Month: January 2024

For those of you not familiar with Dan De Federicis’s aggregate news site, it is an excellent source for everything to do with Saratoga Springs each day. He covers everything from politics to culture to horse racing.

This is a link to his site: https://saratoga-report.com/

Here is Dan’s commentary on the State of the City event:

State of the City Addresses given by all five City Council Members Tuesday Evening – Information and Commentary by Saratoga Report Publisher Dan De Federicis

I attended Tuesday evening’s State of the City addresses.  I use the plural “addresses” to note that unlike in past State of the City addresses, which at least in Mayor Kim’s term were delivered only by him, Tuesday night’s presentations were given by not only the Mayor but also the other four Council Members and even the two County Supervisors.

None of the speeches went long and the entire program took approximately an hour and 15 minutes.  The room was mostly full although there were some empty seats.

There were several consistent themes during these presentations – positive outlooks for the city (and county) were consistent, the Belmont Stakes at Saratoga was mentioned by most speakers, but perhaps the most prominent theme during the evening was the praise and expressions of appreciation for Saratoga Springs city employees.

I believe every council member was lavish in their praise and I immediately thought – confirmed by conversations later – that these expressions to city employees were genuine, but also were intended to repair the damage done by the toxicity involving some office holders in city government in the past two years.  You could say Tuesday night was the culmination of a month long sigh of relief by many in city hall and beyond.

Mayor John Safford started things off with some uplifting words when he acknowledged “I never expected this” and “I am thrilled to be here.”  He talked about the importance of civility and how the word “civil” is the root of the word “civilization”.  Mayor Safford usually comes off as so decent and kind, and Tuesday was no exception.

The Mayor went over acccomplishments and goals of his Office.  He noted the goal for 2024 was to reduce wait time for a majority of building permits to 4-6 weeks.  He reported that he and staff members were reviewing all litigation currently pending against the city.  He also outlined their intention to streamline and expedite responses to Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, some of which have languished and resulted in at least one case of the court ordering the city to pay attorney fees to the person seeking documents.

Commissioner Dillon Moran was the next speaker.  My belief is that there are two Dillon Moran’s on the Council. Bad Dillon: pot stirring,  and ambitious, and good Dillon, intelligent and visionary.  I am happy to say Good Dillon showed up Tuesday.  He raised my eyebrows when shortly into his remarks he noted it’s been “less tense this first month.”  Such candor was appreciated by this writer and again, it points to the toxicity in city hall in the past administrations, and the fact that – at least for now – that was no longer the case.

Commissioner Minita Sanghvi was the next speaker.  I’ve been a fan of Commissioner Sanghvi, but as she spoke, it was clear she was speaking from two roles – one as commissioner and one as candidate – for State Senate.

She spoke as a clear supporter of public safety and had positive comments for the Belmont Stakes.  This is not to say she was ever against public safety, but her strong expression of support felt like a shift in focus by a Senate candidate seeking to appeal to moderates.  Likewise, she’s been at best indifferent about horse racing, and even talked during her first term about the need for the city to financially prepare for horse racing someday being outlawed in this state.  It says here that was actually prudent financial management on her part – because that day could come – but such talk won’t play well in a senate campaign in a district with horse farms and thousands of people who rely on horse racing directly and indirectly for their livelihood.

She noted how Saratoga Springs’ finances were  “healthy and good” and like others, she praised her staff.

Commissioner Jason Golub was his usual “Steady-Eddie” self, saying all the right things, going out of his way to commend those in DPW, and talking about a number of projects planned for 2024.  At one point he rattled off several DPW initiatives both past and future, with a multiuse trail here, and a dog park there, dam improvements on Loughberry Lake, and more.

His praise for staff was even more specific and eloquent than the others, as he noted “talented engineers” and “innovative and qualified professionals” in DPW.   He lauded specific employees by name as well.

Commissioner Tim Coll touted the full staffing of the police department (81 members) and fire department (84 members) and rattled off several statistics listing numbers of calls for the two departments.  He noted how he doubled the foot patrol division – from one to two officers – and that these officers were referred to as Community Engagement Officers – or CEOs.  He spoke of the police department’s recent accredidation.

