FOR THE RECORD

You might get a debate over whether Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron is the most-offensive member of that body, but he did his best last week to demonstrate that he is without question the most easily offended one.

Former Governor Mario Cuomo was the first witness at the Oct. 16 Council hearing on whether term limits should be amended to permit city office-holders 12 years rather than a maximum of eight in their jobs.

Mr. Cuomo made the straightforward case against term limits: that it should be the voters' call whether someone has served too long, and that setting an arbitrary limit penalized them as well as the affected officials.

As evidence that the voters are not reluctant to turn out veteran officials, he noted that he was unseated in 1994 in his bid for a fourth term as Governor, less than three years after he was considered the leading Democratic candidate for President. (He left a New Hampshire-bound plane sitting on the tarmac early in the 1992 race, but that's a story for another time.)

Mr. Barron, who immortalized himself in Council lore by inviting the brutal Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe to attend a session during his first term in office, apparently couldn't stomach Mr. Cuomo's testimony, for reasons only he knows.

"How dare you come to this body and say term limits didn't work?" he demanded of Mr. Cuomo. "That's an insult to every one of us who came in through term limits."

The former Governor passed on the chance to note that whatever allegiance Mr. Barron feels to the concept, he is keeping his options open: he has not ruled out seeking a third term if the Council passes the bill he vehemently opposes.

Asked afterward by the Post's City Hall bureau chief, David Seifman, about his decision not to get embroiled in a heated argument with Mr. Barron, Governor Cuomo alluded to the previous night's debate and said, "I watched Barack Obama."

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A Patrolmen's Benevolent Association delegate has died of kidney cancer, which the union linked to his work at Ground Zero after 9/11.

Gary Mausberg, 47, succumbed to his illness Oct. 8. "Gary Mausberg devoted his life to his family, the citizens of New York, the NYPD and his fellow officers at the 73rd Precinct and all over the city," said PBA President Patrick J. Lynch in a statement. "He was an extraordinary police officer and union leader. He was a friend who will be missed by all."

Joe Mancini, a spokesman for the union, said paperwork was filed to tie Mr. Mausberg's cancer to the World Trade Center recovery effort and gain a special death benefit for his survivors.

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"Working New York," the half-hour show focusing on social, political and economic issues from a union standpoint that is hosted by State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes, began its third season Oct. 15 on the Regional News Network.

The debut broadcast featured an interview with Philip Dine, a veteran St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter whose new book, "State of the Unions," deals with the impact of labor on the political process.

The show airs on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 7:30 p.m. and features guests from the worlds of politics, literature and entertainment as well as labor. Since it first aired in 2005, its audience has more than doubled and now numbers about 133,000 viewers per episode. The current 17-segment season will run through June.

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A new memorial plaque honoring Police Officer Thomas Schimenti, Jr., who was murdered in 1979, was unveiled Oct. 15 at 100 Park Avenue. Mr. Schimenti's family was presented with the original plaque by the building's owner at the site of the incident across the street from Grand Central Station where he was shot trying to apprehend a bank-robber. James McCarthy, commander of the Midtown South Precinct, the NYPD Color Guard and Edward V. Piccinich, executive vice president of SL Green Realty Corp., which owns the building housing the plaque, participated in the ceremony.

The killer, Peter Donohue, had escaped from a work detail in New Jersey where he was serving a 27-year sentence for bank robbery. He served time on Rikers Island for Mr. Schimenti's murder, but later escaped with three other prisoners. His body was found two months later floating in the water under the Verrazano Bridge.

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Gary La Barbera, the president of the AFL-CIO New York City Central Labor Council, is leaving that position to take on new responsibilities as president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. He will be succeeded by the CLC's vice president Jack Ahearn.