Details of Onondaga County’s new aquarium are coming together: Construction is about 65% done, an opening has tentatively been planned for Labor Day and the cost of the facility has climbed to $103.8M, according to a briefing given to county legislators.  County Facilities Commissioner Archie Wixon, who briefed the County Legislature also noted the aquarium should have around 300 parking spaces by the time it opens. That would be enough for the projections from consultants who estimate the aquarium should draw around 1,500 visitors a day with an average tour length of two hours, he said.  Wixon said the aquarium is taking shape. Syracuse.com | The Post Standard reported Tuesday ZoOceanarium, the group in charge of managing the aquarium, has designated Jonathan Nevitt, as the executive director of the Onondaga County Aquarium. He formerly managed one of ZoOceanarium’s other two aquariums, according to the report. But at Tuesday’s briefing, Democratic legislators brought up a point of contention: transparency around who has donated to the effort to build the aquarium. It’s a renewal of a fight from March 2025 in which legislators — 12 Republicans and one Democrat — voted to allow the county to seek private donations to help close the gap between county money set aside for the aquarium and construction costs.  Their vote amended a local law from 1996, eliminating the need for legislative approval on private contributions greater than $1,500 toward the aquarium. Legislators Gregg Eriksen and Chad Ryan posited that people could donate to the project in hopes of winning future favors from the county without the public’s knowledge. Eriksen and other Democrats’ contentions led to an hourlong spat between Democrats, Republicans and county officials over what Eriksen called the “famously anonymous” donations.  Two county officials said that the Friends of the Aquarium, a charitable foundation created by the county to help fund the aquarium, would adhere to strict ethics laws when it came to accepting donations. As a 501(c)3, they could be audited, said Justin Sayles, a spokesperson for County Executive Ryan McMahon. Only board members of the foundation know who the anonymous donors are.  “The board has an ethical responsibility to screen these people,” said Onondaga County Attorney Bob Durr. “… The board knows they’re not going to take money from a Colombian drug lord or anyone of that ilk, and you know, they are bound by the ethical constraints of the ethics law.”  So far, 42 donors have pledged $7.7 million to fund the aquarium, an average of about $183,000 per person, according to financial records provided to Central Current by Legislator Maurice Brown. The foundation transferred $5.9 million of that money to the county. Brown in an email asked Chief Financial Officer Kristin Smiley for donor information from several county-created charities, including Friends of the Aquarium.  Smiley ultimately provided Brown with just one line of data relating to donations to the aquarium: It identified the money pledged, money received, money due, money transferred to the county and number of donors for the Friends of the Aquarium. The table did not include dates.  Smiley added that transfers of funds above $10,000 from charity groups for county attractions like Beaver Lake or the Rosamond Gifford Zoo had to be approved by the legislature. In recent years, there have been no gifts below that amount.  Prior to the briefing, Brown told Central Current he was concerned about a perceived lack of transparency from Friends of Onondaga Aquarium. He said Democrats had asked for reports from prior financial quarters in 2025 and did not receive them.  Last year county officials told legislators they could request quarterly financial reports from the group to track the group’s fundraising efforts. Tuesday’s meeting marked the first time Friends of Onondaga Aquarium has presented financial information to the legislature in a public meeting, according Ruthnie Angrand, a spokesperson for the legislature. “I want to give them a chance to do the right thing, but once they don’t, I am — either with the support of my caucus or without — going to declare war here,” Brown said.  In the Tuesday meeting, legislators pressed multiple times to know who the donors were. Friends board chair William Gilberti said that legislators and the public would likely know some of the donors once the aquarium opened, but did not disclose any names.  Many donors didn’t want to allow release of their donations while the aquarium was still under construction, said Gilberti.  “We certainly wouldn’t want to do anything that would deter from the excitement that’s building in donations,” Gilberti said.  While Democrats are skeptical about the donations, Sayles said their concerns are “unfounded.” “The assertions of impropriety just shows that these legislators still have their training wheels on and don’t understand how county government works, and the checks and balances related to a lot of department and a purchasing department,” said Sayles.  At least one government expert in Albany said last year the legislature’s move to remove legislature approval of gifts greater than $1,500 was not best practice.  While legislators broadly supported the measure at the time, at least one open government expert, Rachael Fauss from Reinvent Albany, said the legislation is not best practice.   “The names of the donors is an essential thing to disclose,” Fauss, an open government expert with Reinvent Albany said at the time. “I would think that that would be a high priority in terms of transparency so you don’t have concerns about ‘pay to play.’ The post As the cost of Onondaga County’s new aquarium climbs over $100M, legislature fights over donor transparency appeared first on Central Current. ...read more read less