He thanked the entire staff, and even noted the work of the code enforement division, often a less visible part of the city’s public safety efforts.  Finally, he announced that the much delayed fire station #3 on Henning Road had a planned opening of mid March.  I have been a fan of Tim Coll’s ever since he started running, and I have a continued sense of confidence in his leadership.

Supervisors Michele Madigan and Matt Veitch both expressed about the productive relationship they have started and plan to continue.  Supervisor Madigan was very laudatory towards Supervisor Veitch, noting that he was selected as Vice Chair of the board of supervisors.  This is noteworthy and appreciated as Madigan is a Democrat and Veitch is a Republican, although they both ran on the One Saratoga line, with the motto “City before Party”.  Still, it’s good to see comity amongst our representatives both at the city and county levels.

Both Veitch and Madigan indicated that there could be some movement by the board on a new “hybrid” bar closing time.  Bar closing times have been an issue for over a decade now – some would say several decades.  The state liquor authority will not establish different closing times for municipalities within a county – there must be one county-wide time set.  Therefore any request to the state liquor authority to change closing times must come from county level government.  The two supervisors indicated the hybrid time would have different winter and summer closing times.  From what I heard, it seemed like the winter closing time would be 2am and the summer closing time would be 3am.  That might not please everybody but it would be progress on an issue that has not moved an inch over the past decades.

Mayor Safford closed the evening asking the same question he asked at the inauguration on the 1st of this month:  What is Saratoga Springs going to look like 10 years from now?  He then talked about the importance of harmony in our community and noted how a city requires harmony just like a music body such as an orchestra needs it.  He then asked for a motion to adjourn and the evening concluded.

Saratoga Report will post videos of the evening’s speeches when they become available.  The Daily Gazette has an article about the state of the city presentations here. 

In the ongoing scandal over improper on-call payments to Deputies, it now turns out that the final version of the resolution authorizing such payments was improperly tampered with. It was edited in a way that apparently was meant to help make the Deputy Accounts Commissioner, Stacy Connors, eligible for on-call payments.

Tampering with the city’s legislative records is, at a minimum, a violation of trust and possibly a violation of the law.

A Cumbersome System

The last City Council frequently amended resolutions at the table during Council meetings but regularly did not read the entire amended resolution aloud before voting on it as had been the custom of previous Councils. When this happened, the Council meeting’s minutes contained only the amendment and not the full resolution. The entire final resolution, as amended, is eventually supposed to be loaded into Laserfiche, located in the Accounts Department.

Historically, the assistant city clerk was responsible for updating the text of resolutions that had been amended. The assistant clerk would then store it on the city server in Laserfiche. The resolutions on Laserfiche are not available for direct access by the public. I had to FOIL for this document.

The resolution that established on-call pay was amended at the Council meeting on February 9, 2023, to remove wording in order to allow the Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety to be eligible for on-call benefits. (Ironically, Jason Tetu, the Deputy Commissioner, however, was the only Deputy not to seek payments.) This amendment is recorded in the minutes and the video of the meeting. This is not the wording of the amended resolution, however, that now appears on the Laserfiche in the Accounts Department.

Where Did That Come From?

The resolution adopted by the Council limited eligibility for on-call pay to departments that had emergencies outside of normal city business hours.

Someone tinkered with the text to add the two words “and events.”

The doctored document that was uploaded to Laserfiche had something called meta-data attached to it. This file contains the record of who created the document and when. In this case the record shows Accounts Deputy Stacy Connors created it on February 14, 2023, five days following the adoption of the actual resolution.

Connors’ On-Call Pay Form Contains The Tampered Language

Stacy Connors was the first Deputy to submit a form to the Finance Department to get on-call pay. Significantly, the form she submitted contains the word “event” that was not used in the actual Council resolution.

Here is the text of the header on the form:

Notice that her request for payment form echoes the resolution that was doctored.

The significance of the two words “and events” that were added to the resolution becomes evident in reviewing Connor’s payment forms, all of which contain Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran’s signature authorizing the payment. On her form, she lists under “reasons” such “events” as City Council meetings and a wake. As we shall see, Moran uses the word “events” to go even further in an effort to justify paying this money to his Deputy.

