[T. Zealie Van Raalte has written the following on the issue of charging private businesses to use public city-owned sidewalks and parking spaces for outdoor dining.]
For a start, it’s unfortunate that the ” fairness ” issue seems to have been overlooked in any discussion/plan for an Outdoor Dining strategy. The city stakeholders can’t offer ALL restaurant owners an attractive opportunity for additional capacity. It’s a fact that not all restaurant locations lend themselves to taking advantage of utilizing “public property” for this purpose.
Thus, in many cases, the only option for some restaurant owners who want to grow their business by increasing their capacity (number of tables) is to “rent” additional space from a private landlord (if available) at market rates.
The argument that the current Outdoor Dining program pays for itself and then some is a limited one and extremely short-sighted. Yes, a “basic permit fee” has finally been developed to cover the associated labor costs incurred by the PWD. There is also obviously some incremental sales tax collected because of the increase in capacity. However, the level of any incremental sales tax achieved doesn’t compare to the potential total revenue the city should receive with an appropriate “user fee.” This fact demonstrates the clear “opportunity cost” to the stakeholders…lost revenue.
It’s a fact that most municipalities that make public space available benefit from such rental income for the privilege of using public property. They have a realistic and fair “total fee” structure. Our city has failed to even begin the process.
For argument’s sake, how much would a restaurant owner be willing to pay for the incremental capacity that they have enjoyed in the past IF they were informed that the privilege would no longer be available for free? Would they offer “nothing? Most likely not.
If the “free option” was no longer available, they certainly can appreciate better than anyone what revenue they would be passing up. They would not be happy. Thus, it’s likely that they could be convinced to embrace an incremental fee structure where they could still benefit.
This should be a WIN, WIN opportunity for both the restaurant owners and the city stakeholders. In the past, some restaurant owners were really the only winners. The stakeholders have not realized the potential for this much-needed revenue opportunity.
It’s really this simple… finally, develop and implement a strategy to set the tables so there is a WIN, WIN situation for our entire community.
Former Saratoga Springs Public Safety Commissioner Lew Benton has done a major public service in analyzing Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s proposed 2024 city budget. I sent Lew’s commentary to Mike Sharp, who was the Deputy under Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan. He offers some additional insights.
Based on their analyses, there appear to be very serious problems both with the projected expenditures the city will have to pay and with the projected income, which appears to be overly optimistic.
Most troubling and adding to the credibility of their concerns was Sanghvi’s decision to suddenly initiate major changes in her budget at the very last minute following the electoral defeat of Mayor Ron Kim. She now proposes to defund the second City Attorney and transfer the money along with the authority for Risk and Safety from the Mayor’s office to the Accounts Department. Why weren’t any of these changes in her original budget or the amended budget that followed the budget workshops? It appears that the changes were prompted not by thoughtful deliberations but by some sort of deal involving Kim and Accounts Commission Dillon Moran after the election. This kind of backroom dealing can only prompt skepticism about how Sanghvi determines the best way to spend taxpayer money.
A Budget That the Public Cannot Understand
As Lew documents, his efforts to analyze Sanghvi’s budget were made difficult by her decision to scrap the format the Finance Department normally uses and instead publish one that is extremely hard to read. Why Sanghvi diverged from the standard format is unclear, but the result is that it is hard to ferret out what the city will be spending money on and how much the anticipated income will be.
Lew documents the problems with the format Sanghvi used.
No Answers
I sent Lew’s analysis to Sanghvi and asked if she would respond to the concerns he raised. Consistent with her past practice, Sanghvi didn’t acknowledge the email, let alone respond to it. As you will see in reading Lew’s piece, it is rigorous and thoughtful. Lew’s credentials are impeccable. He served this city as its Commissioner of Public Safety, and his career was as a planner. He raises truly disturbing concerns about the budget that deserved a thoughtful response.
I asked Mike Sharp for his thoughts on Lew’s piece. Mike was the Deputy under Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan. His remarks appear following Lew’s piece.
Lew’s Analysis
[Here is his comparison of the standard format used for budgets and what Sanghvi has done.]
Mike Sharp’s Observations In His Response To Lew’s Piece
I very much agree, Lew, and I always enjoy your commentary on city finances. My comments were less a critique and more of my playing devil’s advocate to get ahead of any potential response made by the commissioners or her supporters. Perhaps there is a real reason certain revenue items are pushed so aggressively (I doubt it), but based on what has been made available, many of them seem aspirational more than based on facts/trends, which sets the budget up for trouble before the fiscal year even begins. Your point about the formatting change is a big one that I don’t think enough people will appreciate, but I don’t see any rationale for the change that isn’t anti-transparency or bad governance. Cynically, I would assume she’s received pressure from other Council members to make an already confusing budget document even less useful to outsiders.
