Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo should not investigate the financing of the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday, reiterating his support for the project.
“I think it’s a terrible precedent,” he said. “You don’t want them investigating donations to religious organizations, and there’s no reason for the government to do so.”
Mr. Bloomberg made his remarks about the controversial development project, known as Park51, in response to questions about a Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday that found voters in New York State deeply divided, with more than 70 percent of them wanting Mr. Cuomo to investigate the project’s financing.
Sticking to what he said were the larger principles at stake, Mayor Bloomberg played down recent reportsthat the project’s main developer, Sharif el-Gamal, has a history of misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct, drunken driving and hiring a prostitute.
“I don’t know anything about his personal life,” he said, speaking after the opening of a new Italian marketplace in the Flatiron district. “The issue here to me is very simple: The government shouldn’t be in the business of telling people who they pray to, where they pray, when they pray. There’s an issue of what American values are.”
While having an interfaith prayer space in the proposed community center “sounds like a good idea,” he said, reacting to a recent op-ed article in The Daily News by Julie Menin, the chairwoman of the local community board that approved the project, that remains up to the developer, the mayor said.
“Once again, the government should not be in the business of telling people what they should do,” he said.
As to the question of whether back taxes are owed on the site, he said the matter would be treated like any other.
“If they owe money, they should pay it; if they don’t, they don’t,” he said. “I don’t get involved in looking at every little piece of property and see who owes and doesn’t owe money.”
The Quinnipiac poll of 1,497 registered voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
On other matters, the mayor was mum on what he and President Obama discussed during their recent golf game on Martha’s Vineyard, but he did mention that there was one thing they did not talk about.
“We did not talk about 2012 and anybody running, and certainly not me,” he said. “I have 1,218 days left in this job, and I plan to serve every one out. And I’m looking forward to every one of them.”
Uptown, at a cultural center in Harlem, Gov. David A. Paterson echoed Mr. Bloomberg’s comments on the Islamic center, telling reporters who gathered as he signed a bill giving more rights to domestic workers that news of Mr. Gamal’s arrests had not changed his thinking.
“There’s a constitutional protection of religious freedom, and that project has every right to be there,” he said. “I knew that there would be background checks on everybody involved and anybody involved that tripped some kid on the playground when they were 13, that kid will probably be on some cable network tonight saying, ‘I knew there was a problem then.’ And it’s unfortunate that it’s gotten to this kind of acrimony that’s reminding me of ‘Bonfire of the Vanities.’ ”