US News

MIKE IN OVERDRIVE

TWO of Mayor Bloom berg’s close pals are the largest individual con tributors to a political action fund pushing the mayor’s green agenda, including targeting legislators who oppose congestion pricing.

Campaign records show that Martin Geller, the mayor’s longtime accountant, and Tom Secunda, a co-founder of Bloomberg LP, each gave $10,000 late last year to the Climate Action PAC, a reinvigorated arm of the New York League of Conservation Voters.

The PAC reported $111,863 on hand as of January.

Spokesman Dan Hendrick said the PAC hopes to raise $300,000 to reassert its political muscle by pouring money into state races this year.

Legislators who oppose the mayor’s plan to charge motorists $8 a day to enter Manhattan’s business districts do so at their peril, Hendrick warned.

“We’ve made it clear how this is a priority issue for us and what the consequences could be,” he said.

Marcia Bystryn, the league’s executive director, insisted the money contributed by Geller and Secunda was devoted solely to help elect environmentally friendly county executives last year in Yonkers, Brookhaven and Schenectady.

Asked how that could be when Geller’s check was dated Dec. 10 and Secunda’s Nov. 29 – both well after Election Day – Bystryn explained it was not unusual for contributions to come in after pledges are made and money is spent.

In any case, she said, the league has a “much broader agenda” than congestion pricing.

That may be. But on March 19, when Climate Action staged a kickoff event, the keynote speaker was Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, who is spearheading the congestion-pricing battle in Albany.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Geller and Secunda, who have contributed before to environmental causes, have opened their checkbooks in support of the mayor’s initiatives.

Geller became a major contributor to the state Republican Party after Bloomberg took office, writing a check for $25,000 in 2003 and again in 2004 to the state Senate GOP, and for $15,000 in both 2006 and 2007 to the Republican County Committee.

Secunda chipped in $20,000 to state Senate Republicans in both 2003 and 2004.

Bloomberg’s contributions, of course, dwarf everyone else’s. This year alone he anted up $500,000 to the Senate GOP.

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Amid all the economic gloom, there’s one surprising bright spot: the welfare rolls.

Through January, the caseload has dropped 3.6 percent to 347,681 from July 1, 2007, the start of the fiscal year.

The city is projecting an even further decrease, to 342,509 by June 30. The projection was calculated before the collapse of Bear Stearns and other recent economic convulsions.

So the numbers certainly might change.

For the moment, though, the trend seems to be defying the economy.

“You’re talking about people who generally are taking entry-level jobs,” one official explained. “At least for now, they haven’t seen the impact.”

When the mayor took office in January 2002, the welfare rolls stood at 459,056.

david.seifman@nypost.com