A Public Speaking Event On The Israeli/Gaza Crisis
Dr. Aaron Berman to speak on the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Dr. Berman is professor emeritus of history of Hampshire College. Dr. Berman has written extensively on the modern history of Jews and oppression. He is the author of the book Nazism, the Jews and American Zionism: 1933-1948. Among his other writing are reviews of Frank W. Brecher, Reluctant Ally: United States Foreign Policy Toward the Jews from Wilson to Roosevelt and “American Zionists, the Drive for a Jewish Commonwealth and the Holocaust,” Holocaust Studies Annual I (1983).
Dr. Berman will be focus on the pre-October 7, 2024 events.
John Kaufmann who has organized the talk observed that “many of us are devastated by the violence of the Hamas raid in October and by the violence of the Israeli state in response to that attack. For us, the central question is where did this catastrophe come from?” Rather than focusing on the current events, Dr. Berman will be discussing how the conflict between the two peoples attempting to share the same space came to this point.
The talk will take place on May 13, 2024 at the Methodist Church on Hemming Road, Saratoga Springs at 7:00 PM. All are welcome.
According to the Daily Gazette, the Saratoga County District Attorney has initiated a probe related to on-call pay for Saratoga Springs Deputy Commissioners. On April 24, 2024, Saratoga County Judge James Murphy III authorized subpoenas that were served on the city on April 25, 2024.
The subpoena seeks all on-call pay forms, payroll records and approval of on-call forms and records that “note the amount of on-call pay” for Crocker, Rella, Connors and O’Neill.
The subpoena also request the vacation and leave requests for the three deputy commissioners and deputy mayor, as well as “emails to or from Brook Vanbuskirk, Lisa Ribis, and Stacy Connors discussing Section ‘E’ of the ‘on-call’ pay resolution that was passed by the City of Saratoga Springs Council 02/09/2023.”
Daily Gazette Website May 10, 2024
The Gazette has declined to report on the story in the past, and the article seems somewhat confused about what the investigation is about.
Based on the items reported as being sought by the DA and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s comments, there seem to potentially be two aspects.
The first concern seems to be whether the Deputy Commissioners improperly applied for and received bonus money designated for being on-call outside of normal city business operation hours. I speculate that this could also include whether their respective bosses are culpable for approving their payments.
The second concerns the changing of the wording of the resolution that authorized payments for on-call. The version approved by the Council was at some point later altered adding the word “event” to broaden the description of the circumstances that would make a Deputy eligible for the on-call pay. Tampering with official public records is a potential felony. Earlier this year, the City Attorneys determined that the resolution had been altered but did not identify who did this or how it was done. In an earlier post, I reproduced a document indicating the resolution had been altered on the computer of Stacy Connors, the Deputy Commissioner of Accounts.
Sanghvi told the Gazette that “as far as I know, the City Council voted on it twice with the word in it.” There was a second vote on the resolution to correct a typographical error regarding the vacation benefits for deputies. By that time, the resolution had been altered. The Gazette article, however, contains the original language of the resolution that the Council, including Sanghvi, voted for, which does not contain the altered language. Regrettably, the reporter did not follow up and point this out to Sanghvi.
Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi told the Daily Gazette that the investigation “seems like a fishing expedition to me.” It is important to note that her office had to approve the payments to the Deputies and that she personally approved the bonus pay for her own Deputy.
Moran’s Timing
It does not seem coincidental that Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran issued his Request For Proposals for law firms to act directly as attorneys for his office along with Public Works and Finance on the same day the city received the subpoenas. Moran had previously denounced the opinion issued by the two city attorneys, Tony Izzo and David Harper, that had confirmed the doctoring of the on-call resolution and raised doubts as to the legality of payments for on-call. In addition to the subpoenas, he received notice that Caron Schermerhorn was suing him on the same day.
The May 7, 2024, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting was yet another unwelcome trip down memory lane as Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi tried unsuccessfully to block paying a bill the city was legally required to pay. Readers will sadly remember similar attempts by these and other members of the last administration to avoid fulfilling the city’s financial obligations.
At issue at this meeting was paying a bill for approximately $4,800.00 from former Mayor Meg Kelly’s lawyer for work done regarding the New York State Attorney General’s report on the Saratoga Springs Police Department’s Response to Protests in 2021.
In a previous post, I published the opinion issued by the city’s two attorneys, which made clear that the city is required to pay the legal bills of elected officials arising from actions performed in carrying out their duties.