Thanks again for your piece, and I hope you both have a great weekend,
Mike
From: Mike Sharp Date: November 17, 2023 at 9:59:10 AM EST To: John Kaufmann Subject:Re: Essay on Proposed Amended City Budget
Hi John,
Thanks for sending. In going over what Lou sent, I agree 100% with his point that removing the subtotal by subdepartment is an anti-transparency measure. The output from MUNIS is already hard to understand for most people, and by removing the department subtotals, lines become meaningless. “Professional services” is a great example of that, as the Mayor’s Office has 18 different Professional Service lines with over $740k of projected 2023 spending. Other than knowing it’s in the Mayor’s Office, the public has almost no idea what a not-insignificant part of the budget is being spent on.
For his section on revenues, I agree they look to be pushing some line items beyond what appears to be realistic, though there are a few caveats:
– For some revenue items, the City doesn’t receive our inflows in a timely manner. This makes saying, “How can they budget X when we’ve only received Y year-to-date?” a tricky thing to say, as it’s entirely possible Finance could receive a check or wire that represents multiple months of previously earned revenue. I believe Occupancy Tax and Mortgage Tax might be such line items, but I’ve been out of it long enough that I don’t remember exactly which revenues we get monthly and which ones lag. You would hope the Commissioner would highlight things like this in her presentation.
– Sales tax is taking a massive leap from 2023, going for a budgeted amount of $17.5M to $19.5M, or up over 11%. Finance gets information monthly about this, so maybe this is really what the trend is showing, but again, a leap like this in such a critical revenue line warrants more explanation in my opinion. I’d also note that while the city gets sales tax money monthly, it is based on a formula (rather than actual sales) that is corrected for actual sales later. More than once I saw that correction negatively impact the city in a big way. My hope is that they aren’t making their estimate purely on the monthly figures, as those aren’t final. Have there been any sales tax presentations? I believe we tried to do them at least once a year when I was around.
– Assuming $250k for a brand new revenue stream like Cannabis and short-term rentals does seem aggressive, though perhaps there is a reason they’ve assumed such a number based on guidance from the state or county? Years ago, getting any money out of short-term rentals was hard as we needed the County to approve items, and they were seemingly unwilling to do so. Has that changed, or has the city found another way to generate revenue out of short-term rentals? Relatedly, will this new revenue stream have an offsetting expense related to enforcement, such as more code inspectors or whoever else is responsible in ensuring all short-term rentals are accounted for?
– Lew’s Overtime points are very good, and that’s a few hundred thousand dollars that should certainly be explained. Are there new hires or a change in policy that should lessen this expected expense?
Aside from this, it’s very telling that in all of this, I don’t think there’s any discussion around revisiting the 30+ hires that this Council made in 2022-2023, as noted in the Comp Budget presentation. Were all of these necessary? Are there any non-union hires that can be revisited? Adding personnel puts an enormous strain not only on the current budget but also on future budgets as staff contractual receive increases in pay (whether the City revenue goes up or not) and as benefits costs generally go up. Certain departments have been understaffed for some time, but 30+ is massive, and I really think the public is entitled to better understand what a need compared to what is a want (I will never get over her hiring an admin for herself, now making $57k I believe, despite also budgeting a budget director and deputy).
Feel free to send my email to Lew, and if he wants to chat over email about anything, I’d be happy to do so.
In my previous blog post I wrote that Saratoga Springs Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub supported moving Risk and Safety from the Accounts Department to the Mayor’s office. This was incorrect. He abstained from that vote.
At the June 7, 2022, Council meeting where the move was discussed, Golub was adamant that he believed the proposed process was incorrect. He thought there should be an independent arbitrator evaluating if only portions of the job should be moved or if it should be moved at all.
At the August 2, 2022, Council meeting when the matter came up again, Golub said he did agree with Montagnino’s statement that it made sense for Risk and Safety to be with the City Attorney because of how closely they work together, however Golub said the process taking place was flawed and concerning. He thought there was validity to putting Risk and Safety in other places, but that isn’t what they were doing that night. “We are moving an employee from one department to another without consent of that employee’s boss.” Golub believed they should assess the role after the person who was currently in the position retired.
Saratoga Springs needs two City Attorneys. This city has had two City Attorneys since 1973, with the exception of a period during Mayor Kim’s tenure. By my count, that is fifty years. According to the latest version of Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s budget,Sanghvi has defunded the second attorney.
The defunding of the City Attorney position is part of a more complex deal between Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran, Mayor Ron Kim, and Minita Sanghvi.
Moran is the big winner in all of this. Sanghvi has taken the money that funded the City Attorney position in the Mayor’s office ($105,276.88) and shifted it to the Accounts Department to fund a Risk and Safety position there thus transferring authority over Risk and Safety away from the Mayor and granting it to Moran.
