The city’s code enforcement officer contacted one James Collins who was identified as the source of the electronic signs supporting Safford and Wirth positioned over the week end at three entrances to the city.  Mr. Collins is associated with one of the many subsidiary companies of D. A. Collins.  Robert Manz who is the head of D.A. Collins chairs Saratoga PAC.  Mr. Collins agreed to remove the signs which he did.  Kind of an undramatic end to the story but this blog tells it like it is.

Sonny Bonacio  responded to my email shortly after I sent it but asked me not to post it.  He indicated that he would welcome answering questions from concerned neighbors if they contact him.  You can find a link to his email address at his construction website.

There is quite an organizing drive going on in the neighborhoods that will be impacted by his proposal for Moore Hall and I will be writing about the growing conflict in subsequent posts.

Link to SB’s email address

From Today’s Saratogian

Safford’s campaign ads ruled unfair

by CHARLIE KRAEBEL and JENNIE GREY

SARATOGA SPRINGS >> Republican mayoral candidate John Safford was found guilty Nov. 2 of violating fair campaign practices over a mailer and a television ad criticizing incumbent Mayor Joanne Yepsen for taking political action committee (PAC) cash.

“On this day before Election Day, we have received a very decisive ruling on the unfair campaign practices of my opponent,” said Yepsen at a Nov. 2 press conference about the ruling. “His TV commercial has been spewing nothing but lies and falsehoods. The general hostility of these ads also led us to make a rebuttal video available online, as well as seek a ruling from the Fair Campaign Practices (FCP) for the Capital Region. The FCP is there to educate the public.”

The FCP was initiated in Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady counties in 2001 for the purpose of educating the public about misleading and unfair campaign practices.

A pool of 32 individuals from the four-county region is selected to hear complaints. These community representatives serve on hearing panels that determine the validity of complaints. To ensure a balanced, fair process for all sides, the local chairs of all the recognized political parties, or their designees, automatically become ex officio members of the FCP Hearing Panel and attend hearings.

FCP Chairman Rev. Dr. Maurice Drown said the organization reached its decision after receiving a formal complaint from the Democratic mayor earlier in the day.

But Bijoy Datta, a spokesman for Safford’s campaign, said he spoke to the FCP Monday afternoon and claimed the organization made its initial determination without seeing the ads in question.

“Yepsen’s campaign provided them only with excerpts that specifically excluded the source citations and explanations that were clearly on the advertising,” Datta said. “It’s the irony of ironies — she misled them in her complaint about our allegedly misleading advertising.”

Safford said, “We first brought out these numbers during the candidate forum, and we dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s.”

However, Yepsen campaign manager Will Sharry provided the Saratogian with a copy of the mayor’s complaint to the FCP, which had two images of the mailer in question attached.

In an email, Drown confirmed the committee’s original ruling.

“Following contact from the Safford campaign, during which I was told that today’s communication was the first they had received, I said we would review our notes and findings,” he wrote. “I also gave them the email address to which prior communications had been sent. Shortly thereafter, I received a call back with the message that they had found the prior communications, but that they still contested our conclusions. If there had been a failure to communicate on our part, that would have been fatal to our findings. However, our review led to reaffirmation of our previous findings.”

The FCP board stated it reviewed all the information and found Safford’s materials to be “egregious misrepresentations of facts, and Candidate Safford guilty of unfair campaign practices.”

In her complaint, Yepsen said Safford, who is the endorsed candidate of the Saratoga PAC, sent a mail piece and aired an ad accusing Yepsen of receiving more than $247,190 in campaign cash. The mailer reads, “Joanne Yepsen took in $247,190 in campaign cash from PACs, political committees and hidden donors.”

Yepsen’s complaint states the ads violated a fair campaign practices principle that tells candidates to not use any material or ad that misrepresents, distorts or otherwise falsifies a face or the facts regarding the candidate or opponent.

Yepsen said Safford was using campaign finance reports dating back to 2005 and for different offices, and was leading voters to believe she accepted this money during this election cycle. Yepsen acknowledged taking $47,300 from PACs, which included contributions when she ran for county supervisor and for the state senate.

