The New York Times’ City Room blog was live blogging the Term Limits hearing and signing by Mayor Bloomberg. At 2:06 they posted this.

After listening for nearly four and a half hours to emotional and
at times harshly critical testimony from scores of residents, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed legislation at 1:55 p.m. Monday to extend New York City’s term
limits law, allowing himself and a majority of the City Council to seek
a third four-year term in 2009.

The mayor — who seemed subdued, tired and perhaps a bit humbled as
several members of the public berated and even yelled at him — made
brief remarks before signing the bill, acknowledging that the debate
had been difficult, and even painful. Mr. Bloomberg said:

"This is New York City, and you get a diversity of
opinion. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and you know that I
have, over a period of time, fundamentally changed my opinion in terms
of how long somebody should be in office. I have not changed my opinion
in terms of the value of term limits. I’ve made a commitment that I
will appoint a Charter Revision Commission to look at the issue of
whether two or three terms is appropriate, and to put on the ballot the
ability for the public to either reaffirm what we have today or to
change it.

"There’s no easy answer, and nobody is irreplaceable, but I do think
that if you take a look at the real world of how long it takes to do
things — we live in a litigious society, we live in a society where we
have real democracy, and lots of people have the ability to input their
views and approve or disapprove projects — I just think that three
terms makes more sense than two…"