Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran is introducing amendments to the city’s ordinance on outdoor dining at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting (11/21/23). The amendments further refine Moran’s effort to exercise exclusive authority over outdoor dining.
In its first venture into establishing outdoor dining regulations during the pandemic, the city established a committee that included the City Attorney, the Director of Risk and Safety, a representative of the Fire Department, and a representative of the Department of Public Works to determine all facets of outdoor dining.
When Moran became Accounts Commissioner, he amended the ordinance to reduce the role of this committee to be advisory only. They still were charged with reviewing the applications, but their authority was reduced.
Now Moran has gone further by dissolving the committee. Instead, he will simply send the applications to the Department of Public Works, the Department of Public Safety, and the Building Department for their review.
There are two things worth considering here.
First, my experience with bureaucracy is that simply sending the applications to other departments, as compared to the committee, reduces the potential that there will be actual feedback.
Second, and most troubling, he has eliminated the involvement of the Director of Risk and Safety. It is no secret that Moran did not care for the last director, Marilyn Rivers, because she was a stickler on compliance issues. He knows that there is the potential that the new Mayor will fill that position.
Below are two pictures of restaurants that, during the last summer, routinely and egregiously violated both the city’s regulations on sidewalk access and the American Disability Act’s accessibility requirements. Moran is a fixture of the night scene downtown. He had to have observed these restaurants’ violations. It was only after I submitted a complaint that these two restaurants came into compliance.
Danny Osteria
Solevo
Moran’s changes also remove the requirement that the City Council vote on the final approval of permits for outdoor dining and leaves that authority entirely in Moran’s hands. In addition, Moran has removed the no-smoking requirement in outdoor dining areas and replaced that section with the single word “Reserved”- whatever that means.
The Dicey Issue Of Fee Schedules
I have repeatedly sought information on how Moran arrived at the fees the city charges private businesses for the use of the city’s sidewalks and parking spaces for outdoor dining.
I FOILed the city for any documents that would explain the basis of the tiny fees, which, for all intents and purposes, make the use of the public’s space by restaurants practically free. The FOIL officer responded that a search of the city’s documents failed to find anything related to this.
Moran’s amendment eliminates the annual review of these fees. In the future, they will be “established from time to time.” Apparently, whenever Moran decides to change them.
The City Council Rubber Stamp
Let me be clear that I am not opposed to outdoor dining, and I believe it adds to the attractiveness of our downtown. I do believe, though, that the success of this endeavor requires appropriate and prudent controls. If past experience serves us, the current City Council will approve these changes without serious discussion.
On November November 13, 2023, at 8:30 AM, the Saratoga Springs City Council held a special meeting. The city’s website originally announced this meeting without posting the agenda or the purpose of the meeting. It is unclear when precisely the city posted the agenda, but as far as I can tell, they finally did so on the Saturday before the meeting.
The posted agenda included one item. The item appeared under the Finance Department as “Set Public Hearing: Proposed Amended 2024 Budget.”
I believe the root of the problem was that at the Council’s November 8, 2023, meeting Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi mistakenly agreed to close the public hearing on the city’s budget. This was premature. The budget was still subject to revision as it had not been adopted, so the public should have been able to continue to review and comment on the changes.
This error required that the city convene the special meeting in order to “set” a public hearing for November 28, 2023, the date of the next Council meeting. At the November 13 meeting, Commissioner Minita Sanghvi apologized to the other Council members for her error that necessitated this special meeting.
Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran was heard at the end of the meeting on a hot microphone observing that “Kaufmann will be writing about this.”
First and foremost is the acknowledgment of the high level of interest and thought demonstrated by the voters of Saratoga Springs in this year’s municipal elections.
Consider that Schenectady has a population of 66,000, and 7,000 people voted in that city. Saratoga Springs has a population of 28,000, and 8,443 voted. So, both in absolute terms and in percentages, our city had an impressive turnout. Keep in mind also that there were only three contested offices this year, which usually would mean a low turnout.
The numbers in this blog are based on the unofficial results from the Saratoga County Board of Elections. The vote will not be officially certified until December 2, but little change is anticipated.