Safford’s mailer does note that the total amount of cash dates back to 2005, and it breaks down the figures by donor category. But since the front of the mailer reads, “How much PAC money did Joanne Yepsen take?” — with a dollar sign in place of the S in “Yepsen” — the focus of the piece is clearly on the alleged PAC connection.

Back at the Oct. 27 League of Women Voters of Saratoga County candidate forum, Safford responded to a question about his opinion of the Saratoga PAC.

He said then, “I support the PAC’s point of view and am pleased with the citywide survey it conducted. But the committee hasn’t given me a penny — just the endorsement.”

In her complaint, the mayor also took aim at Safford’s claim that she received nearly $57,000 in “hidden cash” because state Board of Elections law does not require donors who contribute less than $100 to be identified.

“I am proud of our grassroots campaign,” Yepsen said. “We have hundreds of volunteers and 500 contributors.”

Safford said one main issue he and his supporters have with Yepsen is that she accepts money from union donors and then negotiates their contracts as mayor.

“PACs have a negative connotation,” Yepsen said at the press conference. “Many people really don’t like PAC money.”

She said she is proud to accept donations from the committees and groups that have supported her, which include Saratoga Springs Firefighters, New York League of Conservation Voters, Empire State Pride Agenda, Eleanor Roosevelt Legacy Committee, CSEA, Saratoga County Labor Council, Communications Workers of America, Sheet Metal Workers Local 83, Northeast Carpenters and SEIU 1199.

Yepsen said she was proud of her own positive and truthful campaign for a second term as mayor.

“I am running on the issues and my record,” she said. “I’m the people’s mayor. I have gotten a lot of great positive responses from the voters. People don’t like negative advertising.”

Safford said, “I feel like American Pharaoh fighting down the rail. This is a real horse race.”

I sent the following email to Sonny Bonacio concerning his proposed “repurposing” of Moore Hall (The Pink Palace)

Dear Mr. Bonacio:

When you held a meeting in early September to present to the neighborhood your proposal to redevelop Moore Hall there was an impressive turn out.   This was a reflection of the strong sense of community and mutual support that marks the people who live in the vicinity of Moore Hall.  As you may recall, you received a very open and thoughtful response from the people of this neighborhood.  While people were concerned about the potential negative impact that the proposed project might have, it was a sign of the respect and trust that your work here in the city has engendered that they were so open to your plan.

Now, several months later, many of us are at a loss to reconcile the Sonny Bonacio that we thought we were dealing with and the individual promoting this gravely flawed project.

A brief review is in order.

In 2006 Richard Higgins approached our neighborhood with his ambitious plan to raze Moore Hall and replace it with high end condominiums.  This is not a NIMBY neighborhood.  The neighborhood truly embraced Mr. Higgins’ plan as it would take down an ugly building that was sitting idle and replace it with a handsomely designed set of structures.  Most importantly, the plan was to strictly adhere to the zoning requirements in terms of density of units and  parking so it would fit in with the neighborhood.  As you know, Mr. Higgins was successful at getting the zoning changed from Educational/Institutional to UR4 based on the plans he presented.

When the market tumbled in 2007 we all understood that the project could not go forward at that time.  All of us believed that Mr. Higgins pursuit of his project and the zoning change had been done done in good faith.

The people of this community had no idea that this turn of events would be legally exploited down the road.

As you know when the zoning was changed, Moore Hall became a non-comforming structure.

It is important to put the concept of “non-conforming” parcels into context.  The purpose of this designation was to protect citizens who already owned property when the zoning for their area was changed.  A classic example is what happened out at Saratoga Lake.  For years people had built rough “camps” out there meant for the summer season.  As the city matured there was a need to establish stronger standards and zoning laws.  When these were established in the district where these camps were, it was viewed as unfair to require these parcels to meet a new and higher standard.  People had legally built these places originally and to bring these “camps” up to code would have been a terrible burden for many.  This is where non-conforming came in.  The city deemed these camps as officially non-conforming which allowed the people to keep the camps as they were.  Only if they chose to change the footprint of these properties were they required to come up to code.

