The other saving the Mayor hopes to win from the unions involves the cost of providing health benefits for the workers.

Then he sounded the theme that the Mayor and his advisers clearly hope to stamp on the politically problematic spending plan.

The Mayor hopes to persuade the corporation to provide $1 billion in aid to the city.

The Mayor hopes to help some of those people, too, with taxes collected from the casinos.

The Mayor had hoped that by the time the city had to pay the wage increases, its finances would be in better shape.

And there is no reason to suspect that the Mayor actually hopes that the deal will fail under present conditions.

About 1,000 jobs have been eliminated, and the Mayor hopes to eliminate at least 3,600 more through severance.

Faced with an anti-separatist shift in public opinion, the best the Mayor can now hope for is to stall.

The Mayor hopes to raise $2 million in private funds to finance tuition.

In fact, the Mayor hopes to entice 9,500 workers off the city's payroll.