Readers may recall that during his first year in office, Kim, with the support of Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino, and Sanghvi, had Risk and Safety transferred from Moran’s department to the Mayor’s office. Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub abstained. The Mayor was adamant as to how important this reorganization was. He argued that the Risk and Safety Director needed to work more closely with the City Attorney.
Apparently, having lost his election, Kim feels less passionate about the need for Risk and Safety being in his office. He also has offered no pushback about losing the funding for the second City Attorney who works under the Mayor.
Readers also may recall the ever-morphing approach to staffing the City Attorney’s office. When Kim came into office, one of his first acts was to fire both City Attorneys. He saw little urgency in hiring a City Attorney initially, touting his own credentials as well as those of his Deputy, who is also an attorney. After a series of legal debacles, he rehired Tony Izzo. Over time, he hired an additional attorney who was supposed to manage Risk and Safety as well as provide the Council with legal services. We all know how this strategy worked out. For those who may not remember, our insurance carrier refused to continue to underwrite the city. The insurance company cited a dysfunctional Risk and Safety program as the primary reason for their decision.
According to the November 22, 2023 edition of the Times Union:
Kim and Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran also said that the city Risk and Safety program will revert to the Accounts Department on Dec. 1.
TImes Union November 22, 2023
I have learned that the Assistant City Attorney, Michael Phillips, who was supposed to be handling Risk and Safety, is leaving his job on November 30, 2023, so this may explain the date for the reorganization.
Putting aside the inconvenient truth that all this reorganization has been done behind closed doors, it is unclear how, in this year’s budget, this move can happen on December 1. There is currently no money in the 2023 budget in Accounts to pay for a Risk and Safety position for the rest of this year.
Given Moran’s history of indifference to procedure and detail and his abusive and overbearing style of management, I find it more than worrisome that he will oversee Risk and Safety.
It is hard to tell how much of this is Democrat Moran trying to expand his power and how much of this is a partisan move to weaken the new Republican Mayor.
What I do know is that the city needs two attorneys, and it was reckless of Sanghvi to have defunded one. The city also needs a Risk and Safety program that functions effectively. What is going on here is highly controversial and needs to be debated publicly by the Council. Let Mayor Kim explain why suddenly the city no longer needs two attorneys and why, after insisting that his office must oversee Risk and Safety, he is supporting moving it back to Accounts. Let Sanghvi explain why she is supporting this reorganization.
At the November 21, 2023, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran pulled his award to Beacon Risk Group for the “audit” of the fifty points of the city’s 2021 Police Reinvention Plan. He said a lack of paperwork was the reason.
Moran had oddly added this item to his agenda sometime after the pre-agenda meeting and before the regular Council meeting. All anticipated resolutions are supposed to be vetted at the pre-agenda meeting.
Normally, items added late to the agenda are supposed to be the result of some kind of time restraint. It is hard to conjure up an argument as to why Moran’s resolution could not wait until the next regular meeting of the Council, particularly in light of the fact that proposals for the “audit” were required to have been submitted by July 11, 2023. That is more than four months ago.
As noted in an earlier post, this blog documented that the proposal from a consulting firm named Beacon Risk Group LLC that Moran selected lacked the required insurance and was not properly registered with the state of New York to transact business.
Moran’s obtuse two-word reason for pulling the resolution (“missing paperwork”) left many questions unanswered. This kind of sloppy, rushed, and flawed action is an unfortunate pattern with Moran.
In the following video, in response to a question from Eileen Finneran, Moran attempts to explain why the city needs to spend $75,000.00 to “audit” the 50 Point Plan. Readers of this blog are invited to submit comments explaining Moran’s remarks from this video.
I wrote to Moran on November 20, 2023, and cc’d the entire Council asking how the city could approve the Beacon Risk Group proposal in light of its failure to meet the requirements for insurance along with the company’s lack of registration with the state.
I also asked why they had issued two RFPs for the same work. In addition, I asked, in light of the fact that the RFP responses were due on July 11, 2023, why they waited until the end of November to do the award.
The full text of my email is at the end of this post. Consistent with Moran’s history, he never responded, nor did anyone on the Council comment.
Another Case of Politicians Behaving Badly
On a different topic, readers of this blog may remember the conflict between Commissioner Moran and Mayor Ron Kim over transferring responsibilities for “Risk and Safety” from the Accounts Department to the Mayor’s office.
This was all associated with the Mayor’s bizarre and baseless accusations that Moran and then Risk and Safety Director Marilyn Rivers had somehow improperly negotiated the settlement of a lawsuit brought by a terminated city employee.
Mayor Kim has never attempted to hide his animus towards Marilyn Rivers. In a musical chairs-like environment of who is attacking whom, at the time Kim and Moran, who are now buddies, were then bitterly at odds.
