ALBANY — I’m a fan of the Boston Celtics, which means, among other things, that I’m not especially inclined to give owners of New York basketball teams the benefit of the doubt. But even if I were a Knicks fan, God forbid, I couldn’t justify the tax break enjoyed by James Dolan and Madison Square Garden.
Get this: The arena does not pay New York City property taxes and hasn’t in four decades. The benefit is worth about $43 million annually and has no scheduled end.
When the perk was given by the state in 1982, the supposed justification was that Dolan, who also owns the New York Rangers, might just take his ball, puck and arena and go to Secaucus or Nashville or some other place willing to shower him with money.
That made little sense then, and it makes less sense now.
Newsflash: The Knicks, Rangers and Madison Square Garden are not going to disappear, even if Dolan is forced to pay the taxes that every other New Yorker pays.
“Nobody can say that it’s fair or reasonable that he’s had an abatement for 40 years,” said state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who introduced legislation that would strip Madison Square Garden of a benefit he says is “without any rationale.”
The good news here is that Hoylman-Sigal’s proposal, a budget resolution, passed in the Senate. The bad news is that stripping Dolan of the benediction remains unlikely for reasons that are depressingly familiar to anyone who knows how Albany really works.
“They have some really good lobbyists up here,” Hoylman-Sigal said. “He raises a lot of money for people.”
Dolan raises a lot of money for Gov. Kathy Hochul, in particular. As The City reported, Dolan’s family gave $258,600 to support Hochul’s recent reelection campaign. Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, received more than $550,000 in campaign contributions over the years from Cablevision, Dolan’s now-defunct company.
So it…
Read the full article here