By Chris Sommerfeldt | csommerfeldt@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News, Josephine Stratman | jstratman@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News and Evan Simko-Bednarski | esimko-bednarski@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News
UPDATED: October 17, 2024 at 6:03 PM EST
Billionaire Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan, together with his relatives and business associates, pumped more than $60,000 into Mayor Adams’ legal and political coffers this summer — even as his company had key business interests before the city and lobbied top City Hall officials about them, according to a Daily News review of public records.
Those business interests include the heavily-debated question of how long MSG’s critical special permit — which allows it to operate atop Penn Station — should be renewed for.
But the donations were permissible. While the MSG business entity is not allowed to make such contributions, Dolan and the other individuals who gave are. Nearly all the Dolan-connected contributions to Adams’ legal defense trust and reelection campaign came on July 10, July 15 and July 26, records show.
For the trust, the donations, all of which were in the legal maximum amount of $5,000, totaled $45,000 — just under half of the $92,500 Adams’ fund raised over the last disclosure period, from July 1 to Sept. 30. The flurry of contributions came from James Dolan, his three adult sons, his father, a director of his Madison Square Garden Co., the same’s company vice chairman, a longtime entertainment business partner to Dolan and an ex-president of his MSG Network, The News’ review found.
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But Brooklyn Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, a Democrat who penned the bill, re-introduced it this year. She told The News on Thursday it has gotten 27 co-sponsors, surpassing the majority threshold required for passage.
“New Yorkers shouldn’t have to endure dystopian biometric scans to cheer for the Knicks,” Hanif said.
