Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon talks to children at the Syracuse Academy of Science in the Valley neighborhood. The aquarium will be named the Harborview Aquarium, though a sponsor could obtain naming rights that would be added to the current name. Credit: Laura Robertson | Central Current

At 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, County Executive Ryan McMahon bent down to talk to elementary school students in the Syracuse Academy of Science. At the same time, about four miles away, seven Democratic Legislators gathered in front of the steps of the Onondaga County Courthouse. 

Both planned to make major announcements about the aquarium. 

McMahon told the children three new organizations donated to the aquarium, which also now has a new name: Harborview Aquarium.

Meanwhile, legislators announced proposed legislation to increase their own authority over donations to the Friends of the Aquarium — minimizing the county executive’s power to accept a donation of $10,000 or more. 

Both claimed they did not know about the other’s press conference. 

The law would require any donation of more than $10,000 to Friends of the Aquarium to come before the Onondaga County Legislature and be approved. The origin of the donor would be known to the legislature but would not be public or subject to a public records request. 

McMahon spokesperson Justin Sayles has contended that such a law would violate a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found that donor anonymity was protected under the First Amendment.

“The county legislature doesn’t get to trump the Supreme Court and the law,” said McMahon when asked if he would sign it. 

The names and other information to be provided to the chair could not be made publicly available under New York state law, said Legislator Elaine Denton, who worked on drafting the legislation.

The law would also require the county to provide donor updates to the county legislature on specific dates every quarter. Friends of the Aquarium has only given one quarterly report, despite a local law requiring the reports last March. 

Democrats proposed the legislation because about $5.7 million of the $7.6 million donated to Friends of the Aquarium came from the Greater Syracuse Soundstage Development Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation that operates as an arm of the county. 

County officials did not disclose the source of the donation to legislators. Onondaga County Comptroller Marty Masterpole found the donation — which Sayles described as a sponsorship — buried in a yearly financial report about Soundstage.

The donation left Greater Syracuse Soundstage with just about $113,000 in cash at the end of 2025.

Denton said she was disappointed by the revelation, but that it was what she had feared would happen based on last year’s law. She had been interested in drafting similar legislation since the previous iteration of the legislature passed a law allowing the county’s chief financial officer to accept donations toward the aquarium without bringing the donations to the legislature.

That law wasn’t strong enough, she said. The new law would be the “common sense” version, she said. 

“Our goal is to make sure that Friends of the Aquarium is held to the same standard of all other Friends groups,” Denton said, calling this law a “first step.” She said they would reevaluate the law depending on its effectiveness. 

She denied that this law represented a shift in the legislature’s relationship with the county executive, but said they wanted the opportunity to enforce checks and balances in the county government. 

“We are a co-branch of the government and want to be treated as such,” said Denton. 

The local law draft will be discussed in the Ways and Means committee. If it passes the legislature, McMahon will need to sign it into law. 

McMahon said he could veto the law. 

If he vetoes the law, the legislature will need a supermajority — 12 votes — to pass it. If all 10 Democratic legislators vote for the legislation, two Republican legislators would need to join them to override a veto by the county executive. 

McMahon contended Democrats are not trying to exercise more authority over donations — rather that the legislation is “a tricky way” to stop money from flowing to the aquarium.  

Legislator Maurice “Mo” Brown struck a different tone in front of the courthouse.

“Whether the aquarium fails or succeeds, it’s going to be on all of us,” he said. “And if our region is truly to thrive, we have to work together.” 

The three new donors to the aquarium are the Allyn Family Foundation, the William and Mary L. Thorpe Charitable Fund, and Amazon. All three donated between $50,000 to $250,000. The Allyn Family Foundation and the William and Mary L. Thorpe Charitable Fund donated to have a tank named after their foundations. Amazon donated an education sponsorship.

The Harborview Aquarium will still allow a sponsor to have naming rights. The name “Harborview” was picked from a  countywide competition in Onondaga County Onondaga County elementary schools. 

The competition included a lot of spongebob themed names, said McMahon. A marketing team helped to narrow it down to Harborview and Salt City. McMahon said he liked the symmetry between the Harborview Aquarium and the Lakeview Amphitheatre. 

The winning name was chosen by two daughters of the Coffey family, who are in kindergarten and first grade at the school. Their mother, Jennifer Coffey, is studying marine biology, and her daughters said they hope she will work in the aquarium once she finishes her degree. Her ten children proposed four names to the competition. 

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Laura Robertson is a staff reporter covering Onondaga County. Prior to joining Central Current, she lived on the edge of the Bering Strait in Nome, Alaska, where she worked as a reporter for a year. She...