As the attached video documents, Moran and Sanghvi simply ignored any inconvenient documents, laws, or regulations that might expose the fallacies in the narratives they crafted for the benefit of what they hope is a credulous public. They launched a full-throated attack on former Mayor Kelly in an attempt to block the payment of her lawyer’s bill.
The Attack
Readers will remember that this attack on Kelly was launched by comments made by Kristen Dart at the last Council meeting. Dart’s attempt to stop the payment of Kelly’s lawyer because, she argued, the Mayor had allegedly acted outside the scope of her role as Mayor, was refuted in a legal opinion from the city’s attorneys. Moran and Sanghvi now abandoned that tactic and launched a panoply of new and different arguments at this meeting.
Moran’s and Sanghvi’s first arguments focused on part of the Attorney General’s report which falsely claimed that former Mayor Meg Kelly had failed to comply with the AG staff’s requests. Moran and Sanghvi purported to be morally outraged at the possibility of paying lawyer fees for someone who had failed to comply with the AG’s investigation.
Inconveniently for Moran and Sanghvi, however, Kelly’s attorney, Karl Sleight, had provided the city with correspondence thoroughly documenting his communications with the AG’s office, clearly refuting their allegation of non-cooperation. Sanghvi had crafted a fancy slide presentation containing the text from the AG report, and out of malice or incompetence, she found no need to acknowledge Sleight’s correspondence, let alone refute it. [This link to an earlier post explores all this in detail.]
More importantly, and indicative of how myopic Moran and Sanghvi are, even if the false information in the AG’s report had been accurate, it still would not have absolved the city of its obligation to pay Kelly’s attorney’s bill.
Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub and Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll patiently tried to explain all this to them, but it did not deter Sanghvi from continuing her flawed arguments.
One part of Sanghvi’s slide show compared the number of texts Robin Dalton had provided to the AG to Kelly’s. Sanghvi saw this as proof of Kelly’s non-compliance. As the video documents, Golub, who, as he points out, is a lawyer, was especially effective and clear in his attempts to explain to her the problems with this argument.
Sanghvi and Moran next became focused on what they saw as a contradiction in Mayor Safford’s comments. Safford had said he understood that the bill from Sleight would be the last, yet the resolution, they complained, said the city would pay future bills. Sanghvi and Moran claimed they had been told by the City Attorneys that the AG report was closed, so how could there be future bills? Sanghvi wanted a friendly amendment to cap the bills.
Here again, Golub, in his quiet style, repeatedly explained to them that nothing prevented the AG’s office from reopening their investigation, which is why both things could be true, i.e., that the investigation was over, implying there would be no more bills, but that further legal action and more bills which would have to be paid were possible.
Coll attempted to explain the danger of this stratagem to Sanghvi. He reminded her that it was hard enough to attract candidates for office given the $14,500.00 salary. However, it would be disastrous to leave open the idea that the city would not fully indemnify city officers with whatever it took to defend them.
Sanghvi, apparently in an attempt to save face, suggested that they cap the current bills with Kelly’s, and if there were more legal issues in the future, they could fund more then. If she’s ok with funding future bills, what was the point of opposing that language in the resolution?
In the end, Sanghvi voted not to pay the bill, even after noting that her job as Finance Commissioner was to pay bills. Moran abstained, while Coll, Safford, and Golub voted yes to pay the bill the city was legally obliged to pay.
The ignorance of Sanghvi and Moran displayed at the meeting, along with their foolish intransigence, only adds to the concern that if they could be so out of touch with the law on this matter, what is going on in their offices daily.
In Praise Of Meg Kelly
I am particularly disturbed by Commissioners Sanghvi and Moran’s callousness in their gratuitous and cavalier attacks on former Mayor Meg Kelly. It is not clear to me what their purpose is in continuing to launch these attacks, particularly on a fellow Democrat who is not going to run for office again. Does Sanghvi somehow think this will help her run for the NY State Senate in which she is currently engaged?
Our elected officials are paid a meager $14,500.00 a year. This inadequate salary has not been adjusted since its establishment thirty years ago. While the positions are ostensibly part-time, many who serve, such as Kelly, devote more than full-time to the duties. For all intents and purposes, these officials are virtually volunteers. Let me emphasize this last point. They virtually dedicate their lives to serving the citizens of this city for two-year stints. In Kelly’s case, it was four years.
