Alan Gerry and family big donors to GOP
By John Milgrim
Ottaway
News Service
jmottaway@aol.com
Albany – Former cable TV magnate Alan Gerry and his
close relatives contributed more than $75,000 to Republican campaign war chests,
according to campaign finance filings from June 1999 to this July.
Most
of that went directly to Gov. George Pataki’s re-election account.
Pataki
yesterday announced $15 million in state aid for Gerry’s $40 million
performing arts center planned for the site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts
Fair, a project winning bipartisan praise.
“I
would imagine he’s among the biggest contributors in the region,” said SUNY
New Paltz dean and politics professor Gerald Benjamin. “I think that certainly being a major contributor helps a
person like Mr. Gerry gain access to the governor.”
Gerry,
for example, wrote a check for $10,000 on April 20 to Pataki’s campaign war
chest, and matched it the next day with another check.
In all, Gerry and his close relatives donated about $55,000 to Pataki
between June 1999 and this July and another $20,000 to the state Republican
Committee.
“There’s
been very serious research on this and it’s very hard to link the quid for the
quo,” Benjamin said. “Yes, you
gain access, yes, you get a hearing. But
it (the project) has to make sense” and have merits such as the expected
economic windfall to the region.”
Copyright
August 2000, The Times Herald-Record, a division of Ottaway Newspapers, Inc.,
all rights reserved.
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