Month: July 2023

Saratoga Black Lives Matter has alleged that the Saratoga Springs Police Department has been responsible for frequent abuse of and violence against people of color in this city. One of their frequent chants in street demonstrations downtown has been, “How do you spell murderers? SSPD!”

According to BLM, the Darryl Mount Case is the most egregious example of misconduct by the SSPD. In this post, I offer a brief update on that case, but I have also taken a deep dive into two other cases often cited by BLM as evidence of police abuse to try to assess the validity of their claims. What follows is documentation I obtained through the Freedom of Information Law pertaining to two cases that occurred in the city in the last couple of years:

1. The stopping for questioning by the police of a black military personnel after a late-night break-in on Broadway.
2. The stopping and questioning by the police of BLM activist Alexis Brown and her boyfriend following a BLM demonstration.

The Darryl Mount Case

The Mount family has sued the city, claiming that the police killed their son, Darryl Mount. This case is finally to be tried this fall, and an independent jury will hear the evidence and decide whether the city has any culpability in the matter.

While for the last two years, the New York State Attorney General’s Office has been conducting a review of interactions between the SSPD and BLM, particularly related to a demonstration in July of 2021, none of the police officers who were involved in the Mount incident have been subpoenaed.

The local media have reported that BLM leader Lexis Figuereo has met on several occasions with the Attorney General’s office. According to Figuereo, the AG has been updating him on the progress of her investigation into the interaction of police with BLM protesters. He has never brought up, however, the failure of the AG’s office to investigate the Darryl Mount case.

Figuereo has repeated many times that the police “murdered” Darryl Mount and that he wants Justice for Darryl Mount. One would have expected Figuereo to be outraged at the apparent unwillingness of the AG to pursue an investigation into Mount’s death. It is interesting that rather than publicly criticizing the AG for her inaction or organizing protests to try to pressure her to investigate the Mount case, Figuereo is silent.

The Case of Michael Vaughn

Michael Vaughn was an active-duty army captain visiting family in Saratoga Springs when he was stopped by the police following a late-night home invasion incident on Broadway in 2022. He submitted a complaint about being stopped.

The call to 911

On May 6, 2022, just before midnight, the police received a 911 call from a woman living on Broadway that a man had attempted to enter her apartment through a window. Here is the recording of that call (it has been slightly edited to protect the identity of the victim).

According to police records, the call was received at 11:57 PM. As the shift change for the police is midnight, the four-to-twelve shift was returning to the police station when they were directed to deploy in the downtown area looking for the suspect.

As indicated in the call, the victim gave sometimes contradictory descriptions of the intruder, which is not unusual for first-hand accounts.

The police encountered Captain Vaughn on Maple Avenue just after midnight. Captain Vaughn met some of the characteristics described by the caller.

The Body Cams

The following are two body cams from the officers responding to and questioning Captain Vaughn. A plainclothes detective, who is not required to wear a body cam, had already engaged Captain Vaughn 20 seconds before the officers wearing body cam arrived. Captain Vaughn is questioned for about 5 minutes.

Captain Vaughn submitted a complaint to the police department about the incident. Lt. Laura Emanation was tasked with reviewing his complaint. Following is the audio file of her phone conversation with Captain Vaughn regarding her investigation of the incident. While it is 35 minutes long, I urge readers to listen to the entire recording where Captain Vaughn lays out his concerns, and Lt. Emanation responds by explaining the police procedures that were followed minute by minute. Among other things, she asks Captain Vaughn if he thought the police could have done anything differently that they didn’t do that night. He replies, “Catching the guy who did it before approaching me.”

Alexis Brown Stop

Following one of the BLM downtown demonstrations in 2021, the police stopped Ms. Brown and her boyfriend, who were returning home from the downtown action.

Ms. Brown’s friend had been reported to have placed a bag of some sort in their car, and the police were dispatched to check the bag.

