On March 4th, the legislature amended a local law to allow unlimited private donations go towards the Onondaga County aquarium without oversight by the legislature. The law amends a previous local law that required that donations over $1,500 be accepted by resolution. I made a public comment against amending this local law and wrote a letter to the editor sharing my concerns.
Good afternoon, my name is Elaine Denton and I live in the Town of Manlius.
I wanted to share my thoughts on amending law 3-1996.
First, we have been here before. In 2007 the legislature amended this law to increase the limit of donations to $10,000 from Friends Groups. It stated that a quarterly written report would be provided to each member of the legislature on March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1 each year specifying any items that were received during the quarter. Have any of you received these quarterly reports? If not, I would wait on passing further changes on donations until current law is followed.
Secondly, section 2 of this proposed law states the County is in the process of selling the naming rights. But in 2017, Comptroller Antonacci sent a letter to the legislature with concerns and recommendations that this body should be involved and approve naming agreements. To quote from this letter “The power of municipalities to name a building for pecuniary gain is questionable. What is absolutely clear is the power to name a building is a power for the legislative body of a municipality. Presently, there is no authority for the County Executive to contract such power away, much less undertake it independent of the Legislature.” Yet this proposed law acknowledges that the county is working on this once again with no checks and balances provided by the legislature.
Lastly, for the County Executive to be focused on filling a $10 million dollar funding gap for an expensive aquarium during a time when residents are losing their jobs, costs are rising and people can’t afford basic needs is shameful. Nonprofits, governments, schools and more may be losing critical federal funding but here is Onondaga County doing everything they can to build an aquarium.
Destiny, the amphitheater, Amazon, all sold to us that they would bring jobs and economic benefits to Onondaga County. Yet here we are with the same problems we have had. I ask you again to stop this project. Take the loss now, and turn it into a positive for our community by investing in housing, transportation and let’s get rid of the lead in our community.
Thank you.