Party Fluidity
In this age of heightened partisanship, Saratogians showed they were comfortable looking at candidates regardless of party affiliation. The best example of this is first-time candidate Tim Coll, a registered Democrat who ran on the Republican and bipartisan One Saratoga lines. In spite of what was seen by many as a controversial choice to take the Republican line as a Democrat, Tim ended up carrying 24 of the 25 election districts in the city, losing only in the district that is exclusively Skidmore students. He was the third highest vote-getter overall after Supervisor candidates Matt Veitch and Michele Madigan.
There were also, I would say, an unprecedented number of endorsements crossing party lines. For instance, Tim Coll received endorsements from former Democratic Mayor Meg Kelly and former Republican Mayor A.C. Riley. In the Supervisor race, Democrat Michele Madigan was shunned by the Democrats although she appeared on their line (as well as the One Saratoga line) and was endorsed by former Republican Mayor Scott Johnson, who had often been her nemesis when they served together on the City Council. Michele was the second-highest vote-getter in the city. Coming in with the highest total was Republican Matt Veitch (also on the One Saratoga line), who was surprisingly endorsed by Democrats Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and Pubic Works Commissioner Jason Golub in spite of the fact that two Democrats were running with them on their party’s line. Interestingly the leader of the Democratic Committee Otis Maxwell publicly rejected Montagnino as their candidate the day before the election partly because he had endorsed Republican John Stafford. Go figure.
Saratoga Springs voters were also ready to look beyond the two major party lines to vote. Here are the tallies of votes on third-party lines:
Mathiesen – One Saratoga – 1420 votes
Tim Coll – One Saratoga – 732
Kristen Dart – Community First – 2396
Michele Madigan – One Saratoga – 1157
Gordon Boyd – Working Families Party – 395
Ron Kim – Working Families Party – 203
Matt Veitch – One Saratoga- 831
Kim’s Unpopularity Among Democrats
Gordon Boyd, who, like Kim, ran on both the Democratic line and the Working Families Line, drew more votes than Ron Kim on both.
Boyd – Democratic Line – 3642
Kim – Democratic Line – 2969
Boyd – Working Families Party – 395
Kim – Working Families Party – 203
The One Saratoga Factor
The role that One Saratoga played in this election cannot be overlooked. Formed in 2019 by a group of dissident Democrats who left the Democratic Committee and led by former Democratic Chair Courtney DeLeonardis, this group has endorsed candidates in the past but has never had a ballot line. Their motto is “City before party” and their goal is to support qualified candidates, regardless of party, who they feel will work cooperatively for the good of the city. This year, they successfully collected 1,000 petition signatures to place a bipartisan slate of candidates on the ballot. One Saratoga clearly played a role in the outcome of the election.
The One Saratoga ballot line consisted of Democrat Chris Mathiesen for Mayor, Democrat Tim Coll for Commissioner of Public Safety (who was also running on the Republican line), and Michele Madigan, a Democrat, and Matt Veitch, a Republican, running for the two County Supervisor slots.
Consider the Mayor’s race, where Republican John Safford won with 3,752 votes to Kim’s 3,172, with Democrat Chris Mathiesen drawing 1,420 on the One Saratoga line. While it will be difficult to determine exactly how many who voted for Chris on the One Saratoga line would have voted for Kim if Chris had not had that line, many will certainly legitimately speculate this line made a difference in this race.
The role One Saratoga played in the Supervisor race is undeniable, however. Three candidates ran for the two Supervisor slots this year. The top two vote-getters win. Republican Matt Veitch was the clear front-runner, with a total of 4,871 votes. Democrat Gordon Boyd clearly would have beaten Democrat Michele Madigan with his total of 4,037 votes had Michelle not been able to add 1,157 One Saratoga votes to the 3,307 she garnered on the Democratic line.
I think it’s interesting to remember that the three Democrats who ran on the One Saratoga line all asked the Democratic Committee to consider them for endorsement. The Democratic leadership, in violation of their own by-laws, did not even allow them to address the full committee after being rejected by the nominating committee. Two of these candidates-Tim Coll and Michele Madigan- went on to be top vote-getters in this election, defeating the Democrats on the party’s line; and Chris, many will feel, played an important role in defeating the Democratic candidate for Mayor.
The Daily Gazette’s Problematic Reliance on an “Expert”
In the November 9, 2023, Daily Gazette, reporter Shenandoah Briere had a story attempting to analyze the results of the election. None of the factors discussed above were mentioned.