Ms. Brown has repeatedly denounced the police for this stop. She described the experience as traumatic but did not file a complaint.

Body Cam Footage Of Brown Stop

Some Thoughts

As a person committed to social change, I believe that it is important to criticize and insist on change where government fails in its responsibilities, but it is just as important to praise and support those we see as performing in a manner we want to continue.

The central question is whether it is fair to associate the actions of our police with the excesses that we frequently see on national television occurring in other cities. Are the gratuitous acts of excessive force and belligerence against people of color graphically dramatized on the evening news regularly replicated here in Saratoga Springs?

This city is fortunate to have had many outstanding police officers who have performed in a way that we should admire and support. I would also add that some of our best people on the force have retired prematurely due to the abuse of authority by our current Public Safety Commissioner, James Montagnino. We should not confuse his unfortunate behavior with the men and women who serve under him.

In my opinion, the officers in these incidents showed professional restraint and courtesy in their interactions with the individuals they stopped. I leave it to the readers of this blog to assess for themselves whether these incidents support the BLM claims.

Both Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim and former Mayor Joanne Yepsen have a history of violating the city’s ethics code. Yepsen’s involvement in Kim’s nomination for Mayor by the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee is yet another chapter in that unfortunate history.

Some History

Both Ron Kim and Joanne Yepsen were cited by the city’s Ethics Board for their failure to adhere to the city’s ethics requirements. In the case of Joanne Yepsen, she was found to have solicited business from Saratoga Hospital while she was Mayor and while the hospital had business before her. In the case of Ron Kim, he inappropriately put links to his campaign website on the city’s website.

One would have hoped that these findings would have educated Kim and Yepsen regarding the need for greater care regarding ethics. Apparently, it had no effect.

What Don’t They Get About Conflicts of Interest?

According to Kim’s reporting to the New York State Board of Elections, he paid invoices to Joanne Yepsen’s firm, Yepsen and Pikulski, on September 13, 2022, November 7, 2022, March 11, 2023, and June 5, 2023. The total for this period was $6,600.00. Kim had previously paid Yepsen $5,531.44 during his campaign for Mayor in 2021. Yepsen and Pikulski’s website promotes them as offering “Public Affairs Services” which include “Mission Based Marketing, Fundraising, Government Relations, Media Strategy,” and something called “Issues Management.”

On February 7, 2023, as a member of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee’s nominating committee, Joanne Yepsen interviewed Kim and Chris Mathiesen who were both seeking the committee’s endorsement as candidates for Mayor of Saratoga Springs. The nominating committee recommended Ron Kim be endorsed by the full Committee which it went on to do.

It is also worth remembering that the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee refused to allow Democrats Chris Mathiesen, Tim Coll, and Michele Madigan to address the full committee before voting on the nominating committee’s endorsements. Only after a flurry of bad press and editorials did the Democratic Committee relent and agree to have Mathiesen and Madigan address them, but of course, by that time, all the incumbents had been endorsed as had been predetermined, and it was too late to have any impact.

Email to Otis Maxwell, Acting Chair of Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee

I wrote to Otis Maxwell, the current chair of the city Democratic Committee regarding this:

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Otis:

On September 13, 2022, November 7, 2022, March 11, 2023, and June 5, 2023, Ron Kim’s campaign paid invoices to Joanne Yepsen’s political consulting firm for a total of $6,600.00. On February 7, 2023, Ms. Yepsen, as a member of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee nominating committee,  was one of the people who interviewed Chris Mathiesen when he sought your Committee’s endorsement to run for Mayor.  Ron Kim, who used the services of Ms. Yepsen’s firm, was also seeking and subsequently obtained the Democratic Committee endorsement for Mayor.

On its face, this seems like an egregious conflict of interest both for Joanne Yepsen and Ron Kim.  As Yepsen was being paid to assist Kim’s campaign, she should have resigned from the nominating committee or recused herself from any involvement in the committee’s deliberations and recommendation of a mayoral candidate.

