The stadium funding has the votes in the City Council, with or without the PILOTs.

Council bars mayor
from stadium aid

Frank Lombardi

The City Council voted yesterday to sack Mayor Bloomberg's plan to use $300 million in public funds for the West Side stadium - setting up a potential legal showdown.

The vote - 48-to-2 - appeared veto-proof. But the mayor, who has pushed hard for a stadium for the Jets and the 2012 Olympics, planned to fight on.

A Bloomberg spokesman called the bill "patently illegal" and "an attempted power grab" by City Council Speaker Gifford Miller (D-Manhattan), a mayoral candidate who opposes the stadium.

Miller said Bloomberg's expected veto will be overridden. And he predicted the courts will uphold the Council in a likely legal battle with the mayor.

"We understand that he's desperate," Miller said. "But he's still wrong."

The $300 million would come from payments in lieu of taxes - or PILOTs. The money represents revenues from companies that have been given tax breaks in economic development deals.

In the past, the mayor has been able to spend some PILOT funds without going through the Council's budget approval process. The bill passed yesterday is intended to lay down the law that all spending of PILOT revenues must get the Council's okay.

The 51-member Council is divided on the stadium, but more members support it than oppose it. Yet all but two supporters of the stadium voted for yesterday's bill, citing the need to preserve Council budget authority.