I cannot think of any Mayor who achieved more than Mayor Kelly during my almost 50 years as a resident in this city. As just a few examples:
This city had been trying to build an EMS/fire station to serve the eastside plateau for decades. Finding an affordable plot of land had eluded administration after administration. As Mayor, Kelly negotiated a deal with the New York Racing Association for virtually nothing, making the project viable.
The city had secured grants to build a bike path in the Geyser Crest area, but the project had languished for years due to conflicts with property owners and the town of Milton. Kelly patiently and persistently worked with all the players to resolve the outstanding issues, and today, the community benefits from her efforts.
When Kelly took office, the building inspection department was a dysfunctional mess. Michael Biffer, who had done outstanding work in a thankless job as the former head, had retired, and there was a leadership vacuum. The backlog of building permits and inspections was disgraceful. Kelly reformed that department and radically improved its productivity.
During the COVID epidemic, the county’s Department of Social Services refused to provide lodging for the homeless. This was not just a moral issue but a threat to public health. Through Kelly’s efforts, generously supported financially by Scott Earl of Twin Bridges Waste and Recycling, she arranged for them to be housed at the Holiday Inn.
Construction of the City Centre parking facility had also languished for years due to what appeared to be intransigent litigation. Kelly worked successfully with all parties to resolve the conflict.
Kelly ended the gun show at the City Centre. [Something I actually opposed doing but which had wide spread public support]
Kelly did an extraordinary job of leadership during the crisis of the city hall fire. Moving the city operations to other locations, working with Commissioner Skip Scirocco to facilitate the rehabilitation the building, and maintaining unity among the Council members was quite an achievement.
Mayor Kelly could be tough. When she ran for her first term as Mayor, she refused to take my calls. She also ran a tight ship. If I wanted to meet with her, I had to first provide her with a memorandum outlining my issues.
She strictly limited the public’s input at City Council meetings, limiting speakers to two minutes. Her sometimes imperious style offended many. Like every other speaker, I was sternly cut off at the end of my allotted time. I felt, though, that the important issue was that the City Council’s deliberations were efficient during her tenure.
The most revealing thing about Kelly has been her work with the homeless after she left office. It reflects her compassion and her take care of business persona. Meg Kelly walks the walk.
Dr. Aaron Berman to speak on the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Dr. Berman is a professor emeritus of history at Hampshire College. Dr. Berman has written extensively on the modern history of Jews and oppression. He is the author of the book Nazism, the Jews and American Zionism: 1933-1948. Among his other writings are reviews of Frank W. Brecher, Reluctant Ally: United States Foreign Policy Toward the Jews from Wilson to Roosevelt and “American Zionists, the Drive for a Jewish Commonwealth and the Holocaust,” Holocaust Studies Annual I (1983).
Dr. Berman will focus on the pre-October 7, 2024 events.
John Kaufmann, who is organizing the talk, observed that “many of us are devastated by the violence of the Hamas raid in October and by the violence of the Israeli state in response to that attack. The central question for us is where this catastrophe came from?” Rather than focusing on the current events, Dr. Berman will discuss how the conflict between the two peoples attempting to share the same space came to this point.
The talk will occur on May 13, 2024, at the Methodist Church on 175 Fifth Ave., Saratoga Springs, at 7:00 PM. All are welcome.
The Saratoga Springs Department of Accounts has issued an RFP (Request for Proposals) to law firms for legal services to be provided only to the Accounts, Finance, and Public Works Departments.
As the excerpt from the RFP documents, the legal services sought are pretty much for everything.
This is unprecedented. Based on this RFP, Commissioner Moran, Sanghvi, and Golub appear unhappy with and distrustful of the current City Attorneys and want their own legal representation.
Interestingly, they did not include the Public Safety Department. I don’t know if the exclusion of Commissioner Coll and Mayor Safford was because they were endorsed by the Republicans or whether the supporters of this resolution assumed that Coll would not support this poorly considered RFP.
I wrote to Moran, Sanghvi, and Golub:
“Can you shed some light on why Accounts, Finance, and Public Works are seeking their own legal representation through a recent RFP?“
None of the three responded.
This is potentially disastrous. The city would have dueling attorneys at an unknown cost and generating an even more acrimonious Council.
