As the readers of this blog will know, Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi were cited by the city’s Ethics Board for violating the city’s ethics code. Their respective campaign Facebook pages were linked to the city’s website. This is a violation of the federal Hatch Act and of the city’s ethics code.
You would think this would have sensitized them to the issue of mixing their campaign promotions with their roles as Council members.
You would be wrong.
A post from Sanghvi’s campaign Facebook page again appeared on the city website after this Ethics Board ruling. Instead of taking responsibility for this error, Sanghvi blamed a new employee in her office. She never explained or apologized for the previous postings.
Now Sanghvi has once more breached the wall that should exist between an officeholder’s role as an elected official and their campaigns for office. At the June 6 City Council meeting, Sanghvi live-streamed young people singing a song from their upcoming “The Sound of Music” production to her campaign page using her phone at the Council table.
While many will appropriately consider this a mild lapse, it speaks to the cavalier attitude that Commissioner Sanghvi has repeatedly demonstrated toward her work as Commissioner.
Some of us want our elected officials to be scrupulous in their duties while in office.
Commissioner Sanghvi never acknowledged her original violation of the city’s ethics code, so unsurprisingly, she continues to be oblivious to its importance.
In recent Saratoga Springs City Council meetings Saratoga residents have begun to raise concerns about the public’s ability to speak during the public comment period given the monopolization of the floor and disruptions of meetings by local Black Lives Matters activists.
In this post, I am presenting two brief videos from June City Council meetings.
The first is from the public comment period at the June 6 Saratoga Springs City Council meeting. A gentleman who identified himself as Jeff Gresavage expresses his support for the national mission of Black Lives Matter but expresses reservations regarding the tactics of the local group. He is shouted down by the local BLM activists.
The second video is from the June 20 meeting. Mary Beth Delarm addresses the City Council regarding their failure to maintain civil order at their meetings and expresses her concern regarding the undermining of democracy when citizens are discouraged from addressing their elected officials.
I spoke with Sonny Bonacio about his wife, Julie, and his involvement in establishing the recently opened low-barrier homeless shelter in Saratoga Springs on Adelphi Street.
Sonny told me:
“The encampment of homeless people at the city’s garage just seemed to be going from bad to worse. Everybody was talking about the problem of homelessness and the situation in the garage but nothing concrete seemed to be being done about it. Julie and I decided, ok let’s make something happen.”
Sonny told me he called on Meg Kelly, who works for him, to lead a team to actually do what needed to be done.
For the new shelter to happen, the hard and unromantic work that would bring it into existence needed to be done. There is no way to minimize the scale of the task they faced.
In addition to the $168,000.00 rent for the facility for two years provided by Sonny and Julie, the building required major work. It needed a hot water system to serve thirty individuals, air conditioning, a washer/dryer, fencing, an office, security cameras, furniture, etc. Most of this was paid for by Sonny and Julie.
Establishing the shelter meant:
Finding a location
Negotiating with the owner of the property that would be utilized.
Finding the money to pay the rent.
Determining what had to be done to retrofit the building to make it usable.
Finding the resources to pay for that work.
Enlisting the people to clean and paint the facility (a variety of RISE staff, Bonaccio people, and volunteers)
Finding the beds, tables, couches, etc. to make it attractive and habitable. (Steve Sullivan, the owner of the Olde Bryan Inn Restaurant, donated most of the furniture.)
All this came together with the opening of the new shelter on June 12.
This was what it looked like inside before:
And now after:
Humility and Acknowledgement of the Work of Others: A Rarity
So all the city needed to do to complete the establishment of this shelter project was to designate an entity to operate the facility and fund it.
Mayor Kim’s first response was classic. He crafted a resolution that violated New York State statutes for the award of contracts. The resolution committed the city to an indeterminant amount of public money to fund the project and arbitrarily named RISE the manager.
First of all, the award of work must be competitive. It required a request for proposals (RFP) to be executed before any award. This is not an autocracy. The Mayor does not have the authority to simply award work to a private entity no matter how laudable.
