City Council members are bucking Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito by calling for a delay in the vote to cut back the horse-carriage industry — while the hansom drivers claim they were sold out by their union.
Councilman David Greenfield (D-Brooklyn) and several colleagues on Monday said there were too many unanswered questions about the legislation to vote on Friday, because people’s livelihoods are on the line.
“The time to study whether your policy is going to put people out of work is before you put those people out of work, not after,” said Greenfield.
The plan to stable the horses in Central Park by 2018 — at a minimum cost of $20 million to taxpayers — would kill at least 40 jobs, according to the Teamsters union.
It would also bar pedicab drivers from park roads below 85th Street, which could add to the job loss.
Council members weren’t eager to talk openly about the vote — with many claiming to be undecided and others saying they were simply tired of the topic.
“We have spent way too much time on this issue,” said Andy Cohen (D-Bronx). “There’s a deal — I’d really like to put this behind us so we can focus on more significant issues.”
Sources said de Blasio has been personally calling legislators to collect votes for the measure, which is a compromise to his initial bid to get rid of the carriages entirely.
Two supporters of the ban, former Edison Properties owner Steve Nislick and Hugo Neu CEO Wendy Neu, have contributed $628,000 to de Blasio’s campaign interests and mayoral agenda, and made additional donations through the animal-rights group NYCLASS.
In a new development Monday, the owners of all 68 horse-carriage medallions charged their own union — Teamsters Local 553 — with ignoring their interests by approving the deal with City Hall.
“A lot of council members think we support this deal. We don’t support this deal,” said Ian McKeever, a medallion owner and driver for 28 years.
Local 553 Treasurer Demos Demopoulus acknowledged the bill wasn’t perfect, but insisted the drivers had been consulted.
City Hall spokesman Wiley Norvell said, “We believe the agreement negotiated by the administration, council speaker and Teamsters represents the right approach.”