The poverty of the story is the logical outcome of the shallow coverage of city politics by the Gazette over the last two years.
The fact that she would choose Bob Turner as her expert to explain the election outcome in Saratoga Springs regrettably demonstrates how little she knows about the history of city politics and its players.
Turner is on the faculty of Skidmore College and chaired the ill-fated charter change committee in 2017.
Had she done a simple search of this blog for the word “Turner,” she would have found numerous examples of Mr. Turner’s fluid approach to facts and accuracy. Let’s take just one example.
During the 2019 campaign to adopt a new city charter, an anonymous site on the web popped up called “Common Sense Saratoga.” It was the focus of numerous complaints for its opacity. Zuzia Kwasniewski asked Bob Turner on the Saratoga Unites Facebook page if he was behind the anonymous website, and he disavowed any involvement.
Subsequent to Ms. Kwasniewski’s question and following numerous criticisms of the site, the site posted four names as its “founders.” Bob Turner was one of the four.
In the October 31 edition of the Gazette, Ms. Briere provided Turner with a platform to opine about city politics. In that article, he claimed that he was entirely non-partisan. Mike Brandi, chair of the city Republican Party, advised Ms. Briere that Turner had donated to the local Democratic Party. He provided her screenshots from the New York State Board of Election documenting the amount and date of his donation. In her article, she wrote that she questioned Turner about the donation.
When presented with this information in a phone interview, Turner said, “I don’t know where that came from. I never gave them money.”
Daily Gazette November 7, 2023
More recently, in a podcast made just prior to the election, Miles Reed, the news editor of the Daily Gazette, also chose to interview Turner. During the interview, Turner told Reed that Brandi had apologized to him for his criticism in the Briere story regarding his donation.
I found this hard to believe, so I contacted Brandi, who was quite amused. He told me it was Turner who apologized to him, and he sent me an email from Turner that documented this. Turner wrote the following:
“I also owe you an apology. It turns out I did contribute to the local party.
Dr. Bob Turner email November 6, 2023
As Turner appears to be the expert the Daily Gazette relies on for its coverage of local politics, it comes as no surprise that their post-election assessment is simplistic to the extreme.
The Gazette’s Myopic View of the Election
The Gazette article chose to reduce the last election to a one-on-one conflict between Mayor Ron Kim and Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino. The headline of the front page story reads: “‘Mutual destruction’: Kim, Montagnino tension led to re-election losses for both.”
First, while the animosity between Kim and Montagnino was very real, it ignores that the conflict was not limited to these two. In fact, Finance Commissioner Sanghvi and Accounts Commissioner Moran were active allies with Kim. Both intemperately attacked Montagnino at the Council table, calling him a racist and a misogynist. This was not just a one-on-one conflict but more four-to-one.
Ms Briere’s story that the source of public dissatisfaction was the conflict between Kim and Montagnino misses what most of the public saw. She and Turner seem strangely removed from the madness beyond focusing on these two men.
Central to this is the failure of Sanghvi, Moran, and Public Works Commissioner Golub to insist that Kim use his chairmanship to insist on civility. The poisonous behavior at the table was a group project. All four of them were central enablers in allowing BLM to turn our Council meetings into a cesspool of ugly invective.
For those of you willing to endure this stuff again, this video documents both the extreme level of madness and the passivity of Kim and his allies.
Turner tries to dismiss the dysfunction of this Council by pointing to prior Councils’ conflicts. While other Councils, particularly under Val Keehn, were also often contentious, Bob Turner’s statement that he thinks by comparison, “Today’s city council seems unbelievably tame,” is mind-boggling. Just for a start, prior Councils, no matter what the conflicts, always got the city’s business done. This Council has the dubious distinction of being the only Council in the city’s history as far as I know that twice had to abandon a City Council meeting without finishing its agenda. In fact at one meeting Council members had to huddle at the end of the Council table to pass the consent agenda so city employees could get paid before they quickly left the room. Both times Mayor Kim was unable or unwilling to control the Black Lives Matter activists who disrupted the meeting. And in the almost 50 years I have been observing and attending Council meetings I don’t remember anyone ever saying until now that they were afraid to bring their child to one of these meetings.