The people of Saratoga Springs granted Mr. Higgins his new zoning assuming that he would rebuild the property to meet the new zoning of Urban Residential 4.  No one ever expected that this would be used as a loophole to get around our city’s standards.  What is contemplated here is that by not changing the footprint, your company can circumvent some very serious and important standards.  In effect, we have had a bait and switch.

Nowhere is this issue clearer than in the issue of parking.  Our city’s code for parking lot design is not some arbitrary, bureaucratic hoop.  It is based on the need to make sure that parking lots are safe and practical.  The issues of minimum parking spaces, turning ratios, and proper ingress and egress to the street are based on our community’s concern that builders do not try to cut corners at the expense of safety and usability.  Your company claims there are fifty-four parking spaces in the existing lots as part of your proposal.  Putting aside the need to provide handicapped parking spaces, these spaces would utterly violate the city’s normal regulations.

There is also the issue of density.  UR4 would limit this development to fifteen units.  Your plan calls for putting in fifty-three units.  This is a stunning number.  It is one thing to ask for some kind of bonus but to ask to be allowed to almost quadruple the number of units from the normal zoning especially in a residential neighborhood is simply jaw dropping.

I know that you are pitching these apartments as “affordable” housing.  I ran the numbers comparing what you are offering at Moore Hall with what you currently rent at Market Center Apartments At Railroad Place.  Since the small, bunker like apartments you are proposing are only seven and a half feet high, I compared them with your other apartments based on cubic feet.  The comparison is quite informative.  You will be charging significantly more for the tiny apartments per cubic feet than you do at Market Center.  In addition the Market Center apartments have balconies, reserved parking, washer/dryers, and a fitness center.  There are many who would be disturbed at the apparent cynicism of this.

Finally, there is the request for a variance to reduce the required on-site parking spaces from 1.5 per unit to one per unit.  This is a reduction of one third.  As you know the neighbors pointed out a number of serious deficiencies in your parking study.

1. The idea that young professionals are not interested in cars begs credibility.  This is not Brooklyn.  While people may work downtown, the limited public transportation and the distances required to travel in the Capital District make owning a car critical.
2. People in the neighborhood commonly use the old Moore Hall parking lot now to park their cars.  Your engineer admitted to me that he saw those cars in the parking lot but when he counted the available spaces on the street, he did not factor in that those cars would need street parking.
3. The engineer’s study was done in September after the racing season was over.  It is not unusual during July, August, and early September to have every space taken from one end of White Street to the other and all along Union Avenue.   Putting aside the competition between existing residents on the street and your proposed tenants, the potential problem for your tenants to find proper parking during the summer will be quite severe.  Designing a parking plan that mimics musical chairs does not seem like a quality design.

The people in our neighborhood are reasonable and caring.  They are more than open to working with you on trying to address these problems and to suffer some inconvenience within reason.   What people find so surprising and so disturbing is that you appear unwilling to truly engage with the community to explore how to find a fair solution.  Instead it appears that your attorneys are exploiting a loophole in the zoning laws to force a very unpopular and unfair project on our community.

It is the hope of many people that you will live up to your reputation.  Surely this project is not worth squandering the good will and trust that you have built up during these last years.

John Safford sent the following response to my query of him over the sign violations:

“HI John,

I just posted this to my Facebook page.

I have been receiving calls from media asking my opinion on the electronic signs that have appeared along the main streets of the city. I have responded that I have no idea who put them up and, frankly, have been flattered that someone thought well enough of my candidacy to support it in such a creative way. However, it has come to my attention that they might be in violation of some city ordinances and if they are, think that they should be removed.”

I have mentioned in previous posts that I like John and he is more forthright than most candidates.  This attempt at wit seems particularly misplaced for someone who wants to be the mayor of this city.  His coy suggestion that he does not know who is putting these signs up and his passive response to doing something about it belies his effort to portray himself as a straight and principled shooter.  I would have expected him, based on my past interactions, to have said he would act with all speed to see that they are removed.