I ask the following questions:

1. Do you see the role played by Ms. Yepsen in the Democratic Committee’s nominating process as inappropriate?
2. If so, do you plan to bring this to the attention of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee to consider some action to address this?

Thank you.  I look forward to hearing from you.

JK

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He responded:

Thanks, John. The timing of the invoices suggests that Joanne Yepsen was working for Ron Kim in the past and during his current campaign, but not at the time the Nominations Subcommittee was doing its work this past winter. Still, I can see how this could look like a conflict of interest. The work of the Nominations Subcommittee is done for this election cycle, but we’ll keep an eye out for similar scenarios in the future. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Otis

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From everything I hear Otis Maxwell is a very decent person. It is a sign of the corrosive influence of Kim and others on the Democratic Committee that Maxwell would offer his tepid defense of Yepsen and Kim and decline to bring the issue before the full committee.

I have been working on a post regarding the recent primary between Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim and Democratic challenger Chris Mathiesen. My work has been hampered by the failure yet again of Ron Kim to comply with New York State’s campaign spending reporting requirements.

Under the New York State Board of Elections statute, the recent candidates in the June 28,2023, primaries were required to report their final contributions and expenditures by July 17, 2023.

While Chris Mathiesen filed as required. There was no report available for Mayor Ron Kim’s campaign organization.

In 2021, Kim failed to meet the November 29, 2021, deadline for filing. I wrote about this at the time. Kim told the Times Union that he had filed, but technical problems at the state board of elections were the reason it was not available. I contacted the NYSBOE, and they told me there were no problems with their website. They told me that if he had filed, the information would be on the site.

The following image is from the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee’s Facebook page.

Democrats Working Against Montagnino

This is from Ron Kim’s Facebook page promoting a different Public Safety Commissioner candidate, Kristen Dart:

Kristen Dart announced the launching of her campaign for Public Safety Commissioner on her campaign page, and both Democrats Dillon Moran (a Democratic Committee member ) and Minita Sanghvi “liked” it.

For months the Saratoga Springs City Council has stumbled from one poorly crafted resolution to the next in a so far failed attempt to adopt a document that would accept item #41 from the Police Reform Task Force Plan of 2021.

At their July 6, 2023, meeting the Council failed to pass a resolution for the third time.

A Brief Review Of The Failed Resolutions Histories

Item #41 of the Police Reform Task Force reads:

“Divert all seized proven drug profits from convicted drug charges to Community Based Restorative Groups for conflict resolution.Reinvention Plan: Toward a Community Centered Justice Initiative,

February, 2021 Police Task Force Recommendation #41

I have documented the torturous history of Task Force Recommendation #41 in previous posts (Link 1, Link 2),but here’s a brief review.

This item was problematic from the beginning. During the deliberations of the Police Task Force, then police Chief Shane Crooks tried unsuccessfully to explain to the Task Force that recommendation #41 as drafted would conflict with state and federal regulations on the use of forfeiture money. The task force ignored the chief’s concern without any effort to determine its validity.

In the previous administration’s deliberations on adopting the Police Reform Task Force’s recommendations in 2021, then City Attorney, Vince DeLeonardo, advised Meg Kelly and the Council of the problem with #41, and it was not adopted.

The local Black Lives Matter group pilloried Kelly and the then Council for this.

In May, Finance Commissioner Sanghvi placed a resolution on the City Council agenda that would basically adopt item #41 as written. Sanghvi was apparently ignorant of the legal problems with this when she added it to her agenda. She was subsequently advised of its conflict with existing federal and state statutes, and she withdrew it at the meeting.

Mayor Kim placed a resolution on the June 20 Council agenda to adopt item #41 only to withdraw it during the Council meeting after Tim Coll, candidate for Public Safety Commissioner, pointed out further legal problems with this version.

One More Try!

