Mayor vetoes City Council's anti-cell phone ban bill

Posted by Philissa at 11:35 PM

Earlier today Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the City Council's recent bill that would allow kids to carry their cell phones to and from school. I'm somewhat surprised by this development because the line from the DOE when the council was discussing the bill was that kids are not prevented from taking their phones to school, just from taking them inside once they get there.

In a statement reported by Staten Island Live, Bloomberg wrote that he vetoed the bill because it represented "an invalid attempt at imposing the (City) Council's views on how the public schools should be managed." But council members were explicit about the fact that they don't control the schools.

It seems pretty clear that the mayor is overstepping his bounds here by vetoing the council's bill because of what he thinks are its supporters' intentions. The council plans to override his veto, and Bloomberg seems eager to set up a court battle over the cell phone ban. I'm curious what he seeks to gain from this showdown. Certainly he won't have a chance of winning the support of the city's parents -- though of course we know he isn't terribly interested in that anyway.