Turner’s Other Incorrect Statements
Turner also offered other observations that are demonstrably incorrect.
For instance, while it is true that John Safford hoped to capitalize on the split among Democrats between Kim and Mathiesen, Turner’s assertion in the Gazette article that “…this was John Safford’s explicit stated strategy of trying to get two Democrats running, one on this One Saratoga line to split the Democratic vote and enable the Republican to win” is simply absurd. Safford played no role in either man’s decision to run. This is so obvious that it is rather stunning that Ms. Briere would repeat this.
Turner also misrepresents the purpose and goals of the Coll and Mathiesen campaigns. Take the characterization as to why Chris Mathiesen ran for mayor. The primary reason attributed to him by the article was supposedly his “dislike of how Kim and the City Council spoke about his handling of the controversial Darryl Mount case…” It does acknowledge, “…he also ran over the handling of behavior at City Council meetings over the past several months” but ignores the other issues Mathiesen raised, such as earlier bar closing times.
Likewise, Turner calls Coll’s campaign “sort of ambiguous,” ignoring the specific proposals Coll put forth during the campaign to address homelessness, panhandling, bar closings, short-term rentals, etc.
This Election Was About The Failure Of This Council To Properly Manage This City
As much as the political pundits would like to spin this election as a clash of personalities, the issues went much deeper. This election was about the public’s rejection of how this city has been governed in the last two years.
The vast majority of accomplishments the current members of this Council take credit for were simply completing the initiatives of the previous Council who they continually complain about, and the list of their missteps is very long. It includes:
The destruction of the city’s successful risk and safety management
The cost of millions of dollars due to the decision of our insurance carrier not to continue underwriting the city.
The chronic failure to adhere to the requirements of the New York State Open Meetings Law for the provision of FOIL documents.
The failure to properly fund the city’s civil service commission.
The chronic failure of the information technology office to reliably record and post city meetings.
The multiple suits over a toxic work environment.
The inappropriate interference by the Public Safety Commissioner in police investigations.
The forced retirement of most of the leadership in the Police Department.
The failure to address the chronic homeless situation (It was Sonny and Julie Bonacio, former Mayor Meg Kelly, and Rise that got a homeless shelter up and running).
The gratuitous conflict between the city and the county District Attorney.
The Real Issue
Kim, Sanghvi, Moran, and Montagnino’s constant campaign to be on television and in the media and to virtue signal rather than do the unglamorous work of efficiently running this city are at the root of why the public rejected the candidates put forward by the local Democratic Party.
The petty conflicts the public has had to watch are the byproduct of these politicians needing drama to get media coverage. Drama begets drama.
According to the city’s website, there will be a special meeting of the Saratoga Springs City Council on Monday, November 13, at 8:30 in the morning. There is no agenda available, and there is no information on the purpose of the meeting.
You would think that scheduling a meeting for 8:30 on a Monday morning after a holiday week end means that something critical has to be done. I understand that Finance Commissioner Sanghvi is leaving to visit India for a month, so that might be a contributing factor.
It would be interesting to know who posted this notice without an agenda and when the Council plans on letting the public know what business will be done at this meeting. So much for the transparency this Council claims they embrace.
As the readers of this blog will have noticed, I have studiously avoided writing about issues that were not local in nature. The focus of this blog has always been on how to make Saratoga Springs a better place. This is something that, in general, has brought together people from all political parties and from a broad spectrum from the left to the right.
I have worked hard and have successfully built a large readership during the last seven years. I know that addressing the events in Israel and Gaza will probably alienate many of the readers of this blog, but I feel impelled to respond to the current crisis.
I am a Jew. I grew up in a non-religious household that nevertheless identified deeply with the Jewish people.
The Holocaust was very much a part of my childhood. I had two cousins that were fraternal twins who endured and survived the experiments of the Nazi Doctor Joseph Mengele. One of my earliest memories (I was probably only three) was being in a large terminal in New York City to greet them when they disembarked from a ship.
My parents were people with the highest ethical standards and the greatest compassion. They supported the civil rights movement. Early on, as patriotic Americans, they supported the war in Vietnam, but they became disillusioned with that ill-fated war and eventually joined those who called for peace.
