Moran In Meltdown: “Civility, My Ass”

At the January 7, 2025, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran subjected his fellow Council members and the public to an eight minute tirade during which, among other things he claimed Mayor Safford had sent the city attorneys out to “essentially implement the wishes of an on-line bogger” whom he later identifies as me. In a continuous, sometimes stream of consciousness diatribe, he frequently interrupted and talked over Mayor Safford, pronounced vaguely that “you guys don’t know what you are talking about”, and with all seriousness and some pomposity gave the Mayor and City Attorneys “Fs”.

The trigger that set Moran off on this performance was the City Attorneys’ opinion that the Council could not legally extend a contract that expired in December of 2024. The contract was for a consulting firm, Ives-Fenton Consulting and Training Services. These consultants were to assist the Restorative Justice Panel (RJP) established by the city in 2023.

In an earlier post, I documented that the Restorative Justice Panel appeared to have collapsed in December 2023 and that the contract for their services that ended on December 5, 2024, could not be extended. Should the city desire to continue to fund consulting services for RJP, they will have to put it out for bid again.

The following are some excerpts from Moran’s jeremiad. To allow readers to determine whether I have taken these excerpts out of context, I am including the full eight-minute video of the event at the end of this blog. This blogger finds it odd that Moran indulges in this kind of behavior. He must know that the videos will appear on this blog. Does he really think this behavior will endear him to the public?

Moran Berates Mayor Safford As A Puppet Of The Blogger

Mayor Safford is the kindest and most patient of men. In this excerpt, he shows his usual self-control and refuses to respond to Moran in kind.

Moran berates the Mayor for supposedly enlisting the city attorneys in a plot to block the contract at this blogger’s (Moran refers to me by name) direction. Moran likes to wave papers around and, addressing attorney David Harper by name, waves what could be the City Attorneys’ memorandum in the air, announcing that his staff has given the City Attorney’s opinion an F. As Moran does not have any attorneys on his staff, it seems odd that Moran uses their alleged condemnation of the legal opinion as proof that he is right. When the Mayor gently offers that NYCOM, the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials, confirmed the City Attorneys’ legal opinion, Moran talks over the Mayor, challenging the Mayor’s motives.

Moran Conveniently Ignores The Language In The Contract That Undermines His Assertions

The language in the contract reads that it will continue “until the work is satisfactorily completed or until December 5, 2024.” In this excerpt he asserts that the contract will continue until the work is complete conveniently ignoring “or until December 5, 2024.” When the Mayor politely interjects the ending date language, Moran ignores him and talks over him.

Moran Resorts To Straight Gibberish

Here, Moran refers to some unexplained uncivil thing that he claims Mayor Safford did a year ago when the Mayor first took office. He accuses the Mayor of putting “him,” which may or may not be a reference to David Harper,

“on some mindless task that this guy (the blogger?) told you to do and now there is some investigation into a bunch of nonsense that you (the mayor) know is not true that he (Harper?) actually admitted that you guys investigated the wrong friggin date. It’s so disgusting what you people are doing. That little foray (?) is going to cost us a quarter million dollars. What are you doing?”

Dillon Moran

This blogger follows politics closely, and I have no idea what he is talking about.

Moran goes on to bully the Mayor, who tries to explain that he just wants to make sure the contract is handled properly.

After asserting that Commissioner Kuczynski supports him in his criticism of the City Attorneys, he finishes with a flourish: “Civility my, ass.” and then pulls the contract from the agenda.

The Entire Eight Minutes