Second, the amount to be spent must be made clear and based on some publicly established standards.
It would be most interesting to learn how a resolution this inept evolved. Did Mayor Kim draft this himself? Did his Deputy, Angella Rella, draft this? What role, if any, did our two City Attorneys play in its drafting?
Here is the original flawed resolution:
Here is the video of Kim postponing a vote on his resolution until a special meeting;
In the end, the Bonacios, Meg Kelly, and the folks at Rise handed the city a carefully wrapped package that required almost no work, but even then, Kim and his Council could not proceed without badly stumbling.
If we had real transparency and public accountability, we might discover how this fiasco came about. We don’t have real transparency, and we will never know.
How Much Credit Does Kim Deserve For This Shelter?
To be fair, at one meeting, Kim acknowledged the “contributions” of the Bonacio/RISE team.
Having said that, Mayor Kim is in full campaign mode. He has sent out a slew of expensive mailers in which he credits himself for the new shelter, and he has appeared on television and in newsprint crediting himself for the shelter.
The reality is that he did no more for the shelter than vote along with his four colleagues to fund it. This is not to dismiss the importance of that vote but to credit himself with the shelter is truly a bridge too far.
It is important to cut through the spin to understand how the new shelter came about and how shameless and cynical it is for Mayor Kim to portray to the public that he played a key role in making this happen.
It was Sonny and Julie Bonacio, along with Meg Kelly and Sybil Newell (executive director of RISE) and Lindsey Connors (associate executive director of RISE), who did the heavy lifting to make the shelter a reality.
This team handed the City Council a carefully designed facility that only required the Council to fund its operation and they couldn’t even do that correctly.
Mayor Kim did nothing more than his four colleagues when he voted with them to fund the project based not on any analysis done by Kim’s extensive planning department but on a proposal crafted by the Bonacio/Kelly/Newell/Connors team.
This flagrant exploitative claim by Kim offers some cautionary tale regarding most of Kim’s other claims of what he has achieved in office.
The Appointment Of Committees Is Not The Same As Solving Problems
As important as opening this new shelter is it needs to be remembered that this is designed to be only a temporary solution to the city’s homeless problem while the city works to develop a permanent answer. Ron Kim has assigned that task to a Homeless Task Force he has created that is scheduled to present their plan early this summer.
As a long-time observer of politics in general and politics in Saratoga Springs in particular, I have observed how politicians routinely create committees to create the appearance that they are doing something.
The appointments to these committees are usually people with some interest in the issue who are flattered by the acknowledgment of their selection. These committees rarely, if ever, have the focus and management orientation required to actually get anything done.
The record of these committees is abominable, but politicians keep creating them.
Mayor Kim generates these committees constantly, and they have not produced anything that would constitute an achievement so far. I am hoping that Tom Roohan, as head of the Homeless Task Force, will prove the exception and find a place for a permanent shelter. Tom has what it takes, but he will have to overcome the inertia of the far too large committee Mayor Kim has saddled him with.
A Historical Note
This is not the first time Meg Kelly has stepped up to aid the homeless population in Saratoga Springs. During her tenure as mayor, Meg Kelly walked the walk.
During the COVID crisis, there was grave concern about the potential threat of the homeless not only infecting themselves but spreading it to others in the community.
The Saratoga County Board of Supervisors was reticent to provide temporary shelter for the homeless to contain the problem.
As the bottom had fallen out of the lodging industry, Kelly negotiated a deal to have the Holliday Inn take the homeless in. As the county initially declined to cover the cost, Kelly convinced the City Council to front the cost. She subsequently successfully involved Scott Earl of Twin Bridges Trash Removal who replenished the $60,000.00 in rent the city had laid out.
As a result, not one of those she helped house contracted the disease.
Mayor Kelly then worked with RISE Housing and Support Services and city court Judge Francine Vero to establish a community outreach court. The success rate was stunning. RISE found housing for 83% of those referred to the court.