Moran’s Narrative

Moran has been on a campaign in city hall vehemently denying that anything was wrong in paying Connors for “being on call.” He claims that Connors works sixty hours a week (snark alert: an impossible thing to do on a regular basis given the routine responsibilities of the very fully staffed Accounts Department, which basically provides licenses, special documents, and assesses real property.). As such, he alleges that she deserves the on-call benefit.

Unfortunately for Moran, the resolution was not for overtime (which, as a salaried employee, she is not eligible for anyway) but for being on call for “emergencies,” to which the Accounts Department is not subject.

An Email Exchange That Says It All

Included below is an exchange of emails between Ginny Scavuzzo, a concerned citizen, and Moran. Ms. Scavuzzo emailed City Council members expressing concern over the on-call pay for Deputies issue. Moran replies with a series of unusual arguments in defense of the pay. Here are some highlights:

To begin with, lest there be any confusion, Moran writes to Ms. Scavuzzo:

“Nobody, let me repeat, nobody has done anything wrong.”

He then asserts that the purpose of the resolution was to address the long standing issues with inadequate pay for the Deputies. On one level, this is true. The same resolution that established on-call benefits increased the salaries of all the Deputies by a considerable amount. Ms. Connors went from a salary of $80,818.00 to $91,650.00. I actually have no problem with this. I am willing to accept the arguments put forward at the Council table of the need for these increases to attract and keep qualified Deputies. (It is interesting to note, though, that there are no job descriptions for the Deputy positions, nor are there any requirements as to who can be hired.)

Unfortunately for Moran, the issue in question is not the merit of the raises for Deputies but who, according to the resolution, is eligible for on-call pay.

Moran then goes on to attack Ms. Scavuzzo for alleged misogyny. 

What is concerning to me is that you have only been prompted to ask about the women in these positions, not the men. I find it off putting that those “reporting” on this somehow leave them out. 

Dillon Moran

---

It is interesting how mercurial Moran is about which women benefit from his largess. Consider Lisa Ribis, the assistant city clerk in the Accounts Department, who records the minutes of Council meetings. Under Mayor Ron Kim, the Council meetings would go on for hours, often late into the night. For reasons that only Moran would know, he decided not to compensate her for her time at these meetings as required by her contract. She had to submit a grievance to the State Public Employees Relations Board, which Moran lost, in order to compel Moran to compensate her properly.

Moran goes on to make further use of the term “event” claiming:

My department is responsible for a number of aspects of our government including our Special Events, which were relaunched after 2 years of inactivity. We completed 63 events in 2023 and my deputy was on call for every one of them and very often was required to respond on weekends and holidays. 

Dillon Moran

It is hard not to use hyperbole in describing how absurd his claim is. Special events are things like 5K foot races, Chowderfest, parades, events at the casino, etc. The Accounts Department is responsible for giving out permits for these kinds of events. These events are run by the sponsoring group. Sometimes, the event requires assistance from the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Public Works, but the Accounts Department has no responsibility beyond the approval of the permits for the events. It is rather stunning that he would claim his Deputy must be on-call for these events.

Next, Moran turns to a financial argument:

The amount of money being questioned is less than .01% of our budget and it’s simply revolting to me that the hardest working women in our government are being attacked because they are being paid for the work they do. 

Dillon Moran

The amount of money is small in relation to the city budget, but for most of us, the $4,136.75 that Connors was paid improperly for being on-call is still a significant piece of change. Worse, Moran ignores the more serious matter, which is that she was not eligible for this pay.

Moran goes on to make another false argument:

As it is, our deputies qualify for subsidized housing as they barely make an average income for this area. 

Dillon Moran

The Liberty Housing project for workforce housing that Moran has championed has an eligibility threshold based on 60% to 80% of AMI (annual median income).  

