In the December 17, 2025, edition of the Daily Gazette, Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi falsely claimed that Mayor John Safford was suffering from some sort of dementia. Making her comments particularly icky was her casting her remarks as somehow sympathetic to his alleged decline.
“It was a transparent process. [Safford] voted for it,” Sanghvi said. “And I don’t know what to think about, except that, you know, I have sympathies for cognitive declines with age.”
Her shameless slur was all the more vile because it was included in a particularly ugly attack on Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll and Public Works Commissioner Chuck Marshall, along with Safford, for their “heartlessness” in refusing to fund the designated recipients of Sanghvi’s Participatory Budgeting (PB) proposals.
Dear readers, there is nothing wrong with Mayor Safford, and in fact, when it comes to her dubious budgets, the Mayor has a better memory than Commissioner Sanghvi.
A credulous and ignorant press promoted Sanghvi’s narrative, ignoring some embarrassing facts.
As documented in earlier blogs, I reported that Sanghvi had not only recommended removing support for PB from the city budget, but also for cutting the funding for homeless services, such as the RISE shelter and crossing guards for schoolchildren. It is important to note that according to the city charter, if the Council fails to act, this budget presented by the Finance Commissioner becomes the city budget for the ensuing fiscal year. At the time, Safford, Coll, and Marshall urged Sanghvi to raise taxes to address the city’s growing deficits and fund these programs. Sanghvi refused to do this.
Bear in mind that her refusal to raise taxes occurred while she was campaigning for County Supervisor. In October, she acknowledged in an email to her colleagues at the table that the city was currently running a deficit of over $3,600,000.00.
This is from her email.
So not only was her cruel attack on the Mayor revolting, but her attack on Safford, Marshall, and Coll for heartlessly refusing to fund this year’s PB awards was the height of hypocrisy, since she herself had previously felt justified to call for defunding PB.
A gullible press and disappointed applicants for PB ignored her earlier effort to defund PB, amplifying her self-promotion and her attack on her colleagues.
Was Sangvi’s self-righteous attack on her colleagues a reflection of her extraordinary delusion regarding her own role in budget cuts or cynical politicking?
Her ageist attack on the Mayor is particularly galling as she has a history of acting in a self-appointed role of policing anything she suspects is discriminatory.
Pardon the mixed metaphor, but Commissioner Sangvhi “(physician) heal thyself.” Publicly apologize to Mayor Safford.
Saratoga Springs Politics 
Couldn’t agree more. Sanghvi is a nasty person and will do our county no good as supervisor. She only got elected by shameless manipulation of where our great city stood financially.
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CallMeConcerned was unable to post this comment due to some bug in WordPress.
“Was this email sent prior to the audit report? The auditors found Sanghvi’s unassigned fund balance calculation was significantly overstated. The actual audited amount is $10,418,389 not $11,249,868. What does that mean for the City? Plugging in the correct figures: Deficit of $3,617,501.98 taken out of $10,418,389 leaves the unassigned fund balance at $6,800,887.02. This is alarming because it is dangerously close to the minimum 10% unassigned fund balance Sanghvi is required to maintain for the City. She has financially devastated this city.”
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400 residents out of 28,000 voted for the projects,hardly participatory. There should be a stipulation if you don’t get a certain plurality of people voting this proposal should always be tabled. Some of the projects were for schools in our district if the school district hasn’t funded it then it must not be needed.now we’re gonna make the city pay for what the school district has deemed unnecessary?The whole participatory budget thing is just another Democratic attempt to make themselves feel good when they go to bed at night like all the other proposals they come up with. It’s not about what’s right or good. It’s what makes them feel good when they go to bed at night.”I did something good for people”not realizing the total ramifications of their decision-making. Let me end by saying the signs entering the town will soon have to be changed to the four h’s health, history, horses, and homeless. that’s what our citiy is thriving on that we’re the fastest growing homeless population of all the counties in New York should be alarming. It shouldn’t be a rally cry to build more stuff. These homeless people are not from here they’re showing up here. Nobody wants to talk about that.it’s an old saying if you build it, they will come and that’s what’s happening here. Leaders should start waking up and seeing what’s going on if I had a business downtown, I’d be mortified at this point. It’s one thing to take care of community people. It’s another thing to roll out the red carpet and have them show up by the bus load, which is what is happening
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There weren’t even 400 voters. It was possible to vote more than once if you logged in from multiple devices. I personally know people who told me they voted more than once for their favorite proposals.