Regrettably, with the election of the new administration in 2021, Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino effectively stopped having his officers issue tickets to the homeless which would bring them to Vero’s court, and this excellent program collapsed.
This breakdown helped usher in the “conversion” of our city parking lots into “residences,” concentrating twenty to thirty homeless squatting there.
It has been frustrating to me that Meg Kelly has not received the acknowledgment she richly deserves in her work to aid the homeless.
Commissioner Sanghvi Ghosts The Blogger
The city has committed itself to spending $239,385.00 to pay for the operation of the homeless shelter for the balance of this year. The city also has indicated its plan to provide over four hundred thousand dollars for 2024.
On April 25, 2023, I wrote to Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi asking her what her expectations are of maintaining that kind of support in the future.
“Do you see being able to maintain the funding for the RISE program indefinitely? If so, how do you expect to pay for future contracts beyond next year?”
Mayor Kim announced on the city’s website that he would be changing the organization of the City Council meetings. The spin he offers is that this will improve the opportunity for public input. In fact, its real purpose appears to be to accommodate Black Lives Matter’s disruption of Council business at the expense of inconveniencing the public and doing the city’s business in a timely and transparent manner.
For a start, City Council meetings will now begin at 6PM instead of 7PM, making it more challenging for citizens who work to attend.
Council meetings have always begun with a public comment period, but BLM now regularly uses that time to act out and disrupt Council meetings to the point where the Council has twice had to abruptly adjourn without doing the city’s business.
Kim has now moved the public comment period to occur later in the agenda. The consent agenda will now be the first order of business. Without the approval of the consent agenda, the city would be unable to pay its bills, including employees’ salaries. In recent meetings, the Council has had to huddle together and hastily pass the consent agenda before adjourning in the face of BLM protests that have broken out during the public comment period.
Kim seems to also, for some reason, to have prioritized the County Supervisors’ agendas and any recognitions he wants to schedule, such as the performance by the Sound of Music cast that went on at the June 6 meeting. These are also now scheduled to occur before the public comment period. Of lesser importance seems to be doing the actual business of the city that is scheduled to (maybe) take place after the public comment period depending on whether BLM decides to let the meeting continue or not.
The original announcement was (note the typos):
The actual agenda that was published for the June 6, 2023, meeting was even sloppier.
So in one location of the agenda, the Supervisors are supposed to be at the beginning of the meeting, but as readers can see, the agenda also has them speaking at the end of the meeting.
Do We Really Need To Do This?
One might ask, why are we the only city in the capital district that is subject to the complete disruption of our meetings? Albany legislature? No. Troy legislature? No. Schenectady? No.
This new format appears to assure this community that Mayor Kim regularly expects to adjourn Council meetings due to BLM shutting it down and that he doesn’t plan to do anything about these disruptions.
Reference is made to your June 8 entry titled Commissioner Montagnino: More Bad Ideas, in which you opine about the commissioner’s comments on the Guidelines for Police Officer Psychological Exams and their application to Saratoga police officer and firefighter candidates.
It appears that your entry was prompted by a May 31 story in the Albany Times Union headlined
“Montagnino says city considering overriding psychological tests for police, firefighters” and a linked editorial published in the June 5 edition of the same newspaper.
The comments attributed to the commissioner of public safety, the initial TU story, and its subsequent editorial seem shot through with substantive errors and misinformed judgments. The June 5 editorial, titled A blown judgment call: Police recruits should be able to pass a psychological evaluation, is predicated on a false premise, and produces a false conclusion.
The referenced May 31 story begins thus:
“After experiencing ‘a remarkable spate of psych eval failures,’ the city’s public safety commissioner wants to be able to override the psychological exams that recruits to the police and fire department are now required to pass.
“Commissioner Jim Montagnino said psychologists are determining who he can hire and that several provisional hires have been cast aside because they passed all the benchmarks but failed the psychological exam determining mental fitness for the stressful job.
