Out in a Rowboat with Mayor Lindsay

NEARLY all of America's big cities share the malady: while the cost of services steadily mounts, the tax base that provides for those services just as surely shrinks. In this year of recession, funds are shorter than ever, leading desperate mayors to seek relief in Washington, in state capitols and in an array of burdensome new taxes that the public can scarcely support. Yet, aggravated as they are, the problems of all other American mayors absolutely pale beside those of John Lindsay, the embattled mayor of New York City.

The mayor of Seattle may confront more unemployment. The mayor of Newark may be closer to city bankruptcy. The mayor of Cleveland may be more bitterly at odds with his own council. Yet Lindsay must face a state legislature that is determined to give his city as little help as possible. Moreover he is up against a Governor, Nelson Rockefeller, who openly berates him, despite their common home in the liberal wing of the Republican Party. In his book The City, Lindsay described his annual pilgrimage to the state capital of Albany to get the city budget cleared. "When I prepare for the Albany journey," he wrote, "I think of Henry Hudson, who began his journey as captain of the stately Half Moon and ended it in a rowboat somewhere off the coast of Canada."

Contemptuous. When he went to Albany this spring, Lindsay was lucky to have a rowboat. Never had the legislature been more hostile; never had Rockefeller been more openly contemptuous. As if that were not enough, militant municipal unions went on strike last week in protest against budget cuts, thereby tying up traffic, dumping raw sewage into waterways and threatening to turn off New York City's water supply. Under those crisis circumstances, budget negotiations could scarcely be conducted in the cool, rational manner appropriate for such complex issues. Instead, they were carried on with bad manners, vitriol and vilification.

Consider this sampler of Lindsay-Rockefeller exchanges in recent weeks:

Lindsay: "The state government is acting with a combination of arrogance and contempt."

Rockefeller: "Progress is being seriously hindered by a growing loss of confidence in the city due to inept and extravagant administration."

Lindsay: "We have been raped and we're accused of prostitution. I have never seen any leadership so determined to exact the last pound of flesh from its opponents."

Rockefeller: "He's not responsible for what he's saying. He's emotionally upset. The poor man has been under a lot of pressure."

Rockefeller's antagonism was reinforced this year by a changed mood in the state legislature. The recession had hardened the resolve of rural and suburban representatives, who were already suspicious of Lindsay's jeremiads predicting destitution and disaster if he did not get the $9.13 billion budget he was seeking. Nor did they forget that in last year's election many of them had been returned to office with Conservative Party support.

This younger, tougher G.O.P. breed, largely from the suburbs, is more eager for battle than its Republican elders. The new breed's leader, Assembly Speaker Perry Duryea, a silver-haired, sardonic lobster dealer from the semi-rural tip of Long Island, likes to emphasize the "limitations of our society." He means to impose those limitations on New York City. Before Lindsay came to Albany, Nelson Rockefeller had seen his own "austerity" state budget trimmed from $8.45 billion to almost $7.7 billion by the legislature. Knowing a political trend when he sees one, Rocky decided to make the best of it and accepted the cut with a show of good grace.

No Allies. Having thus dealt with its Republican Governor, the legislature was ready for Lindsay, a G.O.P. maverick. Duryea, even more than Rocky, bore a grudge against the mayor for supporting Democrat Arthur Goldberg for Governor in the last election. Lindsay, moreover, had no useful allies. As Rockefeller put it, "He's a man without a party." Lindsay was beaten in the Republican primary for mayor and won the election only because he had significant Democratic support. Yet the Democrats did not warm to a man who tends to be abrasive in personal encounters. Says Manhattan Assemblyman Franz Leichter, a Democrat: "Lindsay does not control one legislator, and he influences few others. This must be the first time in the history of the state that a mayor has had so little power in Albany."

That fact was quickly illustrated. Aside from a few perfunctory meetings with Rocky and the legislative leaders, Lindsay was shut out of negotiations on his own budget. While Lindsay fumed, Republicans and Democrats hammered out a budget, in the process shelving a new pension plan that the city had worked out with municipal unions. It is one of the most generous pensions ever offered to U.S. workers. Upon reaching 55, a retired worker could collect half pay after 20 years on the job and full pay after 40 years. Since pensions already devour 11-c- of every dollar paid in state and city taxes in New York, the legislature balked. For the first time, it refused to rubber-stamp a city-approved pension.

That struck a tender nerve in Lindsay's tense New York. Evoking the specter of the "biggest, sloppiest, meanest strike in the city's history," Victor Gotbaum, executive director of Council 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, called out some 7,300 workers in an effort to persuade the legislature to change its mind. More than 600 Teamsters joined the walkout.

Bridge tenders walked off the job, taking along fuses and levers and leaving open 26 of the city's 29 movable bridges. Car commuters trying to get into the city were backed up for hours on the hottest day of the year. When sewage-treatment workers joined the strike, hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage were dumped into New York's waterways, threatening to pollute beaches and shellfish beds. Parks Department employees locked up the tennis courts, and zoo keepers kept the animals inside, though they continued to feed them.

Miscalculations. The strike proved to be so shocking to city sensibilities that it soon collapsed. So did the strikers' pension hopes. Said a sheepish Teamster official: "We made miscalculations up and down the line. We came out looking like schmucks." The worst miscalculation was with the state legislature. Once the strike began, Albany killed the pension plan for the session.

Less than Rocky's. The budget was finally trimmed to the legislators' satisfaction. It left John Lindsay still afloat; his proposed budget had been reduced by only 5%, to $8.7 billion, a smaller cut proportionately than Rocky's had suffered. Though the tax package Lindsay had sought was reduced from $790 million to $525 million, he was permitted to increase the city income tax on both residents and commuters by almost 80% and to levy a host of nuisance taxes.

Not that Lindsay's problems are over or even eased. He will be forced to lay off some city employees despite the threat of more strikes. The police force is expected to lose 1,300 men through attrition or firings; some 8,000 teachers will have to be trimmed. Most rebellious of all may be the city's taxpayers, who are burdened with higher taxes for fewer services. A family of four earning $15,000 a year will now pay an additional $600 a year.

Doubtless, one of Lindsay's worst problems will continue to be Rockefeller. After their parting salvos in Albany, in the ultimate absurdity, each promised to appoint a commission to investigate the other's administration. The number of knockdown fights that this could inspire is practically unlimited. Whether that is any way to run a state and a city is another matter. If New York City were conceded more home rule, Lindsay would not be so dependent on Rockefeller. The mayor could not, on the other hand, use Albany as an excuse when things went wrong. City and state would be spared at least some of the destructiveness of the Lindsay-Rockefeller animosity and, with less buck-passing, both might have to face more responsibility for determining what each can and cannot afford in services.

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