Support for a vote authorizing the transfer of Risk and Safety to Kim’s office from Accounts included a yes vote from Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino who during that period enjoyed a warm relationship with Kim.
At least that transfer had some transparency to it.
Not this time. The authority for “Risk and Safety” apparently is returning to the Accounts Department. Why is this happening? Who knows?
This time, there will apparently be no vote or discussion on the transfer. Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s 2024 budget has simply slipped money for “risk and safety” under the Mayor’s office to the Accounts Department. Kim has not publicly objected to this move and no one else on the Council has said anything.
Kim, Sanghvi, and Moran have apparently made a deal hidden from public scrutiny.
From: john.kaufmann21@gmail.com Sent: Monday, November 20, 2023 10:15 PM To: ‘Dillon’ Cc: ‘ron kim’; ‘Minita Sanghvi’; jason.golub@saratoga-springs.org; james.montagnino@saratoga- springs.org Subject: Beacon Risk Group
Commissioner Moran: I am troubled by how the award of an RFP to Beacon Risk Group to audit the 50 points of the city’s Police reinvention Plan has been proceeding. New York State requires that all limited liability companies (LLCs) be registered with the state in order to transact business in New York. I have searched the appropriate state database but could find no record of Beacon Risk Group being registered. I also note that in the addendum to the document awarding work to BRG, they have failed to provide the city with documentation regarding various insurance policies required by the city. It notes, for example, that their general liability insurance expired on September 1 of this year.
I am also troubled by the opacity of what is being approved. No contract is attached to the agenda item, which would provide insight into what BRG is proposing to do to meet the RFP’s requirements. There is no copy of the proposal either.
I do not see how the council can approve a proposal they have not seen, aside from the issues of registration and insurance. The lack of these documents is also inconsistent with the need for transparency that you routinely call for. Could you please address these concerns? Thank you, JK
Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran has an item on his agenda for Tuesday night’s (11/21/23) City Council meeting to spend $75,000.00 on an “audit” to determine how well the city is implementing the fifty points of the Police Reinvention Plan.
Readers may recall that in 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order directing all local governments with police agencies to “perform a comprehensive review of current police force deployments, strategies, policies, procedures, and practices and develop a plan to improve” them.
Saratoga Springs convened a committee to carry this out, and it produced a document in 2021 with fifty items they wanted the city to implement.
The firm Moran has chosen to assess the status of the 50 points in the plan appears to have failed to meet the contracting requirements of the city for insurance and has failed to register its limited liability company (LLC) with the state of New York. According to my sources, LLCs must register with the New York State Department of State to transact business in New York.
It is very troubling that city elected officials feel they are incapable of reviewing the implementation of the fifty points and instead are proposing to spend $75,000.00 to do this.
An Odd History
On June 2, 2023, a request for proposals, RFP 2023-29, was issued to pay a consultant to “audit” the implementation of the fifty points of the city’s Police Reinvention Plan. The bids had to be submitted by June 13. The city received four proposals.
Then, for some reason, the city reissued the same RFP, now labeled 2023-32, on June 27, 2023, with the bid closing on July 11, 2023. The city received proposals from the same four companies. One company increased its proposal cost by $5,000.
So, the RFP was closed on July 11, 2023, and for unknown reasons, laid dormant until appearing on Commissioner Moran’s agenda for the November 21, 2023, City Council meeting some four months later.
A Black Box That Only Moran Has The Key To
The whole process has been totally opaque. Who crafted the original June 2nd RFP? Why was it redone and issued on June 27? Who decided to redo it? All proposals were received by July 11. Why was no action taken until November? Who was involved in screening and selecting the winner?
The other key question is, who will oversee the work of the winning firm? This would typically be stated in the contract, but there is no contract posted.
I expect, but do not know for sure, that the answer to all of these questions is Commissioner Dillon Moran.
The only documentation accompanying Moran’s agenda item to award this bid is a memo from Accounts Deputy Stacey Connors recommending Beacon Risk Group “based on the experience of the organization” and an incomplete Award of Bid Sign-Off Form. The form states that before an award of bid can be placed on the Accounts Department agenda for a City Council meeting, the form must be completed, and a series of steps must occur. The form posted is incomplete, and there is no documentation that shows that the required steps were taken.
The Winner
The winning proposal was submitted by Beacon Risk Group. Their website describes the firm as follows:
At Beacon Risk Group, no matter where you are in the process of critical asset protection, we can help. We’ll define the risk to your critical assets, determine the vulnerabilities that could be exploited by those seeking to take advantage of your weaknesses, and design controls solutions to close those gaps. We’ll also provide a security function design, organizational structure, and, if desired, a Chief Security Officer as a Service to manage your effort. More than anything, we will leverage our government and private sector expertise to protect what matters most to your organization and do so with a collaborative, best-in-class approach
Beacon Risk Group
It’s not clear to me how this company’s skill set is useful in assessing what the city has done so far to implement the Police Task Force 50 point program.