“ ‘We sat down and reviewed what the law said,’ Montagnino said. Applying that strictly gives a psychologist veto power over that appointment. The law seems to suggest that there is some discretion involved.’ ”
“Montagnino said he would like the psychological exam to be just a consideration, not a determining factor.
The factual errors in the story – which we will get to shortly – were then carried forward, further misrepresenting the statutory and regulatory guidelines and misleading a credulous public. To be sure, the commissioner seems to have sown this brouhaha by his own intemperate statements.
Background
On April 19, 2021, the “New York State Professional Policing Act (PPA) of 2021” was signed into law effectuating revisions and updates to numerous statutes in relation to the policing profession. Among several statutory changes, the PPA included amendments to Executive Law directing the Municipal Police Training Council (MPTC) to establish psychological minimum hiring standards for all new police officers.
As a result, changes to the State codes, rules, and regulations put in place new requirements for police employers related to psychological standards.
Pursuant to these new regulations, a psychological assessment is required as a screening tool in determining if a candidate can perform the essential functions of a police officer. The assessment will provide agencies with additional information for determining selection or non-selection of police officer candidates.
To help local governments, police agencies and appointing authorities understand and administer these new requirements the State Municipal Police Training Council prepared Guidelines for Police Officer Psychological Exams. Pertinent sections of those Guidelines are referenced below. I have presented verbatim and highlighted in bold those parts that address how.
Intention
“The Guidelines for Police Officer Psychological Exams is intended to allow for the individual needs of each of the police departments in New York State regardless of size or resource limitations. Law Enforcement are encouraged to customize these protocols to meet their regional needs, while being mindful of the intent of the guidelines and regulatory requirements for conducting police officer psychological exams. As with all best practices guidelines adopted by the Municipal Police Training Council (MPTC), these guidelines are non-binding upon agencies, outside of any statutory or regulatory requirements, within New York State. The guidelines are meant to serve as a guide to be used when conducting police officer psychological exams.”
Purpose
“The following guidelines are designed to serve as a resource regarding the considerations involved with psychological screening of police officer candidates appointed full-time or part-time and in competitive or non-competitive class positions…”
Psychological Assessment Procedure
“Psychological assessments will be used as a component of the overall hiring process for police officer candidates in conjunction with other regulatory requirements such as medical screening, background investigations, physical fitness testing, or other methods.”
Interestingly, the Guidelines devote several pages not on how to access the psychological health of perspective police officers, but rather the competency, experience, training and expertise of the psychologist or psychiatrist selected to administer and interpret the examination.
For example, to determine if the examiner has a true understanding of the duties of a police officer, the Guidelines suggest that the appointing authority consider using a psychologist or psychiatrist with:
Prior experience working as a police officer Knowledge of Police Officer Job Task Analysis reports Interviews of police officers Surveys of police officers “Ride-alongs” or job shadowing of police officers Board certification in police and public safety psychology awarded by the American Board of Professional Psychology Familiarity with police psychology literature regarding pre-employment assessments and interviews of police officer candidates, and Board certification in police and public safety psychology awarded by the American Board of Professional Psychology.
Neither the commissioner nor the Times Union tell us if those administering these tests are so credentialed. Nor do they tell us if a pass/fail test is used. Since the commissioner uses “failure” in his remarks we must assume so.
But the Guidelines make abundantly clear:
“That if specific cut-off scores are used, there needs to be clear statistical evidence that the scores are valid and have been cross-validated in research studies by the test developer or the agency where the test will be used. The specific cut-off scores and the rationale for using the specific cut-off scores shall be documented.”
And are the tests used specifically validated for police officer candidates?
In the final analysis the statute and the Guidelines vest significant discretion with the appointing officer. We do not know how the Guidelines have been used by the City but there is something flawed with a methodology, testing instrument and interview process that according to the commissioner has produced ’a remarkable spate of psych eval failures.’
