At the July 7, 2026, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, Dave Buchyn spoke during the public comment period. Mr. Buchyn, who is Vice President of the Upstate Conservative Coalition and former chair of the Saratoga County Conservative Party, offered critical commentary about the histories of two Saratoga Springs elected officials, addressing them directly.
Under the Council’s normal public-comment protocol, the Mayor explains that speakers are strictly limited to three minutes and should direct their remarks to the Council as a whole.
Mr. Buchyn began by singling out Saratoga County Supervisor Sara Burger and Public Works Commissioner BK Keramati.
Commissioner of Accounts Jessica Troisi interrupted him and asked Mayor Safford, “This can’t be appropriate?”
The Mayor then carried on a brief exchange with Buchyn during which he granted that Buchyn had the right to say whatever he wanted but urged him to email these concerns rather than express them at the meeting. Buchyn and the Mayor are friends and Buchyn graciously agreed to end his comments.
Correcting The Record
Following the public comment period, the Council discussed whether Buchyn had the right to make those remarks.
Public Safety Commissioner Coll explained to his colleagues that, under the city’s recent agreement with the New York State Attorney General and opinions issued by the New York State Committee on Open Government, the city cannot legally restrict speakers based on the content of their remarks. He emphasized that, no matter how offensive or disturbing some comments may be, the law protects the speakers’ right to make them.
Anyone who has followed this blog has seen numerous videos of activists cursing at, taunting, and shouting at Council members without consequence. Readers will also know that meeting decorum has been a major issue, one that has drawn the city into litigation and proceedings involving the Attorney General.
Coll was simply reminding his colleagues of that history and cautioning them about the legal consequences of disregarding it.
BK Keramati Never Listens
Public Works Commissioner Keramati joined the discussion by telling his colleagues that he “took exception” to Coll’s statement. He then argued that public comments should be limited to matters of city policy and that personal attacks should be prohibited. That Coll had just explained that the law does not permit such content-based restrictions appeared to escape Keramati.
Regrettably, Commissioner Keramati seems to be continuing a pattern established during the previous two administrations, in which inconvenient facts— including laws and authoritative legal opinions—are treated as though they do not exist. At no point did Keramati address Coll’s central argument: that the law protects even the most offensive verbal attacks.
Readers should also recall that Commissioner Keramati did nothing to object when previous Council members were subjected to severe abuse during the Black Lives Matter controversy.
I could not agree more with Commissioner Keramati that participants should be civil and respectful at Council meetings. At the risk of sounding snarky, however, I must ask: Where has Commissioner Keramati been for the past seven years? I don’t recall him criticizing Ron Kim, past Mayor and now chair of the city’s Democratic Committee, past Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran, and past Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi who vigorously attacked their colleagues and supported the toxic attacks by the BLM people.
Saratoga Springs Politics 
Dave is a loony tune, but no, the council cannot limit the content of speech. It’s the first amendment and the city council chamber is a public forum.
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i am not sure Mr Coll’s opinion on this is entirely accurate.
Example: Is it then interpreted as all fine and dandy if a speaker stood up and , say, shared his sexual experiences of the past week, with names? Or discussed his violent fantasies and animal torture methods? Or adverised his car wash business for 3 minutes? Or talked about parakeets?
i dont think so. While access to that mic can not be denied, certain guardrails CAN be declared by the Mayor acting as the meeting chair (Roberts Rules of Order)
i would think a guard rail of “limit it to city busines affiairs” is allowble.
I would also think that personal attacks vs any person not a council memer +/or a city employee can and should be prohibited
(Keep in mind the Ms Burger is sitting there as an invited guest of the Council and is not a city employee.)
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First, it is crystal clear that the public enjoys broad discretion in publicly criticizing government officials during public comment. Not only is Sarah Burger a government official, she is required by the city charter to attend council meetings. She is not an invited guest.
If you have been watching council meetings you are aware that people use their three allotted minutes for public comment to often speak about things that have little to do with agenda items.
The city does have the right to remove members of the audience if they are disrupting the meeting. What constitutes “disruption” is problematic and there is a great deal of case law that the courts have attempted to clarify this term.
The reality is that the city’s attempts in the past to address civility and to limit the speech of individuals have proved fruitless and frustrating.
There is logic to the successful way Mayor Safford has handled all this. Up until the incident with Buchyn the only limit on speech by people during public comment is that they limit their remarks to three minutes. The mayor vigorously enforces this rule so that it is fair for everyone.
It is not easy to run a meeting these days. As a civil libertarian, this blogger would prefer that the mayor err on the limits of tolerance in the interest of allowing its citizens to address their officials rather than engage in toxic fights with people about the appropriateness of their remarks.
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BK and Jessica (John too), where is the proper place for a citizen to speak about anything they are concerned or upset about? Remember, you work for them, not the other way around. Why do they not have the right to speak about any concern, especially if they feel you or any elected official of Saratoga Spring has attacked them or if they have a reason to believe they are not doing their job well? If they are not able to speak in public is the answer to keep it quiet by limiting it to an e-mail that will not be made public without a FOIL which opens another can of worms.
Thank you, Tim Cole for clarifying (or attempting to clarify) the need for the right to speak – not the same as the “right to send an e-mail” that can easily be discounted rather than attended to. As elected officials, the reality is that you will get negative feedback. Insisting it is put in an e-mail is akin to trying to hide from that reality.
I don’t always agree with Dave Buchin, yet he has a right to speak and he has some valid points in what he was saying and was not allowed to complete. Smear and shaming campaigns seemed to be a big part of this last election with Ms. Burger taking the lead despite her own glaring shortcomes. Rather, I truly believe (and yes, for transparency I was on the campaign committee that she targeted) the mayoral election was significantly impacted by the smear campaign she coordinated with Mike Brandi, Chairman of the Republican Committee. Sadly, no one on the Republican Committee (including John Safford) had a guts or integrity to stand up to him when he spread clear lies and innuendos that could not be substantiated. They, together, clearly set out to smear and shame a candidate who had served the city well for many years. I am not clear on what Brandi’s motive was. It became clear that Burger’s was personal and retaliatory, extremely unbecoming and unethical as for someone running to support her city (as opposed to herself and her own fragile ego). Buchin seems to have some good reasons to question her qualifications to serve.
A citizen is not “picking on” a council member when he chooses to speak his mind. It’s part of the job to listen not jump in to protect. Any council member unable to manage this should likely consider their egos ability to serve.
This is unfortunately a serious problem nationally with where any criticism (no matter how presented) is seen as an attack and speaking one’s mind comes with condemnation and consequences. I’m really sorry to see this happening in a town I once served and continue to love.
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