I don’t know if Ms. Connors is married.  If she is single, then the appropriate per-capita income would not be for households but for individuals. So, for Saratoga Springs, the median income for individuals is $57,836.00.  According to the February 11, 2023, TU story on the special wage increase awarded at the February 9, 2023, Council meeting, Ms. Connors’s salary is $91,650.00.  So, if Ms. Connors is single, she would have a salary that is almost 60% over the median income for the city and way, way over the eligibility threshold for subsidized housing.  Contrary to Moran’s statement in his email,  Deputies’ salaries are well in excess of eligibility for subsidized housing.

Moran’s History Of Falsifying Documents

This would not be the first time Moran has been involved in tampering with documents. In 2019, Moran ran against the late Commissioner of Public Works, Skip Scirocco. During that campaign, he sent out a mailer with an image of a letter from the New York State Department of Health. Moran doctored the letter so that it appeared to charge the city with having unsafe drinking water. Here is a link to the image of the flyer.

In addition, he was exposed for creating a fake website meant to misdirect people seeking information regarding charter change.

The Email Exchange

Email From Scavuzzo

From: “GINNY SCAVUZZO” <saratogagrammy@gmail.com>
To: “public comment” <public.comment@saratoga-springs.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2024 1:02:10 PM
Subject: Public Comment regarding On Call Pay

Dear Mayor Safford and Council Member,

I am submitting my public comment in writing regarding the “On Call Pay” issue. 

I have questions: 

1. Have City Deputies been improperly paid for allegedly being “on call”? 
2. Have they actually been “on call” or have they been paid for actual responsibilities that under their job description? 
3. Did three of the city Deputies, facilitated by their respective bosses, use a poorly defined provision adopted by the Saratoga Springs City Council to pay:

• Angella Rella, Deputy Mayor: $5,640.75
• Stacy Connors, Deputy Commissioner of Accounts: $4,136.75
• Heather Crocker, Deputy Commissioner of Finance: $1,128.15

1. Was the language of  the February 2023 resolution for “on call” pay for public works employees so poorly crafted,  it was vulnerable to abuse? 
2. Did Commissioner Sanghvi properly monitor and manage this perk? 

I believe others have already asked these questions, so my ask is 

1. Where has transparency been, no less accountability? Apparently others have been asking, but they claim that they have been ignored.  Ignoring a problem or a perceived one, doesn’t make it go away. 

I think we deserve to know what actual “on call” means and be reassured that it doesn’t mean “already documented responsibilities”. 

I appreciate, Mr Mayor, that you said last evening that the issue is being reviewed by the city’s legal department.  But…

1. What if, because of the way the resolution was written, these payment are not considered illegal? What then? Are they then just a) immoral  b) amoral or c) just plain greedy?

I appreciate your reading and considering my comments. 

Furthermore, I would like knowing that public comments don’t fall on deaf ears as I’ve witnessed over the past years.  

There’s a reason, Mayor Kim was not re-elected.  There also is a reason the re-elected council members (although running unopposed) may not have gotten full support on Election Day.  

We are your constituents; we elected you and we are in hopes that you listen and that you hear us.  Thank you. 

In closing, I thank you all for your service to the city.  

Ginny Scavuzzo

Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

Moran Responds

On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 4:28 PM Dillon Moran <dillon.moran@saratoga-springs.org> wrote:

Ms Scavuzzo,

I appreciate you reaching out. 

Unfortunately misinformation has been spread throughout the community by folks more concerned with creating political arguments than doing the work for the city. 

Nobody, let me repeat, nobody has done anything wrong. Every commissioner is equal per our charter and every deputy is equal as well. 

The pay program that was passed a year ago addressed long standing issues with inadequate pay for the Deputies, the Full Time manager of our respective departments. (Commissioner Coll has said on more than one occasion that he would not have been able to hire a qualified deputy had we not improved the pay program). 

What is concerning to me is that you have only been prompted to ask about the women in these positions, not the men. I find it off putting that those “reporting” on this somehow leave them out. 

My department is responsible for a number of aspects of our government including our Special Events, which were relaunched after 2 years of inactivity. We completed 63 events in 2023 and my deputy was on call for every one of them and very often was required to respond on weekends and holidays. 

The amount of money being questioned is less than .01% of our budget and it’s simply revolting to me that the hardest working women in our government are being attacked because they are being paid for the work they do. 