Finally, the law and the Guidelines vest the final authority with the appointing officer:
“The appointing authority (i.e., police agency), after careful consideration of the available facts, makes a determination whether or not to select the candidate for employment,”
and,
“Based upon the recommendations of the qualified psychologist or psychiatrist, the local police agency wishing to employ the candidate shall render the final decision …”
We are told that after these recent spate of failures a review of the statute was conducted. The time to review and fully understand the entire process, including its limitations, was before implementing the mandates of the 2021 law and its 2022 Guidelines. Perhaps it was, but we do not know.
Here in Saratoga Springs, psychological testing of police officer candidates was initiated over 30 years ago. This is not to suggest that such testing was as rigorous as now but it does suggest that the city recognized the benefit of such examination in making hiring decisions and was ahead of its time.
Now, however, it would seem a review of the current city protocol is in order.
I wasn’t going to write about the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee and Ron Kim’s complaint to the NYS Board of Elections alleging attacks on Kim, including a petition calling for his resignation on social media, violate state election laws, but this editorial taking them to task is better than anything I could have written.
In a campaign mailer and a statement during the June 12 League of Women Voters candidates forum, Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim has presented himself as the champion of transparency in government. In both instances, he bizarrely gives as evidence his involvement in what he falsely describes as the unauthorized use of residents’ email addresses by individuals in the prior administration.
A Little History
Mayor Kim has an unfortunate history of embracing baseless allegations unsupported by fact and law. He obstinately holds to these despite copious evidence of their groundlessness. One only has to recall the city attorney fiascoes that marked his very first days in office. He obstinately and falsely claimed he could appoint a city attorney who lived outside the city. When that failed, he was reprimanded by both city court judges for trying to represent the city himself in city court.
Nowhere was Kim’s untethered relationship with facts better demonstrated, though, than in his crusade to “protect” these emails he refers to. His battle over the email addresses goes back to May of 2022. This makes it all the more bizarre that now, more than a year later, he has highlighted these events in his campaign mailer and mayoral debate.
Here is his mailer.
For those wondering what Kim is talking about, I offer a post from last year with all the details of this loopy business.
POST SCRIPT: As of June 14, 2023, there is no record of any “authority” being notified by Kim or any authority finding wrongdoing.
The Blog Post: Mayor Kim Hypes Faux Email Scandal–May 18,2022
Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim issued a press release alleging wrongdoing regarding the management of the email addresses maintained by the city’s Recreation Department. The story was picked up by multiple media outlets, including WNYT, the Daily Gazette, the Times Union, and the Foothills Business Review.
What is woefully missing from the Mayor’s release is supporting evidence of the possible wrongdoing he only hints at. Yet again, he demonstrates his ignorance of New York State law.
I am from the old school. Before I would go to the media with allegations that damage someone’s reputation, I would need to have gathered clear and compelling evidence that supported my claims. Mayor Kim did not do this.
Mayor Kim’s Poorly Documented Allegations
Basically, this whole fiasco began with a press release from Mayor Kim alleging that some persons, who the Mayor declined to identify, had alleged they had received emails from an unknown source (not identified). These alleged complainants (we do not know how many) claimed that the only way the unknown source could have gotten their email address was from the Saratoga Springs City Rec Center’s email list.
Subsequently, the person first identified in the media as making such a complaint was Gordon Boyd. Foothills Business Review (FBR) reported that Boyd made the allegations at a City Council meeting during public comment. Gordon Boyd played a leadership role in Ron Kim’s campaign last November. As the wags say, “he has a dog in this race.”
The fact that some persons claim that their email address was secure and that the only time they ever used it other than with family members was as a contact for the Recreation Department has to be viewed with some skepticism. It may indeed be true, but nothing has been offered to establish it as fact.
I have been a computer consultant for several decades. I would be a rich man if I were paid for all the times users claimed that they could not have done something like share an email address when later investigation proved this false.
Nevertheless, for the purpose of this post, let’s assume what they say is true. The next question is who used this email list and for what purpose(s). Here again, Mayor Kim’s statements are full of contradictory and vague assumptions, and he colors his statements to add to the atmosphere of illegal clandestine shenanigans.
