Spitzer to Fenty: A $1,000 Campaign Donation was originally published on City Desk on Sept. 15, 2009, at 3:56 pm
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s massive re-election fund-raising drive has brought unsurprising results -- a boatload of money from the business world (especially real estate developers) along with some smaller chunks of cash from ordinary folks. As of July 31, $2.7 million.
One contribution, though, sticks out among the lawyers and executives: $1,000 from “Spitzer, Eliot” at “985 5th Ave, New York, NY 10021″ back in June.
Why does the disgraced former governor of New York have any stake in the mayor’s re-election bid?
“I’ve met him, he’s a good person, he’s worked hard, and so I like to support candidates like that, people like that who work hard for their city,” Spitzer told the Washington City Paper over the phone.
Spitzer’s donation came a few months after he helped engineer the purchase by his father’s company of a $180 million downtown D.C. office building. Did the purchase affect his decision to support Fenty?
“Absolutely not,” Spitzer said. “One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. To suggest the two are related is, frankly, quite stupid.”
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The mayor is “a friend and somebody who I admire,” Spitzer said, but refused to explain their relationship any further. Pressed on the matter, he said only that the two “met in a governmental context.”
Fenty said that the donation came from a fundraiser in New York. Who held the fundraiser? “I’ll get you that information,” said Fenty.
The mayor said he had no second thoughts about accepting donations from a guy who’d used the District as a call-girl liaison pad. He also acknowledged milking his relationship with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other Big Apple muni-luminaries to build up his campaign coffers.
“We’ve had a great working relationship particularly with the city of New York,” he said. “It’s a relationship that spans between city hall, education, and our similar passions on that end. There’s a strong development community that works between New York and Washington, D.C.”
Fenty is the third candidate to receive a contribution from the ex-governor, after Mark Green and Cy Vance Jr. Is he flattered by that distinction?
“I guess the best thing to say about any particular donation is every single one of them is important. Every single one of them is appreciated.”
Additional reporting by Mike DeBonis