As it is, our deputies qualify for subsidized housing as they barely make an average income for this area. 

Don’t we want to attract and keep the best qualified public servants?

I am more than happy to answer other questions that you may have. 

Kind Regards,

Dillon Moran

Commissioner of Accounts 

City of Saratoga Springs

This is a link to the January 10, 2023, Saratoga Podcast with Robin Dalton, Adam Israel, and Dan DeFedericis.

In a letter dated January 2, 2024, the New York State Department of Transportation advised Saratoga Springs Mayor John Safford that the previous Council superseded its authority when it altered the weight limit for trucks on Van Dam Street. As the letter above documents, Van Dam Street is a designated “access highway” by DOT and, as such, is not subject to local control over its truck use.

This is yet another example of the previous Council’s obliviousness to the need for rigorous due diligence. In their rush to endear themselves to the homeowners on Van Dam Street and grab headlines, the Council did the neighborhood a disservice by spreading false hopes.

Even before this DOT letter, former Public Safety Commissioner Lew Benton knew enough to question the city’s authority in this matter and to contact NYSDOT, which confirmed his skepticism.

Bill McTygue and Mark Pingel Grab Headlines With More False Hopes

Planning Board members Bill McTygue and Mark Pingel issued a report in December suggesting an old proposal to construct a truck bypass route through the southern border of the State Park should be revisited.

The first reference I can find to such a proposal was in a report prepared for the New York State Department of Transportation in 1987. The study concluded that a southern bypass would “impact adjacent parklands…to a degree which will be difficult to successfully mitigate” and “…have significant impacts on recreational, historic, and natural resources.” In addition to requiring cutting through extensive wetlands in the Park, the study also concluded that while “various bypass roadway alternatives have been the subject of considerable discussion in the community and were examined closely in the study…they were found to be partial solutions at best…..None would divert sufficient traffic from Broadway…”

Over the years, other Councils have made similar forays to the state, but all such efforts have proved futile.

Such a bypass would be an enormous construction project involving huge sums of money, and the permits for major disturbances of wetlands would encounter fierce resistance from a variety of parties, assuming that the state was even interested. 

Readers, this is never going to happen.

Three of the city Deputies, facilitated by their respective bosses, used a poorly defined provision adopted by the Saratoga Springs City Council to feed at the public trough.

• Angella Rella, Deputy Mayor: $5,640.75
• Stacy Connors, Deputy Commissioner of Accounts: $4,136.75
• Heather Crocker, Deputy Commissioner of Finance: $1,128.15

A Proposition Cynically Exploited

In February of 2023, the City Council voted for a major increase in their deputies’ salaries. At the same meeting, prompted by Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub, they added a new perk. All deputies could be paid extra to be “on call”.

As a computer consultant who supports software, I thought I was familiar with the term “on call”. This is the way I have always understood it:

if someone such as a doctor or engineer is on call, they are ready to go and help whenever they are needed as part of their job

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/be-on-call

So, as a computer consultant, I might be required to be on call in case, for instance, a client was installing new software and ran into trouble. This would mean that I would have to agree to be available immediately by phone or perhaps required to be able to be on sight within a certain amount of time to assist the client. On-call doctors, likewise, must be sober and able to respond within minutes should a medical emergency occur while they are on call.

At the time of the vote, I had understood that this provision was crafted as a way to compensate Public Works Deputy Joe O’Neil, whose job really requires that he be on call to deal with emergencies such as broken water pipes or snow storms, which his department would be responsible for.

Joe O’Neil is an outstanding city employee whose job really does subject him to the need to be potentially available twenty-four-seven.

Unfortunately, the language of the resolution was extremely poorly crafted, making it vulnerable to abuse. The problem was compounded due to the failure of Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi to properly monitor and manage this perk. At the time of the meeting, she told her colleagues that she would come up with additional parameters for the new perk and that she would assess the program and report on it quarterly. 