The company is located in Virginia. Its principal is Art Cummings. Mr. Cummings’s work background includes serving as the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI’s National Security Branch (Counterterrorism, Counterespionage, Counterintelligence, WMD).
Below is an addendum to the boilerplate award document.
According to this, Beacon Risk Group (BRG) failed to provide documents as required by the city. These are primary and non-contributory Insurance and Workman’s Comp Insurance. If Beacon Risk Group is a one-person operation, they do not have to carry Workman’s Comp, but they must get a waiver from the state. According to this document, BRG’s general liability insurance expired on September 1, 2023, so they also lack this insurance.
As they are a Limited Liability Company, they are required by New York State to register with the New York State Department of State in order to transact business in New York. A search of the Department of State’s database for LLCs failed to come up with BRG.
Jason Golub and Beacon Risk Group
As it turns out, Beacon Risk Group’s website had at one time included Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub as a Managing Director of Compliance and Investigations.
I contacted Commissioner Golub. He told me that Art Cummings, the principal owner of BRG, made an error in posting that he was a Managing Director.
Commissioner Golub told me that Cummings is a friend and that he had recommended Cummings to Moran. Commissioner Golub told me that he thought, given Cummings’s history with the FBI, that his involvement would help to get buy-in from the police.
While technically, he would not violate the city’s ethics rules if he were to vote on the resolution approving Beacon Risk Group, Commissioner Golub also indicated that he would recuse himself.
Why Does The City Need To Hire A Consultant To Do An Inventory Anyway?
Earlier this year, Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino already did an inventory of the fifty points of the city’s Police Reinvention Plan, so it appears that Moran’s “audit” initiative is yet a further extension of the ongoing conflict at the Council table between Montagnino and the rest of the Council.
Does this city really lack the ability to internally review the fifty points?
We don’t have the money to provide proper staffing for the Civil Service Department. We don’t have the money to give a raise to the part-time Civil Service employee who has not had a raise in three years. We don’t have the money to hire a Director of Risk and Safety.
The city is unable to comply with the time requirements for FOIL due to the increase in requests. We don’t have the money to hire additional help.
The department that handles building codes is understaffed, and needs help, but we don’t have the money to help them.
Yet we have the money for this “audit.”
Yet Another Demand Coming
In addition to this RFP, the Mayor’s Deputy, Angela Rella, has drafted yet another Request For Quote (RFQ), this time on behalf of the city’s Restorative Justice Committee. This also has been opaque. The Restorative Justice Committee was established in May, 2023, to “begin a community-wide dialog with residents and institutions” to define “what restorative justice means to Saratoga Springs in the 21st Century”. They were supposed to report their recommendations on a “Saratoga Springs Restorative Justice Program” on or before December 19, 2023. The group has now decided they need professional help to accomplish this task and have been discussing who to award this work to. Apparently, two or three firms are under consideration. At the most recent meeting of the Restorative Justice Committee, Moran promised them he would find the money for it.
Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran is introducing amendments to the city’s ordinance on outdoor dining at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting (11/21/23). The amendments further refine Moran’s effort to exercise exclusive authority over outdoor dining.
In its first venture into establishing outdoor dining regulations during the pandemic, the city established a committee that included the City Attorney, the Director of Risk and Safety, a representative of the Fire Department, and a representative of the Department of Public Works to determine all facets of outdoor dining.
When Moran became Accounts Commissioner, he amended the ordinance to reduce the role of this committee to be advisory only. They still were charged with reviewing the applications, but their authority was reduced.
Now Moran has gone further by dissolving the committee. Instead, he will simply send the applications to the Department of Public Works, the Department of Public Safety, and the Building Department for their review.
There are two things worth considering here.
First, my experience with bureaucracy is that simply sending the applications to other departments, as compared to the committee, reduces the potential that there will be actual feedback.
Second, and most troubling, he has eliminated the involvement of the Director of Risk and Safety. It is no secret that Moran did not care for the last director, Marilyn Rivers, because she was a stickler on compliance issues. He knows that there is the potential that the new Mayor will fill that position.
Below are two pictures of restaurants that, during the last summer, routinely and egregiously violated both the city’s regulations on sidewalk access and the American Disability Act’s accessibility requirements. Moran is a fixture of the night scene downtown. He had to have observed these restaurants’ violations. It was only after I submitted a complaint that these two restaurants came into compliance.
Danny Osteria
Solevo
Moran’s changes also remove the requirement that the City Council vote on the final approval of permits for outdoor dining and leaves that authority entirely in Moran’s hands. In addition, Moran has removed the no-smoking requirement in outdoor dining areas and replaced that section with the single word “Reserved”- whatever that means.
