FOR THE RECORD

The flip side of the pleas by editorial writers to Mayor Bloomberg to seek a third term is that it shows a distinct lack of confidence that anyone else seeking the mayoralty had the ability to carry on in his stead.

Mr. Bloomberg insisted that he was not indispensable and that his plan to run again stemmed not from ego but rather a desire to provide his skills where they would surely be needed.

But when a reporter asked Mitchell Moss, a former paid adviser to the Mayor who's a Professor at New York University, where there wasn't an implicit putdown of the rest of the field in the Mayor's decision, he didn't look to dispel that perception.

"This certainly gives some of the other candidates the opportunity to gain more seasoning, sort of like players in the minor leagues," he said moments after Mr. Bloomberg concluded his press conference.

Some of those potential rivals, most notably Congressman Anthony Weiner, took the Mayor's run for the insult they perceived it to be. But City Council Speaker Christine Quinn put the best possible face on it, arguing that Mr. Bloomberg's running again would keep intact the Mayor/Council team that had managed the city's budget so well until now that the chaos on Wall Street had yet to have a real impact.

Ms. Quinn on more than one occasion has been accused of being too close to the Mayor.

One reporter, noting that some experts have said the city's economy may not fully recover until 2015, asked whether, if in 2013 Mr. Bloomberg decided to seek a fourth term to deal with the fiscal difficulties, she would still be as accommodating.

Once again the Council Speaker sidestepped, saying, "God willing, the economy will have rebounded by then."

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The United Federation of Teachers' distribution of Barack Obama campaign buttons to its members has sparked objections by the Department of Education about them wearing the buttons to school.

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein sent a mass e-mail to reinforce long-held DOE rules against political buttons, a policy the UFT is said to be fighting. Union President Randi Weingarten said in a statement, "For as long as I have been at the UFT — first as counsel and then as president — Teachers have been allowed to express their opinions as citizens, political and otherwise, on their lapels. Teachers know how to balance their roles as educators and their roles as citizen to freely express themselves."

She said the letter called on the Chancellor "to reconsider his position ... If not, we will pursue the matter further."

A DOE spokeswoman essentially responded, let the pursuit begin. "Schools are not a place for politics and not a place for staff to wear political buttons. During school hours, DOE staff must maintain a posture of neutrality with respect to all candidates in an election," said spokeswoman Ann Forte in a statement. "This is a longstanding Chancellor's regulation that predates the current administration."

Ms. Forte said DOE didn't "want students feeling intimidated because they might hold a different belief or support a different candidates than their teachers. The courts have agreed, ruling in several decision that teachers do not have an unfettered right to express their personal views in school."

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The Correction Department's Distinguished Service Medal was not given out at the agency's awards ceremony Oct. 2 on Rikers Island as one outgrowth of a longstanding feud between Correction Commissioner Martin Horn and retired Correction Captains Association President Peter D. Meringolo.

Mr. Meringolo and Mr. Horn had a dispute several years ago about honoring four Captains who had been charged with beating two inmates but were exonerated by the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. Mr. Meringolo said Mr. Horn wanted the four of them fired. "He wanted me to tell four people with 76 years of combined service to go on the welfare line," he said in an Oct. 3 phone interview. "I couldn't do that."

The former union leader concedes the reason the ceremony hadn't occurred since 2004 was his battle with the Commissioner. "I wanted to have the Mayor pin the medal on these four Captains and I wanted to see Marty Horn squirm," he said, adding that he was not speaking for the union he once served as president or its current leader, Ron Whitfield.

Mr. Meringolo said the union submitted the names of the four Captains, but no award was given in that category, the first time a union's picks for medals were rejected.