In my FOIL request, I sought all documents regarding “on-call.” I received a copy of the resolution establishing on-call along with sheets submitted by the Deputies for payment. My FOIL produced no documents related to Sanghvi’s promises to produce parameters clarifying the new policy nor any documents establishing that she reviewed the program quarterly as she had promised at the February meeting.

I emailed her requesting a meeting on the issue.

She responded by directing me to the Human Resources office. I then wrote back to her asking:

• Could she provide me with her quarterly findings?
• Could she provide me with her suggested parameters for “on-call”?
• As the resolution establishing ”on-call” was to go into effect on February 9, 2023, could she explain how Deputy Mayor Angella Rella was paid for being on-call for the month of January and the first week of February?
• As the resolution calls for paying $125.35 a week for being on-call, how was the Finance Department calculating payments if someone was on-call for only a few days?

To date, I have not had a response to these questions from the Commissioner. In our form of government, it is the responsibility of the Commissioner of Finance to establish controls over city spending. These are serious questions that deserve proper answers. To refuse to respond raises grave concerns about what other breakdowns of oversight may be going on in her office.

The Resolution

This is the relevant language from the resolution that included establishing on-call:

Note that this benefit was supposed to only be used by deputies whose department had 24/7 response requirements and involved the necessity of being available to respond to emergency calls. [The final version was amended to remove the phrase “that is not operationally staffed 24/7” thus allowing the Public Safety Deputy to be eligible although Tetu never put in for this pay.]

What Constitutes On Call for a Deputy??

Consider this document from Deputy Mayor Angella Rella seeking payment for being “on-call”:

This is just one of the four pay forms Ms. Rella submitted and that Ron Kim approved to be paid. Three were submitted on November 11, 2023. The fourth was dated December 24. Note the timing of Ms. Rella’s submission of these forms. According to the resolution, this benefit was to be approved and paid on a quarterly basis, but Rella waited until November 11, 2023, to begin to submit her bills. That was just four days following her boss’ defeat in the November 7 election. 

The resolution states that the benefit was to go into effect on February 9, 2023 [JK: The date had to be amended because a revised version had to be adopted with a new date of February 21, 2023]. Yet Rella asked for and was paid for the entire month of January and the first week in February. The Finance Department is responsible for making sure claims are legitimate when they do payroll, yet they approved this.

Most startling is that the four documents she billed for claim that she was on call seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, from January 2, 2023, to December 24, 2023.

As readers will observe, the form for reporting includes a column titled “Reason,” which I assume was meant to explain what was going on that required her availability. She didn’t bother to write anything in this column. Instead, she simply pasted into the head of the form that “…she was available for contact by the Mayor’s Department and was responsible for responding to emergency situations, events, and assigning subordinate employee(s) during these week dates.” If this sounds familiar, it’s because she simply took the language from the resolution.

Who Knows What “On Call” Means?

How could this happen?

Missing from the resolution were the following:

• Any definition as to what is construed as being on-call.
• Whether the employee was required to meet sobriety standards while on-call.
• How quickly an employee was required to respond to an on-call demand (would being on a plane or going anywhere where cell service was problematic, disqualify a deputy from this benefit?). Just how available does a person have to be when on-call?
• What constituted the kind of potential emergencies that merited the person being on-call?
• What kind of potential emergencies constituted the need for someone heading the Accounts Department to be on-call? 
• What kind of potential emergencies constituted the need for someone heading the Finance Department to be on-call?
• What kind of potential emergencies constituted the need for someone heading the Mayor’s office to be on call (in Rella’s case, 24/7, for a year)?

Granted, the Accounts department is charged with managing the election logistics in the city, so there might be staffing issues or problems with equipment that would merit having the Deputy on call on those specific days. Other than that, the Accounts Department is responsible for doing such city business as issuing licenses, keeping city records, and assessing city properties. It’s hard to imagine what emergency could possibly occur in that Department that would require the Deputy to be paid to be on call. Nothing happens in the Accounts Department after office hours that can be construed as an emergency. 

The Finance Department includes the IT department but that department has an internal on-call policy already that was negotiated with the CSEA union. They rotate three IT staff people who are paid not $125.35 like the Deputies, but $75.00 to be on call for the week. They have successfully operated this way for years. So the Finance Department Deputy doesn’t have to manage these people to get them in should there be an IT emergency after office hours. As with the Accounts Department, nothing happens after office hours in Finance that can be construed as an emergency that needs to have anyone ready for a quick response.