They would have, were they alive, shared my horror at the events of October 7, 2023, at the deaths of innocent Jewish civilians perpetrated by Hamas. They abhorred violence.
Having said that, they would also share my horror at the assault on Gaza. The images of Gazans attempting to dig out the bodies of children with their bare hands killed by Israeli bombs would have shaken them as they have me.
They would have been appalled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the Israeli people asking them to remember the Amalek. For those of you not familiar with this reference from the Hebrew scriptures, Yahweh (our God) directed the Jewish people to annihilate Amalek and his people.
“From man unto woman, from infant unto suckling, from ox unto sheep, so that the name of Amalek not be mentioned even with reference to an animal by saying ‘This animal belonged to Amalek’.”.
When you consider that 47.3% of the population of Gaza are children, this is a particularly hideous allusion.
The killing of non-combatants and the denial of food and water to the people of Gaza is a form of collective punishment in violation of international law.
The belief that this kind of horrific violence against unarmed Palestinians will bring about some resolution to the conflict that is at the root of this war is madness.
Most people are unaware that Netanyahu is responsible for creating Hamas in an ill-fated strategy to weaken Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. October 7 demonstrated the folly of that delusional stratagem.
What do Netanyahu and his government plan to do with the 2.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza? Will his government somehow drive all these people into the Egyptian desert? Will the Israeli Defense Force occupy Gaza indefinitely? It is hard to understand where all this will lead.
Like so many other military misadventures, this will not end well. It didn’t end well for the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan in spite of massive expenditures and many soldiers’ and civilians’ lives.
I originally studied to be a historian. My reading of history is that this will not end well, not for the Palestinians and not for the Israelis.
As election day nears, Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim and his supporters have doubled down on their false narrative that somehow Travelers Insurance dropped the city’s liability coverage “because of legal exposure from investigations into the previous administration.” This is demonstrably not true, as is proven by the letter Travelers sent to the city on September 14 that clearly stated, “The City of Saratoga Springs’ approach to risk and safety management creates an unacceptable increase in the hazards contemplated for the city. Therefore, we are nonrenewing your policy effective 1/1/24.” Ron Kim is responsible for dismantling the city’s long-respected Risk and Safety program.
Nevertheless, Kim continues to repeat this falsehood in the mailers he is sending to voters, and this is now being amplified on social media by the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee and other Kim supporters.
This is from the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee Website
Under the ironic headline of “Let’s Set the Record Straight,” this Facebook post does the opposite, once again repeating Kim’s lie that the city is “…changing liability insurers because of legal exposure from investigations into the previous administration.”
Aside from the clear evidence in the Traveler’s letter that this had nothing to do with the policy’s cancellation, it is also worth noting that the city’s insurance policy did not even cover the legal costs of the officials who have been targeted in an investigation by the Attorney General. It is strange that Kim is now bizarrely trying to tie Travelers to these legal fees as he has routinely waved a paper around at Council meetings complaining about what the city is having to pay for these legal costs. So, these legal costs were not borne by Travelers and could, therefore, have had no direct impact on their decision.
Also, in this post (which is a repeat of a mailer Kim recently sent out), Harry Bucciferro boldly makes the obviously false claim that, as regards the city’s insurance, “…Ron Kim has put the city in a good position for 2024…”
Given that Travelers Insurance refuses to continue to underwrite the city and the cost of replacing Travelers is expected to cost north of $800,000.00 more a year, this does not appear to be a great position for Saratoga Springs to be in. Not to mention that Kim has no plan to address the concerns of a lack of an adequate Risk and Safety program that was the cause of losing Travelers Insurance coverage in the first place.
Bucciferro also praises Kim for “…having started the process months ago for coverage with municipal insurers in New York while still talking with local insurance brokers.”
Well, it is November, and Kim has yet to announce who the new carrier will be, what kind of coverage they will offer, and at what cost. According to the city’s proposed budget, it is expected that our insurance rate is going to skyrocket. Kim did not even tell the city they had to find a new carrier until the information was leaked only a couple of weeks ago; so much for transparency.
Finally, the post proclaims that “There will be no gap in insurance,” as though anyone has claimed this. The issue is not whether the city will be able to get insurance. The issue is how much it will cost.
Former Dem City Chair and Kim Fan Sarah Burger Amplifies the Disinformation
Below is a screenshot from Sarah Burger’s Facebook page.