His press release asserts that there is evidence that a Rec Department email list was sent to “several employees outside the Recreation Department.” Yet, he told the Gazette that “he is not making the connection between the release of the Recreation Department database and the unsolicited emails.” In fact, he stated, “We don’t know who is using the email addresses and what they are using them for.”
This doesn’t stop him from then telling the Times Union that “he is learning the email addresses have likely [JK: my emphasis] been used for political purposes.”
At one point, he suggests in a TU article that Moving Saratoga Forward is using the Rec Department list. He tells the TU he is hearing from people who are getting unsolicited emails from Moving Saratoga Forward and that they are telling him that “the only way [their email address] could have gotten into the hands of MSF was through the Rec Department.” After putting that out there, he tells FBR that he has no evidence to make that connection (FBR 5/17/22).
Likewise, he disingenuously suggests to the TU, again without offering any evidence, that the Rec Department email was used “first in 2020 to oppose a city charter change referendum and more recently to push school board candidates.” This contradicts his earlier statement to the Daily Gazette that he doesn’t know what it was used for.
Mayor Kim Slimes Mayor Kelly
While Kim attempts to use this email issue to achieve a number of his political goals–discrediting the integrity of the previous officeholders for instance–he seems particularly focused on attacking his predecessor, Meg Kelly.
According to his statement, multiple people accessed the Rec Department address file. He told the Gazette:
“Commissioner [Minita] Sanghvi’s department reviewed digital records and did in fact discover that on or about October 21, 2020, the Recreation Department email list was sent to several employees outside the Recreation Department, who would not normally have access to this information,” Kim said in a statement. “In addition, there is also digital evidence that the email spreadsheet was directly sent to former Mayor Meg Kelly’s Gmail account. It may also have been released by other elected officials, and we are continuing to investigate that possibility.” Daily Gazette May 16, 2022
So of all the people –we still don’t know how many–who received this email list, why do Kim and the TU focus on Kelly?
Here’s the headline of the TU article “Saratoga Springs Investigating If Former Mayor Accessed Resident’s Emails.”
In fact, Kim and the TU know the name of at least one other elected official who received the email list–Michele Madigan. And if Sanghvi’s supposed forensic search of the city server was properly carried out, Kim knows the names of the other “several employees” he alludes to.
So in the tradition of most good detective stories, there are multiple suspects, but this did not keep Mayor Kim from gratuitously naming only the past mayor.
Mayor Kelly told me she did not provide the email list to anyone outside of city hall. Even if she did, as I will point out below, it was within her authority to do so.
Mayor Kim, Apologize to Mayor Kelly
A person of character would feel chagrinned over having impugned the character of someone on such a dubious basis. They would have acknowledged to themselves that they took liberties with the facts that impugned the character of someone without having properly established the basis of such accusations.
Mayor Kim, you could redeem yourself and recover your reputation for fairness and accuracy by apologizing to Meg Kelly.
Mayor Kim Fails To Carry Out Due Diligence
Mayor Kim has added to the drama by stating that he is “turning this information over to the proper legal authorities to determine if there were any criminal violations.”
At the same time, Kim, a lawyer, admits to the TU that “he is still trying to determine if the breach is illegal.” And he told FBR that “It is unclear at this point whether any laws or even government regulations, were broken in the release of the email.”
In the May 20, 2022, edition of the Times Union, Mayor Kim stated that the mailing list was not accessible under the state’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). In effect, he is alleging that the information is privileged, which would make its release to the public improper. He didn’t offer a legal citation for this claim. This feels unpleasantly like his steadfast pronouncements that the City Attorney was not a public officer, which turned out to be false.
Whether out of malice or slothfulness, Mayor Kim does not appear to feel the need to do the required research before issuing such statements. This recklessness makes for greater drama, more news coverage, and dubious ethics.
