that sit on land long lustedafter by de Blasio megadonor Steve Nislick.

No one has been able to give any other reason for the bill, other than to cite animalrights extremists. But the payhike bill is every bit as wrong. For starters, the Quadrennial Advisory Commission went rogue. Its job is to advise on pay increases for elected city officials. But it justified part of its proposed hike as a shift to making the council a fulltime job.

Sorry: That’s a decision for the public to make, just as with any other revision to the City Charter.

Of course, the council bill also aims to go above the commission’s recommendation: not a 23 percent raise, but 32 percent.

The mayor insists these two bad bills aren’t linked — that the pay hike’s not a bribe to get the council to kill the carriage industry. But if the City Council wants anyone to believe that, it should act accordingly.

As Councilman David Greenfield (D-Brooklyn) notes, there’s no reason the carriage vote needs to take place now. The only ones eager for a vote are the mayor, the speaker he helped install — and the special interests who want it rushed through.

The carriage operators oppose the bill unanimously. Parks lovers don’t want valuable land turned over to a private enterprise, as the bill promises. Nor should taxpayers have to pay for new Central Park stables.

The key Community Boards — 5 and 7 — are also shouting, “Stop!”

On the merits, both measures should go down. But it’s just perverse to pass them as a de facto package.

Any member who votes for both stands exposed as selling out workingclass jobs in order to line his or her own pocket.

Instead, listen to the public — and end the rush on both.