Republican Mayoral Candidate Says Bloomberg Offered Him Job to Keep Out of

[Tsiyu]

NEW YORK (AP) - A former city councilman said Tuesday that aides to Mayor Michael Bloomberg offered him a job so he would not challenge the mayor in the November election, an accusation the mayor strongly denied.
Bloomberg and his aides acknowledged they had offered Ognibene a position with the mayor's campaign, but said they did not know he had wanted to run himself.

"When we read in the paper he was running, we had no further contact," Bloomberg said.

But Ognibene, a Republican, said one of the mayor's aides, Richard Wager, had attended a recent speech in which Ognibene announced he intended to run.

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