The Dicey Issue Of Fee Schedules
I have repeatedly sought information on how Moran arrived at the fees the city charges private businesses for the use of the city’s sidewalks and parking spaces for outdoor dining.
I FOILed the city for any documents that would explain the basis of the tiny fees, which, for all intents and purposes, make the use of the public’s space by restaurants practically free. The FOIL officer responded that a search of the city’s documents failed to find anything related to this.
Moran’s amendment eliminates the annual review of these fees. In the future, they will be “established from time to time.” Apparently, whenever Moran decides to change them.
The City Council Rubber Stamp
Let me be clear that I am not opposed to outdoor dining, and I believe it adds to the attractiveness of our downtown. I do believe, though, that the success of this endeavor requires appropriate and prudent controls. If past experience serves us, the current City Council will approve these changes without serious discussion.
On November November 13, 2023, at 8:30 AM, the Saratoga Springs City Council held a special meeting. The city’s website originally announced this meeting without posting the agenda or the purpose of the meeting. It is unclear when precisely the city posted the agenda, but as far as I can tell, they finally did so on the Saturday before the meeting.
The posted agenda included one item. The item appeared under the Finance Department as “Set Public Hearing: Proposed Amended 2024 Budget.”
I believe the root of the problem was that at the Council’s November 8, 2023, meeting Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi mistakenly agreed to close the public hearing on the city’s budget. This was premature. The budget was still subject to revision as it had not been adopted, so the public should have been able to continue to review and comment on the changes.
This error required that the city convene the special meeting in order to “set” a public hearing for November 28, 2023, the date of the next Council meeting. At the November 13 meeting, Commissioner Minita Sanghvi apologized to the other Council members for her error that necessitated this special meeting.
Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran was heard at the end of the meeting on a hot microphone observing that “Kaufmann will be writing about this.”
First and foremost is the acknowledgment of the high level of interest and thought demonstrated by the voters of Saratoga Springs in this year’s municipal elections.
Consider that Schenectady has a population of 66,000, and 7,000 people voted in that city. Saratoga Springs has a population of 28,000, and 8,443 voted. So, both in absolute terms and in percentages, our city had an impressive turnout. Keep in mind also that there were only three contested offices this year, which usually would mean a low turnout.
The numbers in this blog are based on the unofficial results from the Saratoga County Board of Elections. The vote will not be officially certified until December 2, but little change is anticipated.
Party Fluidity
In this age of heightened partisanship, Saratogians showed they were comfortable looking at candidates regardless of party affiliation. The best example of this is first-time candidate Tim Coll, a registered Democrat who ran on the Republican and bipartisan One Saratoga lines. In spite of what was seen by many as a controversial choice to take the Republican line as a Democrat, Tim ended up carrying 24 of the 25 election districts in the city, losing only in the district that is exclusively Skidmore students. He was the third highest vote-getter overall after Supervisor candidates Matt Veitch and Michele Madigan.
There were also, I would say, an unprecedented number of endorsements crossing party lines. For instance, Tim Coll received endorsements from former Democratic Mayor Meg Kelly and former Republican Mayor A.C. Riley. In the Supervisor race, Democrat Michele Madigan was shunned by the Democrats although she appeared on their line (as well as the One Saratoga line) and was endorsed by former Republican Mayor Scott Johnson, who had often been her nemesis when they served together on the City Council. Michele was the second-highest vote-getter in the city. Coming in with the highest total was Republican Matt Veitch (also on the One Saratoga line), who was surprisingly endorsed by Democrats Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and Pubic Works Commissioner Jason Golub in spite of the fact that two Democrats were running with them on their party’s line. Interestingly the leader of the Democratic Committee Otis Maxwell publicly rejected Montagnino as their candidate the day before the election partly because he had endorsed Republican John Stafford. Go figure.
Saratoga Springs voters were also ready to look beyond the two major party lines to vote. Here are the tallies of votes on third-party lines:
Mathiesen – One Saratoga – 1420 votes
Tim Coll – One Saratoga – 732
Kristen Dart – Community First – 2396
Michele Madigan – One Saratoga – 1157
Gordon Boyd – Working Families Party – 395
Ron Kim – Working Families Party – 203
Matt Veitch – One Saratoga- 831
Kim’s Unpopularity Among Democrats
Gordon Boyd, who, like Kim, ran on both the Democratic line and the Working Families Line, drew more votes than Ron Kim on both.