This sign is on Washington Street beyond the post office.

This sign on behalf of Safford and Wirth is being used in a residential zone where the maximum size of a political sign is 4 sq. ft.  This is considerably larger.  it has been positioned very close to the traffic lane on outer Washington St. and is in the City right-of-way.

This sign is just off the arterial where you make the turn north on 9

This sign is located on Route 50/9 and is much larger that the 16 sq. ft. that would be allowed in a commercial zone.

This sign is on South Broadway where the Country Gentleman used to be

This sign is located on Route 50/9 and is much larger that the 16 sq. ft. that would be allowed in a commercial zone.

John Safford

I sent an email to John Safford pointing out that the signs violated the city sign ordinances and asking him whether he was responsible for these signs.  I did not hear from him.  I went up on his Facebook page to post the same question and to make sure I had reached him.  When I did I discovered that Chris Mathiesen had already posted there telling him that the signs were illegal.

RIck Wirth

I emailed Rick Wirth advising him that the signs were in violation of the city’s sign ordinances and asking him whether he was responsible for the signs.  He emailed me back within five minutes the following:

“John,   The answer to your question is “no”. The signs that my campaign have are the Lawn signs that you see. The white, red &  blue signs.”

I promptly emailed him back:

“Thanks for getting back to me so promptly.  Do you know who put these signs up?  If it was the PAC, will you ask them to remove them?”

He emailed me back:

“I have no knowledge of what you are referring to”

I then emailed him back with the particulars of where the signs were and what they said.  He responded as follows:

“I can’t ask someone to remove a sign because I have no knowledge of who put up a sign & I can’t make assumptions. The only signs that I have knowledge to date are the lawn signs that were similar to mine in the last election that you had erected on your property.”

Mr. Wirth is running to become the Commissioner of Public Safety.  One would think that he would be quite concerned that someone is violating the laws of this city on his behalf.  Maybe he thinks that he will benefit from this as further proof of the current crime wave in the city.

This weekend, we have electronic billboards supporting the election of Rick Wirth and John Safford positioned on three entrances to the City.  These billboards are being used as political signs.  The Sign Ordinance restricts political signs to 4 sq. ft. in residential zones and 16 sq. ft. in commercial zones.  The electronic billboards are at least 50 sq. ft. in size.
Sign Ordinances?  Those are for little people.  Put them up this close to the election and by the time they are forced to take them down the election is over.

I received an email from Charlie Brown, chair of the city Democratic Party saying:

“The Saratoga PAC, and it’s Republican endorsed candidates, have been conducting the most negative campaign [Brown’s emphasis] that Saratoga Springs has ever experienced.”

He then directs you to a video in which supporters of Joanne Yepsen repeat over and over that her opponent lies and will do anything to win.  Yepsen Campaign Ad

Those of us who lived through the decades of utter Republican dominance  in this city, and in particular the odious chairmanship of John Roohan, have a different perspective.  As just one example, when the late Betsy Davis courageously ran for Supervisor the Republicans sent out a crude cartoon of her throwing dollar bills at people on welfare.

I think it is quite clear from this blog that I am no supporter of John Safford but he has nevertheless run one of the more “transparent” campaigns I have seen in this city.  He has publically embraced the PAC.  He has made clear his unambiguous support for Saratoga National Golf Course’s expansion plans.  He has publically characterized the greenbelt as an obstacle to growth.  He has made crystal clear his opposition to the goals and efforts of Sustainable Saratoga.  He has engaged this blog in candid statements about his thinking on important public issues.

There is a bitter irony that Ms. Yepsen’s video reproduces the very qualities that it condemns.  The nameless persons allege that the recent Safford mailing “contains false claims.”  It then repeats over and over that “her opponent” lies.  It alleges that her campaign is financed by small donors.  Ms. Yepsen then accuses “her opponent” of saying or doing anything to win.