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If you think this deficit is bad now, wait until we have to pay those 16 firefighters with our own funds.
First, we didn’t need 16. Second, how many “calls for service” have there been from station 3?
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Chris Hart’s statement ‘just another Democratic attempt to make themselves feel good when they go to bed at night like all the other proposals they come up with’ is unfair and excessively partisan. While some polices promoted by Democrats might be a little unrealistic, overall, the programs brought about by Democratic administrations have had a profoundly positive effect on the lives of every-day Americans.
I do agree with some of the points made by Mr. Hart regarding the many of the unhoused individuals who have come to our City. Such people gravitate to municipalities with urban cores. There is practically no homeless problem in Clifton Park or Wilton. Because we have been so successful at re-inventing our downtown, we have created a uniquely comfortable environment for the unhoused. Saratoga Springs taxpayers should not be solely responsible for funding shelter programs. If we are going to host the unhoused, then the federal, state and county governments should be providing major funding for these efforts.
Chris Mathiesen
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One of the real pleasures of campaigning in Saratoga Springs as the Independence Party County Chairman (10 years), was working with Mayor John Safford. I was not only impressd by the families that I met, the investments Saratogians made in their homes, their sense of community, but with John Safford’s work ethics & ability to execute good, sound decisions. Judge Francine Vero was no slouch either when it came to working tirelessly, making prompt & honest resolutions. Honestly, those were two of the best I’ve worked with.
As you know, you can’t make any headway with City goverment until the counsel learns to live within their means, control spending, hiring & borrowing, and keep property taxes from spinning out of control. You only have to look at other cities across the state to see what happens when taxes spiral: property values decline. Mayor Safford with his military training & career in business has a firm grip on the City’s balance sheets.
Saratoga Springs, you have chosen wisely in re-electing John Safford as your Mayor.
Eddy Miller, Former County Chairman & still a BIG fan of Saratoga Springs.
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How ironic that Commissioner Sanghvi, who prides herself on often reminding us how many boxes she can check and is always quick to call out anyone she perceives to be making an offensive remark, made this ageist remark to the press. She should remember that if she’s lucky someday she will be checking the age box too. Maybe then she will be more careful about stereotyping and judging the members of that group too.
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I didn’t want to respond to this entry until I had read the full story in the Gazette. I don’t subscribe to that newspaper so I went to the library to find the December 17 edition. I read it cover to cover but found no reference to Commissioner Sanghvi’s comments. The story is actually in the December 18 print version of the paper so if some people are confused, that may be why.
Commissioner Sanghvi is a family friend and is a nice lady. However, I don’t think that she should be angry that her participatory budget programs were not approved this year. While such programs may have merit, our City operates with very tight budgets which will be even more challenging in 2026. It was unfair of the Commissioner to describe the decision of Mayor Safford and Commissioners Coll and Marshall as being ‘truly heartless’. I think that they were just trying to act responsibly on behalf of the taxpayers.
Commissioner Sanghvi said that she is disappointed that the City finds the money to spend on overtime and ‘lots of other things’ but not for her participatory budget programs. She must have been upset when she made these comments because she must know how carefully each department monitors necessary overtime and how difficult it is to have the Finance Department approve budget items for the other four departments.
Commissioner Sanghvi must also have let her emotions cloud her judgement when she publicly insinuated in the Gazette article that Mayor Safford suffers from ‘cognitive decline with age’. That’s unfair and unwarranted. Mayor Safford deserves an apology.
Chris Mathiesen
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Family friend or not Commissioner Sanghvi is not a nice “lady”. Time and again both her and our soon to be former Commissioner of Accounts Moran took every opportunity to interrupt, insult, correct and generally treat Mayor Safford in a mean and not nice way. It’s all part of the record.
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Actually, she is a nice lady. Nice people sometimes say or do things that others might consider to be ‘not nice’, especially in the world of politics. It is better to better to criticize without assassinating their character.
Chris Mathiesen
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Chris-If Sanghvi’s comment to the Gazette had been a one-off, I would have chalked it up to an inappropriate remark made in a moment of anger and agree with you. Unfortunately, though, like Concerned Saratogian, I have seen her repeatedly behave in a rude and condescending manner towards not only the Mayor, but Tim Coll and members of the public. To me when this kind of behavior becomes endemic, it is not a matter of “sometimes saying or doing things that others might consider to be ‘not nice’”, it is indeed instead part of her character.
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