From The City Charter
According to our city charter, the city’s Mayor has the authority to hire the City Attorney. In fact, based on history, the Mayor also has the authority to fire the City Attorney
The charter empowers the City Attorney to act as the city’s “general legal adviser.” The code allows the Council to “provide additional legal service,” but this has always been for hiring attorneys with specialized skills, such as negotiating contracts with our unions. In my memory, it has never been used to usurp the responsibilities of the City Attorney.
Some History And Some Perspective
The Mayor’s right to choose the City Attorney has, in my opinion, been abused in the past. Despite the goal in the code that the City Attorney is counsel to the city, there have been attorneys who appeared to act more as the Mayor’s attorney rather than the city’s.
Still, in the decades I have observed our city’s deliberations, no one has ever suggested that individual Council members should have their own legal representative beyond the support provided by the City Attorney.
David Harper, the current City Attorney, and I could not be further apart on the political spectrum. Having said that, Mr. Harper is a person of the highest integrity. I am confident that when asked to address a legal issue, he follows the law wherever it may take him. He is an excellent lawyer, and this city is very fortunate that he serves us.
Similarly, Mayor John Safford and I could not be further apart on the political spectrum. Still, the issues that separate us have nothing to do with the considerations for successfully managing our city. I don’t think you can find a person fairer and more open than John Safford.
Let’s Hope Cooler Heads Prevail
I cannot emphasize enough how potentially disastrous this RFP is. Commissioner Moran unfairly denounced Harper’s opinion in the on-call debacle in the most intemperate terms, attacking Harper personally. More recently, he opposed paying the fees for a past elected official’s legal costs. Again, he was grossly incorrect on the law, as documented in the carefully crafted legal opinion of Harper and Izzo.
Arming Moran, Sanghvi, and Golub with their own attorneys to fight opinions they do not like would not end well.
As many of the readers of this blog may remember, one of the more unfortunate characteristics of former Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim was his penchant for taking every opportunity to make unsubstantiated disparaging remarks about his predecessors on the City Council. Many of us had hoped those days of ugly personal attacks had ended with his defeat in the last election.
Unfortunately, the ghost of Kim was still present at the April 16, 2024, City Council meeting, kept alive through the efforts of Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran, Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi, and audience member Kristen Dart, with some enabling help from Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub.
The impetus for this most recent display of unsavory behavior was triggered by an item on Mayor John Safford’s agenda to pay attorney Karl Sleight’s bill for approximately $4,800 for representation for former Mayor Meg Kelly related to the New York State Attorney General’s investigation.
Similar bills for legal representation for city officials related to the Attorney General’s investigation had come before the Council for approval a number of times over the past couple of years, and Kim had used each occasion to complain about the expense and to make disparaging remarks about the people being given legal representation. In the end, though, the bills were always approved by the Council as they had to be.
The city is required by the city code and state law to defend and indemnify public officials in need of legal representation for actions brought against them during their tenure in office.
This is axiomatic. No one would run for office if they were not assured that if circumstances arose while they are in office for which they needed representation, they would have to pay for it themselves.
The Ambush
Pre-agenda meetings which take place the day before the regular Council meetings are an opportunity for Council members to present the resolutions they will be submitting for consideration at the regular meeting. At this public meeting Council members are supposed to raise any issues they may feel need clarification in preparation for the regular Council meeting. They are also supposed to have the courtesy to advise their colleagues of any resolutions they plan to oppose and why.
The following video is from the pre-agenda meeting held in preparation for the April 16 Council meeting. The Mayor lists his items including a resolution to pay Kelly’s legal bill. Readers will observe that Commissioner Sanghvi expresses no concerns about paying the bill.
Dillon Moran is not present but his deputy sits silently and Moran never contacted Mayor Safford to advise him that he would oppose paying Sleight’s bill.
There was no hint of what was going to unfold at the Tuesday night Council meeting.
The Ugly Gratuitous Attack on Meg Kelly
The debacle began during the comment period of the April 16, 2024, Council meeting when Kristen Dart spoke.
Section 9-1 of the city code reads: “The City Council of the City of Saratoga Springs agrees to provide a defense and indemnify its officers and employees in any state or federal legal action arising out of any alleged act or omission which occurred or allegedly occurred in the scope of official duty or public employment…”
In a letter to the Special Council in the Attorney General’s office, Kelly’s attorney Karl Sleight had responded to one of the many accusations in the Attorney General’s report by observing :
“As an initial point of fact the Report’s statement that Mayor Kelly had any ability to create policy and direct personnel outside of the limited powers of the Office of the Mayor is belied by the City’s charter and its Commission form of government. Mayor Kelly did not have the governmental authority to do what you alleged she did.”