Ms. Burger, a past chair of the city’s Democratic Committee and Kim supporter, repeated the Kim post on her Facebook page.
Ms. Burger continues the useless observation that the city will have insurance. Ms. Burger is fully aware that the issue is not whether the city will be insured but what it will cost.
Will the Disinformation Campaign Work?
In spite of the best efforts of Kim and his supporters, Kim cannot get away from the brutal truth that the chaos he created with the city’s Risk and Safety program will cost millions of dollars in additional premiums and deductibles, along with a downgrading of our bond rating.
[JK: I received this article from a reader of this blog drilling down on the origins of the city’s Risk and Safety program that Kim has dismantled.]
2002 Just Called, and They Want Their Risk and Safety Back! Mayor Kim is Moving Saratoga Backwards- all the way to 2002.
New Insurance Lies with the Unlikely Support of Yet Another Campaign Donor.
Mayor Kim’s new Facebook Ad has Harry Bucciferro claiming that “Mayor Kim has put the City in a good position for 2024.”
Ron Kim writes, “There will be no gap in insurance.”
How did the City of Saratoga Springs come up with such a strong Risk and Safety program before Ron Kim single-handedly dismantled it, leaving the city no choice but to find a new insurer?
None other than Harry Bucciferro, who was the City’s Insurance consultant and pioneer of the plan for a dedicated Risk and Safety Manager over two decades ago. Follow along starting with details from the October 12, 2002 City Council Meeting. That’s right, 2002!
City Receives Notice of Non-Renewal from Insurance Carrier
In 2002, Commissioner of Accounts Stephen Towne reported the City received a notice of non-renewal from its insurance carrier. He stated, “The City had not developed serious consideration of the need for a strong risk and safety management program.”That sounds eerily familiar to my 2023 ears. It is further stated in the minutes that it was evident when the city received very few responses to the insurance proposals sought. He surmised that the appointed safety officer, whose duties were combined with his regular job, was obviously not working.
The minutes noted that the City’s insurance costs increased 100% to a combined total of more than 1 million dollars. Towne said, “This was too large a figure for the City Council not to take action.” In what must seem like a foreign concept to the current City Council, instead of just accepting the fate of indefinitely putting this burden on taxpayers, Commissioner Towne decided to take action. Here is what he did over two decades ago. Write that down, Ron Kim. It’s going to be on the test!
Risk Management Advisory Committee- with Harry Bucciferro, The City’s Insurance Consultant
Towne created this committee, which he asserted was “a group of highly qualified and respected individuals from the community” to review and make recommendations to the City Council. Due to the incompetence of this current City Council, it’s hard to remember a time when the City Council sought to save money instead of spending taxpayer money through endless resolutions. Did I miss a resolution that was passed to plant a money tree grove, or is the excessive fund balance the tree that keeps on giving?
Harry Bucciferro Makes Recommendations
After the city’s insurer conducted an evaluation, Mr. Bucciferro said, “The Risk Management Advisory Committee feels strongly that the City Council must take the initiative to establish a Safe City Program that will provide overall management direction and initiative to each City Department.” Recommendation #2 is arguably the most successful component in creating the strong Risk and Safety Program the City was known for and which fostered excellent relationships with City insurers, spurring faith in the City’s commitment to Risk and Safety, resulting in excellent insurance rates the City enjoyed until Ron Kim unleashed a wrecking ball to annihilate the program.
The following are from Mr. Bucciferro as part of the minutes of the October 2002 meeting minutes.
Recommendation #1:
The City Council should adopt a revised safety policy statement that reflects a strong commitment to a Safe City Program.
Recommendation #2:
The City Council authorizes the following positions to implement the Safety Policy and the Safe City Program: City Risk Manager & Human Resources Administrator. He noted that the Charter already provides for the institution of a Human Resources Director, however, the committee felt strongly that there needs to be a Risk Manager to conduct inspections, investigate claims, and report to the Council.
After reviewing the audit by the insurance company and discussing it, the committee recommended creating the position of Risk Manager. The Risk and Safety Manager saved the City sums that could have paid the salary for this position many times over. Bucciferro even chimes in at a later City Council meeting about the money saved as a result of the City Council approving the recommendation to hire a Risk and Safety Manager. This only leaves readers to speculate what hidden mutually beneficial relationship Bucciferro might have with Ron Kim that would cause Bucciferro to go against what he himself had recommended in 2002.