So at the July 6, 2023, Council meeting Kim offered yet another version of a resolution to adopt #41. This time the resolution dealt only with the federal forfeiture program and ignored the state program. There was no acknowledgment or explanation as to why the state program was no longer part of the resolution. This is probably because of the inconvenient truth that the state program does not allow for its money to be used outside of law enforcement.

This time there was an actual discussion of the resolution.

The discussion took up some twenty minutes as commissioners asked questions and raised concerns.

Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino told the Council that the forfeiture money available for local use was limited to $25,000.00. He asserted that the administrative reporting requirements to use the funds were onerous, and the cost of record keeping and reporting probably cost as much to comply with as the money the city could receive. Presumably, if the money was less than $25,000.00, the situation would be even worse.

I spoke to retired FBI agent Tim Coll, who is running this year for Commissioner of Public Safety. He told me that the original forfeiture program was plagued by abuse in using the money. This is what prompted the rigorous and extensive reporting that is now required.

The revelation of the cost of reporting led to the obvious question of how much federal money might be involved. Neither Montagnino, who oversees the use of the funds nor Sanghvi, who is supposed to manage the city’s finances, knew. I find it interesting that no one on the Council thought to ask this question and get an answer before they spent all this time and energy repeatedly having this on the agenda.

This kind of down-the-rabbit-hole discussion was documented in the video above, where each question only raised more questions.

In the end, Kim withdrew the resolution for the third time, and Montagnino agreed to provide Sanghvi and the Council the numbers by the middle of August.

Just Another Example Of The Breakdown In Governance Of This Council

So now there will supposedly be yet another resolution (the fourth) sometime in the future.

The discussion at the Council table revealed that for over two months and multiple resolutions, there has been little in the way of either legal research or any conversation between the Commissioners about it.

Readers should understand that this kind of serial failed resolution was pretty much unheard of in the past.

This is because, as I have documented in my previous blogs, past administrations would raise concerns at the public pre-agenda meetings held the day before the regular meetings. The deputies used to attend these meetings and, at times, other staff members if needed to give information about pending resolutions. Questions about resolutions would be raised and either addressed, or the item would be withdrawn then rather than at the regular meeting. This allowed issues to be addressed and resolved later rather than taking up time unnecessarily at Council meetings discussing a resolution that wasn’t going to go anywhere.

Pre-Agenda meetings with the current Council are now a ritual where there is rarely any discussion. Council members simply read the names of their resolutions rather than engage in substantive conversation. This failure by current Council members to prepare for Council meetings by communicating and doing their homework contributes to the marathon regular Council meetings we currently have.

Saratoga Springs City Attorney Michael Phillips presented data at the June 20 City Council meeting indicating the rate of Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests the city is receiving has doubled during the Kim administration. No one on the Council bothered to ask why.

The Facts And Nothing But The Facts?

Phillips repeatedly punctuated his presentation with the assurance that he was just laying out the facts and leaving it to others to “draw your own conclusions.” The problem is the Council was not interested in drawing any conclusions.

The facts Phillips presented comparing FOIL requests beginning with 2021 during the previous Meg Kelly administration with requests made during the Kim administration through June of this year (2023) are truly stunning.

	Requests	Appeals
2021 (Kelly Period)	333	4
2022 (Kim Period)	557	21
2023 Jan-June (Kim Period)	315	7

Phillips observed that based on the demand so far this year, he projects 630 requests for 2023. The yearly rate of FOIL requests has just about doubled since Kim took office.

A Meaningless List

In his presentation, Phillips displayed slides showing who asked for five or more FOIL requests each year. He dubbed these “frequent flyers.” Phillips’ attempt to be witty seemed to imply that those people and organizations with the most FOIL requests were somehow abusing the system.

Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi then asked that he read aloud the names on the lists adding to the feeling that this was an attempt to somehow shame those who dared exercise their legal right to ask for city documents.