As it turns out, he is wrong about the law. According to the New York State Committee on Open Government, the court ruling in Livson v. Town of Greenburgh established that mailing lists such as the one maintained by the Recreation Department are public documents available to citizens. It confirmed that, notwithstanding Mayor Kim’s claim, the Rec Department’s mailing list is accessible under FOIL.
NYS Committee on Open Government’s FOIL AO 19703 from January of 2019, “In Livson v. Town of Greenburgh [141 AD3d 658 (2016)], it was held that a list of email addresses of residents used to inform them of events occurring in the Town is public. In short, it could not be demonstrated that disclosure of an email address would rise to the level of an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Many individuals, purposefully or otherwise, share their email addresses as a matter of course.”
I have FOILed for the email list. I have also emailed Mayor Kim asking about the legal basis of his claim. I do not expect an answer, but he deserves the right to defend himself, and I would publish his response.
Kim colors his statements to add to the atmosphere of lawbreaking and clandestine shenanigans by alluding to unknown organizations whom he plans to refer the matter to.
The city is in the process of turning over its information to the proper legal authorities to determine if there were any criminal violations, said Kim.Daily Gazette May 16, 2022
Kim said the city is now investigating if any laws were violated and, if so, who would investigate the violation.Times Union May 17, 2022
I will be interested to see if we hear from Mayor Kim should an investigation determine no criminal violations.
I misnamed the employee who is bringing suit against the city. I named Kelly Magnuson as the complainant. In fact, the name of the employee suing Moran and the city is Carrie Schermerhorn. Her lawyer is Kelly Magnuson.
The June 5, 2023, edition of the Times Union reported that an employee fired by Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran has filed a notice that she is suing Moran and the city. This is not the only case of an employee bringing an action against Moran.
Carrie Schermerhorn, the fired employee, had been the Assistant Assessor in Moran’s office. She alleges that she was fired after she refused to perform duties she claimed were illegal. She claims that Moran hired a firm,GAR, to perform work for the city that involved ethical conflicts at “greatly inflated rates.” She also alleges that he ordered her “to grant tax privileges for his friends.”
Usually, in cases like this involving personnel issues and litigation, elected officials decline to comment. Not so with Commissioner Moran. After telling the TU he denies Magnuson’s charges, asserting that they are “100% false,” he goes on to publicly attack her in the harshest terms.
“She has absolutely no standing on anything,” Moran said. “She is trying to grind an ax because she lost her job. This woman was horrible at her job. … Anybody can file a lawsuit.”
TU
CSEA, the union representing many employees at City Hall, has filed a grievance asserting that the hiring of GAR by the Accounts Department was for work that would normally have been assigned to city staff. This violated the union agreement.
The Ribis Case
Another employee of the Accounts Department, Lisa Ribis, has also filed a grievance against Commissioner Moran. Ms. Ribis serves as the Secretary for the City Council. In this capacity, she takes the minutes at Council meetings. As the readers of this blog know, the Council meetings are often marathon events these days under the current Mayor, lasting late into the evening.
Ms. Ribis has always received compensation for this work. For some reason, Moran and his Deputy, Stacy Connors, decided they would no longer remunerate her for this work. As Ms. Ribis’ husband has been a vocal critic at recent Council meetings, there is some conjecture that this might have contributed to denying her compensation.
The New York State Employees Relations Board ruled against Moran and Connors, asserting they must allow Ribis compensatory time for her evenings recording city meetings.
Moran told the Times Union that the conflict with Ribis predated him. Ms. Ribis told the TU that this was false and that she did not file her claim until 2022.
Given Moran’s angry outbursts at Council meetings, one can only imagine what it is like to work for him.
Where Is The Human Resources Department? (HR)
One has to wonder what role, if any, HR has had in all of this. Unfortunately, HR reports to Mayor Kim. In a better world, the Council would insist that HR come before them to get their assessment of the environment in City Hall and what can be done to address it. In their defense, HR is in a vulnerable and untenable situation, as reflected in the recently revealed emails and videos of Mayor Kim. Worse, there is no one on the Council willing to be an advocate for our city employees.
Saratoga Springs Politics 