Dart used this to claim that Sleight’s defense was proof that Kelly had acted outside her duties as Mayor and that therefore she forfeited legal protection that would be paid by the city.
Dart made this argument cynically ignoring the context of Sleight’s letter.
Dart totally misreads the Sleight letter. He is arguing that not only is there no evidence in the report supporting the allegation that she directed Chief Crooks but that since the chief reports to the Commissioner of Public Safety, she would have no authority to take such action.
Even if Kelly had improperly attempted to direct Chief Crooks she would still be indemnified because she was acting in her role as mayor. This distinction is specifically addressed in the City Attorney’s opinion (see below).
Dart, who is not a lawyer, should have had the sense of humility and courtesy, to have consulted an attorney before doing what constituted a hit on Kelly.
Dillon Moran: Unencumbered By Responsibility
When the item to pay Sleight’s bill came up on the Mayor’s agenda, Moran and Sanghvi swung into action in what had all the appearances of an orchestrated performance that had begun with Dart’s comment.
Moran attacked first playing off of Dart’s comment. He begins by reasserting another false allegation namely that Kelly did not cooperate with the Attorney General’s investigation so he cannot vote to pay her legal fees. He conveniently ignores Sleight’s correspondence with the AG. Sleight’s letter documents that the AG’s office canceled the scheduled meeting with Kelly and Sleight. Further, Sleight expresses concern about engaging with the Attorney General’s office in light of a federal suit brought by Lexis Figuereo against Kelly, among others. Sleight expresses concern that the AG’s office had “collaborated with the plaintiff in the federal court action.” It is worth noting that for some reason, the AG’s office did not see fit to respond to Sleight’s letter.
Most fundamentally and most critically, Moran chooses to simply ignore that city code and state law requires that these bills be paid. The idea that because he does not like the way Kelly interacted with the AG somehow abrogates our city code and state law is stunning.
Sanghvi Suddenly Has Questions
As the earlier video of the pre-agenda meeting documented, Sanghvi voiced no concerns about paying the legal bill nor did she even have any questions. Not so at the actual Council meeting.
Suddenly Sanghvi is full of questions. She even resurrects the issue that had been raised in the Kim era of potentially capping the amount of money spent on legal fees claiming that the City Attorneys allegedly told her that the city could do this. Her statement was subsequently refuted when the City Attorney memorialized the issue in a recent opinion (see below).
The legal bills must be reasonable. The city should not be impelled to pay for a lawyer who charges $1,000.00 an hour or bills for an unreasonable amount of hours given the scope of the work. It is not unusual for municipalities and insurance companies to insist on negotiating such bills.
What the city cannot do is place a cap on the total amount the city will pay for representation as was discussed in the Kim era and was now repeated by Sanghvi.
The Denouement
There were a number of possible ways forward for the Council on how to deal with this issue at this point. Safford could have asked for a vote but he could not be sure it would pass given the objections Minita and Dillon were suddenly raising. Given the sensitive legal issues involved and the need for privacy for the parties involved, Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll proposed the Council goes into executive session to discuss the matter with the City Attorneys. Commissioner Sanghvi said she was amenable to this. The Council potentially could have resolved these issues in an executive session and then voted. But at this point, Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub interceded for some reason and urged the Mayor to table the resolution which Safford did. This had the effect of postponing the inevitable vote to approve this bill and giving Moran another chance to perform at the next Council meeting. (This also gave time for Wendy Liberatore to do her predictable TU article rehashing uncritically all the AG accusations and giving Dillon another platform for his phony self-righteous attacks on Kelly. The headline for her story documents why Golub’s move to table was unfortunate as it provided credibility to what Golub had to know was nonsense. The title of Liberatore’s story tells it all: Saratoga Springs officials flinch at paying more legal fees for former Mayor Kelly.)
Jason Golub: An Unpleasant Experience
Previous to last week I had always respected Jason Golub. While I was frustrated at his passivity regarding much of the craziness at City Council meetings and in particular his disinterest in addressing some of the more disturbing behavior of Dillon Moran at the Council table, I attributed it to his style.