Sanghvi also wanted to know whether the most frequent person requesting FOILs in 2022 was a city resident. This seemed like an odd question. According to Phillips list many if not most FOIL requests come from companies or individuals doing business in the city and the law firms representing them. Obviously many of theses requests would be coming from individuals who may not live in the city.

Blogger’s Name Included in Phillips’ Hall of Shame

Although this blogger’s name got mentioned in Phillips’ presentation, I was not among the top FOILers. This blogger’s name did not appear in the list for 2021 “frequent Flyers” and is well down on the list for 2022 and 2023 .

The requests that put me on the 2022 and 2023 lists have been the result of the unwillingness of the members of this Council to respond to pretty much all my inquiries, whether by email or even asking questions during the public comment period at Council meetings.

The previous Council members were available, whether by email or telephone. The need to FOIL to get information during the past administration was minimal. So this explains the increase in my FOIL requests but what about the rest?

The Central Question That Went Unasked

As in the famous Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, the most telling aspect of this part of the Council meeting was the question that was never asked:

Why did the requests for FOILs explode in 2022 and 2023?

The corollaries to this question are:

Why did Phillips’ investigation stop with the statistics rather than attempt to understand the source of the explosion?

Did the change in administration from Kelly to Kim factor somehow into the increase?

Why didn’t anyone on the Council ask Phillips if he had any idea about why the change?

Why didn’t anyone on the Council tell Phillips to extend his work by looking into the causes of the change?

The Real Purpose Of Phillips’ Presentation

Following Phillips’ presentation, Kim announced he would be seeking funding for yet another staff person for his office to handle FOILs. In hindsight, it is pretty clear that Phillips’ presentation was a pitch on the Mayor’s behalf to hire yet another employee.

As we have no idea why the FOILs increased, it is impossible to thoughtfully speculate about what can be done to address handling the number.

In its editorial on this issue, the Daily Gazette praised Kim for wanting to reduce the backlog of FOIL requests but asked whether there might be other ways to at least ease the problem other than hiring another employee:

To reduce the number of FOIL requests filed, city officials should look through the existing FOILs for commonalities.

If several people are requesting the same or similar information, or if the information being requested doesn’t require some kind of legal review, the city should consider posting that information on its website so people don’t have to formally request it.

This “proactive disclosure” can be done at little expense, the information only has to be posted once, and it cuts down on the number of FOIL requests that staff have to process.

Another tip: If the city has information that’s regularly requested, it should gather it in a single place and have it readily accessible to its clerks so they can respond faster to common requests.

City officials also should be more generous with releasing public information in general to avoid putting citizens in the position to having to ask for it in the first place.

Editorial June 26, 2023

There Is Something Seriously Wrong Going On

I honestly can’t think of any business or public organization I have dealt with that would not have pressed for answers as to why this increase occurred and whether there was some way of addressing requests for information that might ease this problem other than hiring more staff.

The fact that no one asked any serious questions only adds to the worry about how poorly this city is currently being managed.

The fact that FOILs have spiked during the last year and a half raises serious questions about how information is being provided to the public. This issue deserves proper investigation, but it is regrettably clear that there will be none.

For months, the Saratoga Springs City Council has been trying to pass a resolution that would implement item 41 from the list of reforms proposed by the 2021 Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force. The item reads:

“Divert all seized proven drug profits from convicted drug charges to Community Based Restorative Groups for conflict resolution.

Reinvention Plan: Toward a Community Centered Justice Initiative, February 26, 2021

The several bumbling attempts to address this Task Force recommendation illustrate the original magical thinking that produced the flawed item in the first place and the general disarray of the Council itself.

Recently retired Police Chief Shane Crooks, was on the Police Reform Task Force. At the time, he attempted to explain to his colleagues on the task force that the language for item 41 conflicted with state and federal law. The previous City Council and former City Attorney Vince DeLeonardis expressed similar objections when they were presented with this Task Force’s recommendation.