Boyd – Democratic Line – 3642
Kim – Democratic Line – 2969
Boyd – Working Families Party – 395
Kim – Working Families Party – 203
The One Saratoga Factor
The role that One Saratoga played in this election cannot be overlooked. Formed in 2019 by a group of dissident Democrats who left the Democratic Committee and led by former Democratic Chair Courtney DeLeonardis, this group has endorsed candidates in the past but has never had a ballot line. Their motto is “City before party” and their goal is to support qualified candidates, regardless of party, who they feel will work cooperatively for the good of the city. This year, they successfully collected 1,000 petition signatures to place a bipartisan slate of candidates on the ballot. One Saratoga clearly played a role in the outcome of the election.
The One Saratoga ballot line consisted of Democrat Chris Mathiesen for Mayor, Democrat Tim Coll for Commissioner of Public Safety (who was also running on the Republican line), and Michele Madigan, a Democrat, and Matt Veitch, a Republican, running for the two County Supervisor slots.
Consider the Mayor’s race, where Republican John Safford won with 3,752 votes to Kim’s 3,172, with Democrat Chris Mathiesen drawing 1,420 on the One Saratoga line. While it will be difficult to determine exactly how many who voted for Chris on the One Saratoga line would have voted for Kim if Chris had not had that line, many will certainly legitimately speculate this line made a difference in this race.
The role One Saratoga played in the Supervisor race is undeniable, however. Three candidates ran for the two Supervisor slots this year. The top two vote-getters win. Republican Matt Veitch was the clear front-runner, with a total of 4,871 votes. Democrat Gordon Boyd clearly would have beaten Democrat Michele Madigan with his total of 4,037 votes had Michelle not been able to add 1,157 One Saratoga votes to the 3,307 she garnered on the Democratic line.
I think it’s interesting to remember that the three Democrats who ran on the One Saratoga line all asked the Democratic Committee to consider them for endorsement. The Democratic leadership, in violation of their own by-laws, did not even allow them to address the full committee after being rejected by the nominating committee. Two of these candidates-Tim Coll and Michele Madigan- went on to be top vote-getters in this election, defeating the Democrats on the party’s line; and Chris, many will feel, played an important role in defeating the Democratic candidate for Mayor.
The Daily Gazette’s Problematic Reliance on an “Expert”
In the November 9, 2023, Daily Gazette, reporter Shenandoah Briere had a story attempting to analyze the results of the election. None of the factors discussed above were mentioned.
The poverty of the story is the logical outcome of the shallow coverage of city politics by the Gazette over the last two years.
The fact that she would choose Bob Turner as her expert to explain the election outcome in Saratoga Springs regrettably demonstrates how little she knows about the history of city politics and its players.
Turner is on the faculty of Skidmore College and chaired the ill-fated charter change committee in 2017.
Had she done a simple search of this blog for the word “Turner,” she would have found numerous examples of Mr. Turner’s fluid approach to facts and accuracy. Let’s take just one example.
During the 2019 campaign to adopt a new city charter, an anonymous site on the web popped up called “Common Sense Saratoga.” It was the focus of numerous complaints for its opacity. Zuzia Kwasniewski asked Bob Turner on the Saratoga Unites Facebook page if he was behind the anonymous website, and he disavowed any involvement.
Subsequent to Ms. Kwasniewski’s question and following numerous criticisms of the site, the site posted four names as its “founders.” Bob Turner was one of the four.
In the October 31 edition of the Gazette, Ms. Briere provided Turner with a platform to opine about city politics. In that article, he claimed that he was entirely non-partisan. Mike Brandi, chair of the city Republican Party, advised Ms. Briere that Turner had donated to the local Democratic Party. He provided her screenshots from the New York State Board of Election documenting the amount and date of his donation. In her article, she wrote that she questioned Turner about the donation.
When presented with this information in a phone interview, Turner said, “I don’t know where that came from. I never gave them money.”
Daily Gazette November 7, 2023
More recently, in a podcast made just prior to the election, Miles Reed, the news editor of the Daily Gazette, also chose to interview Turner. During the interview, Turner told Reed that Brandi had apologized to him for his criticism in the Briere story regarding his donation.
I found this hard to believe, so I contacted Brandi, who was quite amused. He told me it was Turner who apologized to him, and he sent me an email from Turner that documented this. Turner wrote the following:
“I also owe you an apology. It turns out I did contribute to the local party.
Dr. Bob Turner email November 6, 2023
As Turner appears to be the expert the Daily Gazette relies on for its coverage of local politics, it comes as no surprise that their post-election assessment is simplistic to the extreme.
The Gazette’s Myopic View of the Election
The Gazette article chose to reduce the last election to a one-on-one conflict between Mayor Ron Kim and Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino. The headline of the front page story reads: “‘Mutual destruction’: Kim, Montagnino tension led to re-election losses for both.”
First, while the animosity between Kim and Montagnino was very real, it ignores that the conflict was not limited to these two. In fact, Finance Commissioner Sanghvi and Accounts Commissioner Moran were active allies with Kim. Both intemperately attacked Montagnino at the Council table, calling him a racist and a misogynist. This was not just a one-on-one conflict but more four-to-one.