First, the mailing that is referred to presents Mayor Yepsen as having raised $247,190.00 from PACs in large bold letters.  In smaller but quite readable text it notes that the donations covered the period since 2005.  It references the records of the New York State Board of Elections as the source. Now it would be fair to say that this ad distorts the record but to characterize it as lies is itself a lie. Ms. Yepsen also claims in the ads that her campaign donations came from small donors as compared to Mr. Safford’s. In fact, in an earlier post representing the existing data, I found that of the declared donations of $44,500.00 raised by Ms. Yepsen, $33,500.00 came from donations of $250.00 or more and $29,950.00 came from donations of $500.00 or more.  That is respectively seventy-five percent of her donations and  sixty-six percent of her donations.  Personally, given the finances of most people I think $250.00 is a pretty significant donation let alone $500.00 to a $1000.00.

In Yepsen’s previous campaign against Shauna Sutton for Mayor, just before the election, a mailing was done that accused Sutton of receiving many thousands of dollars for her role as trustee of the Greenridge Cemetary.   Unlike the Safford advertisement about Yepsen’s donations, this ad failed to acknowledge that the income was over many years.  The League of Women Voters actually reviewed the ad and found it violated fair campaign standards.  At the time Ms. Yepsen blamed the County Democratic Party that paid for the advertisement. The idea that the County Democratic chair would have done something like this without her knowledge and involvement begs credibility.

I think it would be unfortunate if Mr. Safford were to win because I think he would extend Scott Johnson’s policy of stacking our land use boards with representatives of the real estate and construction industry.  It is the height of hypocrisy, however, to be blind to the kind of dubious campaign practices that Ms. Yepsen’s recent video represents.

In an article in the October 29 addition of the Gazette Newspaper Joanne Yepsen repeated the talking points propagated by Saratoga National Golf Course.  She told the Gazette Newspaper that the current zoning would allow the 400 acre golf course to be subdivided into two acre lots were the golf course to fail.  “I’m an open space person,” she told the newspaper.  “It’s very important to me not to have any kind of sprawl at Exit 14.”

Mayor Yepsen has been to enough meetings to know that this is not only an inaccurate characterization of the zoning requirements out there, but that it represents the scare tactics that SNGC has promoted continually.  The zoning for that area is highly restrictive.  It would preclude simply dividing the land currently used by the golf course into two acre lots.  All wetlands, steeply sloped land, and other types of sensitive land not only cannot be built on but must be excluded when calculating how many units can be built.  Following the exclusion of all that land, only fifty percent of the land that remains can be built on and the units must be clustered.   The process of determining all of this is called a conservation assessment.  No assessment has been done yet.  Bear in mind that the golf course includes water, wetlands, and some significant slopes.  These types of land would be excluded from the calculations even before reducing what is left by fifty percent.

Mayor Yepsen has also successfully avoided addressing other aspects of SNGC’s plans.  There is the issue of the intensive commercial activities that the “resort” will bring with its large hotel and proposed retail.  In addition there is the history of the players in this who have ruthlessly pushed the bounds of everything they do as noted in previous blogs. In the Gazette article Yepsen cynically exploits the fear of sprawl to divert the discussion from the damages that the proposed resort would inflict on the conservation district. Who would have thought that a Democrat elected as Mayor of our city would play the role of fixer to violate our greenbelt.

The problem we as voters face is that John Safford views the idea of the conservation district as an actual barrier to growth rather than a cherished asset to protect.  Based on his statements there is little if anything in the way of development that Saratoga National might seek that he would oppose.

As many of you may have already seen, the PAC has gone into gear and their most aggressive mailings so far have been in support of Rick Wirth in his campaign to defeat Commissioner of Public Safety Chris Mathiesen.

The mailings focus on three issues.

The Collamer Building

This involves the sale of the Collamer Building and the purchase of a plot of land on Route 9P.  Earlier this year I published a long piece in which I presented both Commissioner Mathiesen’s version of events along with Tom and Bill McTygue’s version.  I would direct readers back to that piece.  It was posted on August 16.