Unfortunately, his performance at the Council meeting in killing the Mayor’s attempt to vote on the legal fees has exposed another side of him. A text he sent to me during the Council meeting establishes that he was fully aware that the attorney bill had to be paid. His confidence that Kelly would be paid makes clear that he knew the arguments put forward by Moran, Sanghvi, and Dart were without merit. So why did he intercede to table the vote rather than to let it be approved?
He had to know that his action prolonged Kelly’s vulnerability and left the dubious business of blocking the payment of her bills unresolved and subject to exploitation by Sanghvi and Moran.
In a subsequent conversation I had with Golub I was disappointed in his adamant defense of allowing the issue to go on. He offered multiple excuses. He alleged that he did not hear Sanghvi agree to go into executive session (Readers should review the video and determine for themselves whether it is credible that he did not hear her.) He argued that Kristen Dart is an attorney and he needed to take the issues she raised seriously. (Kristen Dart is not an attorney and we have already established that he knew Kelly should be paid.) He attempted to blame Mayor Safford for tabling the resolution. While Safford technically tabled it as chair, Safford did it only when Golub urged him to.
[Blogger received this statement from Dr. Connie Woytowich who is running for re-election to the school board.]
Hello Saratoga Springs Politics,
As I seek re-election to our local school board, my focus remains on enhancing our school district’s education. Due to a packed spring schedule as a mother, teacher and active school board member, I am concentrating my efforts on the upcoming candidate forum, in partnership with the school district and the League of Women Voters, scheduled for May 14th at 7pm at Saratoga Springs High School. I invite you and your readers to join us.
For more information about my background in education, my public service, and my commitment to our community, please visit my campaign website at connieforschoolboard.com.
Running as an independent, I advocate for board stability and endorse the re-election of my fellow members, John Ellis and Amanda Ellithorpe. School board experience is crucial during these times of challenges, including declining enrollments and variable state budgets.
Thank you for your continued support. I look forward to achieving more for our children and encourage you to vote for incumbents Connie, John, and Amanda on May 21st.
Another lively broadcast from Dan DeFedericis, Robin Dalton, and Adam Israel. They cover “politicians behaving badly” from the April 16, 2024, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting and an extremely informative interview with a consultant who specializes in short term rental issues.
Wendy Liberatore and the Times Union have once again done a disservice to the public by this time publishing inaccurate information surrounding the removal from the Council chamber and arrest of a woman at the April 2, 2024, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting.
In an article in the April 4, 2024 edition of the Times Union Liberatore claimed that Mayor John Safford “could not keep the atmosphere calm” and erroneously reported that he asked the police to remove a woman who was being disruptive. This is not an accurate description of what occurred.
Arrest at Council Meeting Highlights Changes to Public Comment Protocol
In a way the April 2, 2024, City Council meeting was “deja vu all over again” as Yogi Berra once said. A 54-year-old white woman, who had previously participated with Saratoga Black Lives Matter in the disruption of Council meetings and been arrested, interrupted the public hearing on Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub’s paid parking proposal. Once again she grabbed the microphone and wouldn’t give it up, and among other things screamed at the Mayor to “shut up”. In the incident she was involved in under the previous administration, the meeting descended into chaos with additional arrests. Here’s how this recent incident was dealt with.
While as Mayor Safford told Wendy “you can’t legislate civility” you can put in place procedures that are designed to de-escalate a toxic situation should it arise. In this case, the procedures Safford and the Council have put in place allowed the person to calmly be removed and the meeting to continue without descending into chaos, more shouting, and dysfunction as has been the case in the past.
Arresting People Who Disrupt Meetings: It’s Complicated
Our city has struggled with the challenge of maintaining order in dealing with members of Black Lives Matter who have repeatedly disrupted City Council meetings for years now. Many have wondered why most persons arrested in the past for disruptive behavior at Council meetings have had their charges dismissed. To some extent, this can be attributed to the mishandling of these events by previous Council members.
The key here is distinguishing the roles of the Mayor who chairs the meeting and the police. If a person behaves in a manner that violates the policies established by the Council, the Mayor has the authority to rule the individual out of order. This behavior could include, for example, a person refusing to relinquish the microphone when their time limit for speaking has lapsed or an individual in the audience yelling or otherwise hampering the deliberations of the Council.
But neither the Mayor nor the Commissioner of Public Safety is a sworn law enforcement officer and thus they cannot decide who or when a person can be arrested. Allowing politicians to have people arrested is a slippery slope that would be subject to abuse. The decision as to whether any of this behavior rises to the level of disorderly conduct is now in the hands of the sergeant of arms (a police officer assigned to City Council meetings). The police officer has the authority to attempt to remove the person from the meeting by requesting them to leave. If the person refuses the police officer’s order, at the discretion of the officer, the person may be charged with disorderly conduct and forcibly removed.