Task Force members simply dismissed Chief Crook’s concerns without doing any due diligence to determine whether he might be correct. Some Task Force members and Black Lives Matter activists responded to the Council’s reservations with angry demonstrations insisting on the adoption of all of the 50 recommendations.

In May of this year, Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi introduced a resolution to adopt task force recommendation #41. She, like the task force, ignored the need for due diligence. When, on the day of the meeting, someone informed her about the potential conflict with state and federal law, she withdrew it.

At the June 20, 2023, Council meeting, Mayor Kim again placed another problematic resolution on the city agenda to adopt this recommendation identified as “Resolution re:Forfeiture”

Public Safety Commissioner Candidate Tim Coll Addresses Forfeiture Issue

In the following video from that meeting, Tim Coll tried to explain to the Council why the resolution was flawed:

Withdrawn Again

Yet again, the resolution was then withdrawn, this time by Kim.

Kim Submits Meaningless Resolution For July 6, 2023, Council Meeting

Kim has now tweaked the resolution yet again in an attempt to put together something that will be both legal and that can pass. His new resolution reads, in part:

Whereas, to the the extent allowed under the Federal requirements for the dispersal of assets seized in controlled substance arrests and criminal activity, the Saratoga Springs Police Department, as the Administrator of the Federal Equitable Sharing Program is required to work cooperatively with the City Council to disburse these funds under Section B.1 (i) and (k) of the published guidelines for prevention, awareness and support of community based organizations to help fund community-based programs for community policing, treatment of addiction, homelessness and other restorative justice initiatives within the administrative requirements of these programs.

-Kim Resolution

This resolution could have been written for a Monte Python comedy skit on lawyers. What is the point of memorializing in a resolution that the police department is required to work cooperatively with the City Council? Maybe they should have a resolution that requires the police to protect the public from crime or that the fire department should put out burning homes as quickly as possible?

This resolution is a bone thrown to the Black Lives Matter group that has no meaning.

A Disservice To The Public

While it may have happened occasionally during past administrations, the withdrawal of resolutions during Council meetings has become a frequent event with this Council. We went through the same dance with this Council’s repeated tortured attempts to adopt the equally flawed Task Force proposal to ban no-knock warrants. And the result was a similarly meaningless resolution that BLM oddly then took a victory lap for.

It is grossly unfair to the public to allow an agenda item to be published on the city’s website only to be withdrawn at the Council table without a vote sometimes never to appear again. People concerned about a piece of legislation may go through the effort to attend a Council meeting and address the Council during the public comment period only to subsequently discover that it has been withdrawn and the effort to show up and address the Council was pointless.

A Breakdown In The Deliberation Process

During the Meg Kelly administration, resolutions were rarely withdrawn.

The reason for this was the effective way that legislation was vetted before Council meetings.

Agendas were posted on the Friday before the Tuesday Council meetings.

This provided the Council members the weekend to study what actions would be considered.

The Council then had a “pre-agenda” meeting on Monday morning where any questions or issues regarding proposed resolutions would be raised to address problems before the regular meeting.

During the administrations of both Meg Kelly and Joanne Yepsen, the city attorney, Vincent DeLeonardis, was allowed to truly act as counsel to all the city’s elected officials.

He would assist the Council members in crafting their resolutions to ensure ahead of time that these resolutions would not conflict with the city charter and state and federal statutes.

DeLeonardis built up trust among the Council members as a fair broker in doing his work.

This sound approach to crafting legislation has basically collapsed.

The two City Attorneys hired by Kim and subject to being fired by him now act as his personal attorneys rather than the Council’s.

The Monday agenda meetings are now brief affairs during which each member simply reads their agenda items. Unlike in the past, there are few if any questions and there is no discussion.

No Wonder There Is Chaos

So basically, there is virtually no review of agenda items, and any problems with resolutions are left to the night of the formal Council meetings. This contributes to the marathon Council meetings that go on for hours and often result in poorly considered legislation such as the three versions of the forfeiture resolution referenced above.