There are a number of ironies about the mailer.  First, the decision to purchase and sell the properties was supported by all five of sitting Council members.   This was done after a very long process which was fully vetted by all the members of the Council.  The fact that the PAC endorsed Michele Madigan and John Franck who supported the decision speaks to the ethical standards of the PAC as a whole.

It is also worth noting that Larry Novick, who is an executive with Bonacio Construction, acted as a facilitator in the negotiations between the city and Joel Aronson who owned the land the city wanted for the EMS station and who wanted to develop the Collamer Building.  At the time, Aronson was planning to have Bonacio Construction convert the Collamer Building to condos if the project went forward.  Novick, who had been involved with the purchase of the “Lillian’s Lot” from the city used his experience to help develop the plan for the land deals.   Subsequently, Joel Aronson and Sonny Bonacio had some sort of falling out.

Sonny Bonacio played a central role in establishing Saratoga PAC and is one of its most significant contributors.  Again it is rather cynical for him to have aggressively pursued the land transactions and now help fund an attack on Commissioner Mathiesen for the very same project.

The Crime Wave

Saratoga PAC paid for a mailing on behalf of Rick Wirth with a screaming headline “Surrendering Saratoga’s Safety”.  To read this material one would think that the Crips and the Bloods had invaded Saratoga’s neighborhoods.  The crime rate has gone up.  When the  numbers are very low, it does not take much to create a spike.  In fact, according to Police Cheif Greg Veitch, a gang of criminals operating in 2013 caused the numbers to jump before they were apprehended. 

To get a perspective on the crime figures presented by the PAC consider these numbers provided by Veitch:

The absolute numbers can be found at the FBI and DCJS websites.

Crime Rates: per/100,000
All violent crime:
USA- 443.7
NYS- 381.8
SS- 222.3

Robbery:
USA 135.0
NYS 121.8
SS 58.3

Agg Assault:
USA 265.9
NYS 229.4
SS 142.2

The arrest rates are even more important:
Robbery:
USA 29.6%
SS  50%

Agg Assault:
USA 56.3%
SS 92%

“The largest increase in total numbers of violent crimes was for robbery and aggravated assault in 2014.  We not only have fewer crimes per/100,000 than the national or state averages but we make arrests at a much higher rate when those crimes are reported to us.

We arrested 92% of all reported felony assaults in the second degree in 2014.  Only 5 felony assaults were reported in the downtown area and 4 were closed by arrest.” 

Homelessness and Vagrancies

Another PAC mailer displays in bold letters the following quote from Chris Mathiesen regarding the homeless problem in Saratoga Springs: “There’s not a lot the police can do.”  Having run an anti-poverty agency for sixteen years, I can attest to the challenge of working with the homeless.  There are usually significant mental health issues involved.  The fact is that there are important civil rights issues as well that severely limit what can be done to address this issue.  Mr. Wirth was the Commissioner of Public Safety himself for a term and knows this.  This is the kind of political posturing that adds to the cynicism of the public and does not speak well for Mr. Wirth.  It is easy to talk about involving social service agencies in dealing with the homeless and it is entirely another thing to solve the problem.

Lacking EMS Services

Probably the most cynical ploy is the attack on Mathiesen for “Lacking EMS Services” on the east ridge and then attacking him for the cost of defending the city for the purchase of the land that the new EMS station would be located on.  This of course is just an extension of the attack on the Collamer Building

The Saratoga PAC chair Rob Manz has been very clear that the number one priority of the PAC is to change our Comp Plan and zoning ordinances to allow for more development. More specifically their goal is to elect a City Council that will allow Saratoga National Golf Course to expand into even more of a resort than they already are by adding a hotel, retail, and more. Their real problem with Chris Mathiesen is that he has been a consistent and persistent voice on the Council in defense of the greenbelt and in opposition to SNGC’s plans. This means Mathiesen must be replaced by  a more compliant Council member, namely Rick Wirth. Will the PAC succeed in their expensive campaign targeting Chris Mathiesen and create a Council more to their liking?  We will know on Tuesday. Polls are open from 6AM till 9PM.