The Times Union has run a story on the city hiring an attorney to represent it in dealing with the New York State Attorney General’s demands on Saratoga Springs following her office’s investigation and report on the city’s conflicts with the local Black Lives Matter group.
After rehashing the legal expenses the city has been enduring, reporter Wendy Liberatore notes that the Council is united on the need to hire outside counsel to respond to the AG. She then provides Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran a platform to attack fellow Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll.
Moran said he is skeptical about Coll’s sincerity to collaborate. He believes Coll and the police will fight the attorney general on proposed reforms such as training police on de-escalation, bias and community policing.
Times Union August 23, 2024
Moran goes on to make further accusations:
“We are cognizant of the fact we do not have enough legal talent nor appropriate legal talent to engage in the negotiation with the attorney general,” Moran said. “That we all agree on. … The problem is that (Coll) wants to fight the attorney general … His (requests for quotes) is written like somebody who doesn’t want to collaborate with the attorney general, but like somebody who wants to argue over every word in the (proposed attorney general) document [JK:Emphasis added]. … This could harm the city for years going forward.”
Times Union August 23, 2024
Unfortunately for Moran, it was not Coll who drafted the “request for quotes,” but the City Attorney, and Coll has invited all members of the City Council to participate in the interviews of the attorneys who respond to the RFQ.
Moran (and Ms. Liberatore) apparently did not bother to check the facts on this or his other allegations. The city police force, for instance, is already routinely being trained in “de-escalation, bias, and community policing,” so there will be no fight over those reforms as they have already been implemented.
Saratoga Springs Politics 
Moran is an absolute a**hole who needs to be muzzled! His ego is astounding, considering his miserable performance in office. SOMEONE NEEDS TO CHALLENGE THIS MAN IN NEXT YEAR’s ELECTION so we can put an end to the madness …
As for Tim Coll, well done Sir. The community applauds your leadership and steadfast professionalism.
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I can’t imagine why Commissioner Moran thinks that the SSPD would resist further training on de-escalation, bias and community policing. The department trains officers on all these topics regularly. Even the AG report acknowledged that de-escalation training after the 2020 protests made a big difference on how the department dealt with large protests in subsequent years.
No police department is perfect and the personnel constantly changes. Regular training to update as well as to re-enforce positive attitudes towards social justice is an important part of responsible policing. I’ve never seen any evidence of resistance to such training in the SSPD.
Hiring an attorney with the necessary credentials to adequately represent the City’s response to the AG report is important. As some people know, it is my opinion that the AG report is flawed and significantly biased. I would hope that an attorney would insist on revisions to the report to better reflect what was actually happening with BLM activists starting in 2020. Only after the report is more fairly re-issued should any corrective actions be considered.
Chris Mathiesen
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This TU story is a deflection created by Moran. Now that Golub is no longer present to provide cover for Moran, the mayor and Koll are pushing back on him for equivocating the criminal and civil investigations as they pertain to paying for his attorney fees.
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