This is what happened at the April 2, 2024 meeting. The person refused to give up the microphone and the Mayor first ruled her out of order and then requested that she leave. Only when she continued to yell into the microphone did the sergeant at arms approach her and ask her to leave. When she refused, he arrested her. Another habitual BLM disrupter who calls herself Diogenes hovered around the police officer but did not interfere with the arrest. The video documents the incident. I would add that the officer involved showed great restraint and empathy in his attempt to deal with the woman who was clearly disturbed.
So it is important to note that Safford did not ask the police to remove the disruptive speaker as Wendy reported. This was a decision made independently by law enforcement. Safford calmly tries to reason with the woman and then tells her repeatedly that she needs to leave, but it is the police officer who uses his professional judgment on when to move forward and how to proceed with the removal of the disruptive person, not a politician.
Mayor John Safford has worked closely with Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll to reassess the role of the Council and the police in maintaining order and to establish standards that are fair to both the Council and members of the public attending Council meetings. A new set of procedures for dealing with disruptive members of the audience were presented and adopted by the Council and these were the rules that were in play at the April 2 meeting.
It is impossible to prohibit members of the public who may become disruptive from attending meetings, but I have witnessed way too many Council meetings shut down or dragging on till almost midnight because members of the public have been allowed to remain out of control. While disruptions cannot be avoided, in my opinion, these new procedures have been thoughtfully planned and were effectively executed. The meeting continued, other members of the public were able to speak during three public hearings that were scheduled plus a public comment period, the city’s business was conducted, and the Council adjourned by 9:30.
Commissioner Sanghvi’s Odd Memory Loss
According to FOILed documents I received, Commissioner Coll submitted a draft of rules for public comment written by Mayor Safford to the New York State Committee on Open Government (COOG) for review before the Council voted to adopt the document. The January 2, 2024, response by COOG is at the bottom of this post.
Oddly, though, Liberatore includes this remark from Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi who seems to have been unaware of or to have forgotten conversations the Council members were involved in and the memos that were circulated before the adoption of these rules.
Sanghvi said she has proposed to the mayor that the city reach out to the state Committee on Open Government and other advocates to come up with a plan for meetings.
Times Union
Sanghvi received Coll’s memo with the COOG review of the proposed plan for handling public comment at Council meetings. The Mayor submitted the proposed rules to the Council for adoption and the Council vigorously debated them. Commissioner Sanghvi was the sole vote against the adoption of the rules objecting to any kind of limit on public comments.
Notwithstanding Commissioner Sanghvi’s remarks to the Times Union, the COOG was clearly consulted and she had been provided with their assessment of the rules before she voted.
These are the proposed procedures with commentary on right by COOG
With a little sleuthing, I am happy to report that I can now explain to them exactly how this happened. Documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) clearly show Deputy Accounts Commissioner Stacy Connors’ reply to a request from the Finance Department to submit a budget transfer for $1,128.15 to cover the rest of what Connors had collected for On-Call pay for 2023. Connors’ reply email asks not for the amount requested from Finance to be transferred but for a different amount, $6520, that could cover On Call pay to her for all of 2024.
Request From Finance Department For Transfer of $1,128.15 To Cover On-Call Shortfall From 2023
Accounts Responds WithBudget Transfer Request From Stacy Connors for $6,520.00.
Improper Request
These emails document an apparent attempt to budget On-Call pay for a full year covering every week in 2024, totaling $6,520.00 for Stacy Connors, in spite of a legal opinion by the City Attorneys that the legislation establishing on-Call pay was not intended to compensate Deputies for performing their regular responsibilities, such as attending City Council meetings, an activity that Connors was given extra on-Call pay for in 2023.
Readers should understand that the Finance Commissioner plays a crucial role in the system of checks and balances in the commission form of government. It is the responsibility of the Department of Finance to not only maintain the city’s financial records but to scrutinize all expenditures to make sure they are appropriate. Sanghvi needs to explain how and why she and those who work in the Finance Department let Connor’s request for a year of On-call pay get on Sanghvi’s agenda. If this change was “missed” what else is Sanghvi and the department she oversees “missing”?
Saratoga Springs Politics 