Is This Being Confused With Work Outside Of Normal Business Hours?

While Rella and Finance Deputy Heather Crocker simply leave the reason column of the On-Call Pay form blank, consider this document for Deputy Commissioner Of Accounts Stacy Connors which Dillon Moran approved.

It is unclear how to interpret this document. What does being available to respond to an emergency have to do with attending the State of the City event?What does attending a wake have to do with being on-call? What does attending a “special” City Council meeting have to do with being on-call? In her other sheets, she has “CC” in the reason column. Based on the dates, I assume this refers to City Council meetings. What does being on-call have to do with attending a City Council meeting? None of what she lists has anything to do with being “on call,” yet Moran approved this, and the Payroll employee in the Finance Department paid her.

Public Safety Dispatchers Get Nothing For Being On Call

According to past Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino, the Public Safety dispatchers are required to be on call for eight hours before and after their shifts but receive no special compensation for this.

[JK: I have been told that Commissioner Monagnino was misinformed on this.]

Reform?

This mess really needs some sort of action. Commissioner Sanghvi is responsible for monitoring the city’s finances and for ensuring there is no abuse. Her cavalier attitude about this gross waste of city money is most unfortunate. There is no indication she plans to reconsider this, let alone reform it.

The Documents

Stacy Connors (Accounts)

Angela Rella (Mayor)

Heather Crocker (Finance)

Joe O’Neil (Public Works)

At the January 2, 2024, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, newly elected Mayor John Safford introduced a resolution to make a payment required by a court order. This should have been a routine vote to approve the court settlement/but not for Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran.

In 2023, requests by Saratoga Springs Republican Chair Mike Brandi to secure documents from the city under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) were ignored in flagrant violation of the law.

Brandi sued the city, and the court sustained his complaint that the city had violated FOIL and ordered the city to pay his costs ($2,500.00) and to provide him with the documents.

This blog has documented the disintegration of the city’s response to the Freedom of Information Law under the previous City Council. FOIL is at the heart of open government. Months ago, this last Council acknowledged that it was routinely in violation of its obligation to release public documents to citizens in a timely manner but, in spite of this, chose to take no action to address the problem.

The following is a video from the January 2, 2024, Council meeting. As the video documents, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran first pretends he does not know who the litigant was that the city was required to pay. Moran asks Safford, “Who is this check going to?” After Mayor Safford confirms that it is going to Brandi, Moran disingenuously asks whether Brandi is the G.O.P. chair. After Safford confirms that Brandi is the G.O.P. chair, Moran feels “compelled” to ask, “The G.O.P. chair sued the city?” and when Safford confirms, Moran asserts, “It’s not very civil.” The Council then moves to a vote. Moran votes no on complying with the order to pay. He offers no explanation.

Ugly Partisan Behavior by Moran Right Out Of The Gate

As readers may know, all but one of the candidates endorsed by One Saratoga won the seats they ran for in the November election. Their theme was “City before party.” It was hoped by many that that successful message in this last election would result in a Council whose members would avoid cheap partisan attacks and that their votes and actions would reflect a commitment to doing what is best for the city. Apparently, Dillon Moran didn’t get the message.

In this first Council meeting of the New Year, there was nothing even thinly disguised in Moran’s gratuitous, partisan performance. It makes no difference who requests documents from the city. Under New York State Law, all citizens have the right to secure documents under FOIL, and all government bodies in New York State are required to respond in a timely manner or pay the consequences. Dillon Moran does not get to decide any of this.

It is most disturbing that he would vote to ignore the court’s order. Moran now oversees Risk and Safety. Rather than set a standard for rigorously adhering to all city, state, and federal requirements as he had just taken an oath to do when he was sworn into office the day before, he openly flaunted the court’s authority in order to indulge in partisan grandstanding.

Moran’s behavior signals that he, for his part, is not about to leave the acrimony that plagued the last Council behind.