The New York City economy is booming. The State Department of Labor released figures this past week showing that the unemployment rate for the city is down to 4.1 percent, the lowest since that agency started keeping those stats in 1976.

“New York City’s economic future was uncertain after September 11th, but no one makes a comeback like New Yorkers, and today’s news is a testament to the strength and vibrancy of our economy,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg last Thursday when the new statistics were released.

So what better way to celebrate a job well done than to raid the public treasury? That’s just what the City Council did last week when it passed a bill raising its base salary from $90,000 a year to $112,000 a year. Since the body had not received a raise for seven years, members were unapologetic in their support for the move.

City Councilman Lew Fidler of Brooklyn said that he would do the job for free if he could, though he still voted for the 25-percent pay increase. The Bronx’s G. Oliver Koppell argued that it is very difficult to live comfortably in New York City on just $90,000 a year.

How comfortable are you living these days? The City Council was going to pay its own raise, and a raise for other elected officials holding municipal office, and all its justification cannot hide that this was, plain and simple, a money grab. The council should be honest with us. “Hey, I’ve got boat payments to make,” one Council member might say.

“I’m an elected official, and therefore I deserve a summer home. And not in crappy New Jersey, but somewhere scenic, like Cape Cod,” could be the rationale of another Council member.

Just five Council members voted against the raise, and they are worth mentioning. Tony Avella and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, Andrew Lanza and Michael McMahon of Staten Island and Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn were the only legislators who found it a bit unseemly that the City Council would be deciding its own pay raise. And on the day that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was arguing that the City Council is a 24/7 job, five other Council members didn’t even bother to show up to vote.

Between handling its own pay increase to overseeing the taxpayer funding of its campaigns, the City Council has manipulated the purse strings for its own benefit time and time again. For their participation as the chairperson of various committees, most City Council members are given a stipend, more commonly known as a “lulu.” The lulu’s are distributed by Quinn and are used to reward loyalty, and not necessarily a commitment to stellar public service. When she took over as speaker this year, Quinn offered a lulu to Bronx City Councilman Larry Seabrook for his work on the Council’s civil rights committee. Never mind that the committee had not met for years, Quinn found Seabrook deserving of a raise and gave him an extra $10,000 for his trouble. All told, Quinn controls almost half a million dollars in such giveaways.

After the raise was passed, Avella offered an amendment that would hold back the pay raise until the next class of Council members is elected in 2010. It failed miserably. Good government groups and others have argued that in order to receive the raise, the City Council should have to be a full-time job and members should be prevented from earning outside income. The idea is laughed at by the Council members themselves.

To be fair, many City Council members are not attorneys and do not have any source of outside income. To be even fairer, there are at least a handful of City Council members you would not hire to wash windows, let alone hold a high-pressure finance or legal position with your company. When you ask random people on the street whether or not they think City Council members should get a raise, the answer is almost always no. But ignoring the will of the voters is nothing foreign to the City Council. For years, it has been concocting a scheme to overturn the twice-approved voter referendum that pushed term limits on municipal elected officials, including City Council members.

Though the entire world is complaining that the City Council has raised its own salary, Quinn is unapologetic. She states that since the City Council raised its own salary out in the open, there is nothing unethical about the move whatsoever. In fact, Quinn is happy to let her constituents decide just how appropriate the move really is. “We can be judged on it by our constituents if they disagree with it,” said Quinn. But since most City Council members face term limits and will never run for reelection again, when exactly will their constituents have that chance to judge Quinn and her allies?

Unless, of course, Quinn goes forward with her next ethical, out in the open move and overturns term limits …