Ms Briere’s story that the source of public dissatisfaction was the conflict between Kim and Montagnino misses what most of the public saw. She and Turner seem strangely removed from the madness beyond focusing on these two men.
Central to this is the failure of Sanghvi, Moran, and Public Works Commissioner Golub to insist that Kim use his chairmanship to insist on civility. The poisonous behavior at the table was a group project. All four of them were central enablers in allowing BLM to turn our Council meetings into a cesspool of ugly invective.
For those of you willing to endure this stuff again, this video documents both the extreme level of madness and the passivity of Kim and his allies.
Turner tries to dismiss the dysfunction of this Council by pointing to prior Councils’ conflicts. While other Councils, particularly under Val Keehn, were also often contentious, Bob Turner’s statement that he thinks by comparison, “Today’s city council seems unbelievably tame,” is mind-boggling. Just for a start, prior Councils, no matter what the conflicts, always got the city’s business done. This Council has the dubious distinction of being the only Council in the city’s history as far as I know that twice had to abandon a City Council meeting without finishing its agenda. In fact at one meeting Council members had to huddle at the end of the Council table to pass the consent agenda so city employees could get paid before they quickly left the room. Both times Mayor Kim was unable or unwilling to control the Black Lives Matter activists who disrupted the meeting. And in the almost 50 years I have been observing and attending Council meetings I don’t remember anyone ever saying until now that they were afraid to bring their child to one of these meetings.
Turner’s Other Incorrect Statements
Turner also offered other observations that are demonstrably incorrect.
For instance, while it is true that John Safford hoped to capitalize on the split among Democrats between Kim and Mathiesen, Turner’s assertion in the Gazette article that “…this was John Safford’s explicit stated strategy of trying to get two Democrats running, one on this One Saratoga line to split the Democratic vote and enable the Republican to win” is simply absurd. Safford played no role in either man’s decision to run. This is so obvious that it is rather stunning that Ms. Briere would repeat this.
Turner also misrepresents the purpose and goals of the Coll and Mathiesen campaigns. Take the characterization as to why Chris Mathiesen ran for mayor. The primary reason attributed to him by the article was supposedly his “dislike of how Kim and the City Council spoke about his handling of the controversial Darryl Mount case…” It does acknowledge, “…he also ran over the handling of behavior at City Council meetings over the past several months” but ignores the other issues Mathiesen raised, such as earlier bar closing times.
Likewise, Turner calls Coll’s campaign “sort of ambiguous,” ignoring the specific proposals Coll put forth during the campaign to address homelessness, panhandling, bar closings, short-term rentals, etc.
This Election Was About The Failure Of This Council To Properly Manage This City
As much as the political pundits would like to spin this election as a clash of personalities, the issues went much deeper. This election was about the public’s rejection of how this city has been governed in the last two years.
The vast majority of accomplishments the current members of this Council take credit for were simply completing the initiatives of the previous Council who they continually complain about, and the list of their missteps is very long. It includes:
The destruction of the city’s successful risk and safety management
The cost of millions of dollars due to the decision of our insurance carrier not to continue underwriting the city.
The chronic failure to adhere to the requirements of the New York State Open Meetings Law for the provision of FOIL documents.
The failure to properly fund the city’s civil service commission.
The chronic failure of the information technology office to reliably record and post city meetings.
The multiple suits over a toxic work environment.
The inappropriate interference by the Public Safety Commissioner in police investigations.
The forced retirement of most of the leadership in the Police Department.
The failure to address the chronic homeless situation (It was Sonny and Julie Bonacio, former Mayor Meg Kelly, and Rise that got a homeless shelter up and running).
The gratuitous conflict between the city and the county District Attorney.
The Real Issue
Kim, Sanghvi, Moran, and Montagnino’s constant campaign to be on television and in the media and to virtue signal rather than do the unglamorous work of efficiently running this city are at the root of why the public rejected the candidates put forward by the local Democratic Party.
The petty conflicts the public has had to watch are the byproduct of these politicians needing drama to get media coverage. Drama begets drama.
According to the city’s website, there will be a special meeting of the Saratoga Springs City Council on Monday, November 13, at 8:30 in the morning. There is no agenda available, and there is no information on the purpose of the meeting.
You would think that scheduling a meeting for 8:30 on a Monday morning after a holiday week end means that something critical has to be done. I understand that Finance Commissioner Sanghvi is leaving to visit India for a month, so that might be a contributing factor.
It would be interesting to know who posted this notice without an agenda and when the Council plans on letting the public know what business will be done at this meeting. So much for the transparency this Council claims they embrace.
Saratoga Springs Politics 