Bucciferro Tells Mayor Klotz there needs to be a separate Risk and Safety Manager Position
Here is where Bucciferro clearly clarifies what the City needs to do. Mayor Kenneth Klotz asked, “If it was the Committee’s recommendation to add the Risk Manager duties to the City of Saratoga Springs Human Resources Director.” Mr. Bucciferro doubles down, telling Mayor Klotz, “No, they would be two separate positions.” There you have it. This position should not be absorbed into other employees’ job duties. It did not work when attempted prior to the 2002 insurance non-renewal letter, and it didn’t work prior to the 2023 insurance non-renewal letter resulting from Ron Kim assigning the tremendous amount of duties of the Risk and Safety Manager to Michael Phillips, the Assistant City Attorney. We could find no evidence of Mr. Phillips’ expert experience in Risk and Safety Management. Mr. Phillips’ linkedin biography contains no reference to certifications related to the highly regulated field of risk and safety.
Bucciferro’s Risk and Safety Management Plan Reviewed 3 Years Later
The proof is in the pudding! What an astonishingly positive impact this program was already having on the City! During the April 19, 2005, City Council meeting, insurance renewal discussions prompted Commissioner Towne to comment on the Risk and Safety Management function that he initiated in 2002. This included the hiring of the City’s first full-time Risk Manager, revitalizing the City’s long-dormant Safety Committee, better utilizing the expertise of the City’s insurance consultant, and developing a proactive partnership with NYMIR.
Towne stated, “The best indicator of the progress being made in this “Safe City” program is from a quantitative perspective.” Check out these results!
The claims are down.
Renewal costs are approximately $100,000 below budget and the results of a lot of hard work.
Towne said, “Thanks should be given to the Risk and Safety Manager, Marilyn Rivers, who has led many effective initiatives.” [JK: In a truly ironic twist, Bucciferro was on the original committee that selected Marilyn Rivers as the city’s Risk and Safety Officer. She was subsequently driven out of office by Kim, who Bucciferro is now campaigning for.]
“As well as to Harry Bucciferro, the City’s Insurance Consultant,and to the City’s Safety Committee.”
Bucciferro said there have been significant improvements in the operation and safety of City Departments because of council action.
Bucciferro said, “They projected a 17 or 18% increase, and there is actually no increase in the proposed policy for the May 2005 through May 2006 policy year.”
Here we are in 2023 with an insurance company sending a non-renewal letter stating that the city’s “Approach to Risk and Safety management creating an unacceptable increase in hazards contemplated for the City.” (Travelers’ letter). With the potential of premiums increasing by a million dollars a year. 21 Years later, Ron Kim has put the City back to where it was in 2002.
Shouldn’t Bucciferro be the first one to advise Kim that a strong program with a dedicated Risk and Safety Manager is what’s best in order to not only maintain insurance but to also get the best insurance rates for the city? Do his nearly $500 in contributions to Kim’s Political campaigns paint a picture of support of Kim over support of the City to which he made even more valuable contributions?
Remember, it’s not about being uninsurable. It’s about creating an environment that will reduce risks and premiums. Saratoga Springs can get insurance, but it will cost millions of dollars more than if there were a strong Risk and Safety Management program. Where are the estimates? Is it time for Kim to use taxpayer money from the huge fund balance “giving tree” to hire Bucciferro to come up with a Risk and Safety Management Plan? Wait, Bucciferro already created a very successful one that Kim destroyed. It’s like going Back to the Future. Come on. Wake up McFly!
Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim recently sent out the following campaign flyer with a section ironically titled “Fact Check Alert!” that contains demonstrably false information:
In this mailer Mayor Kim shamelessly promotes the false narrative that the reason Travelers Insurance canceled the city’s liability insurance was due to expenses the city is incurring because of the Attorney General’s investigation. He has said this repeatedly at a variety of public events, and now he has included this falsehood in his mailer going out to voters in the final days of this election.
This is patently untrue and part of a regrettable pattern of false statements from Kim.
Here is the actual letter from Travelers in which they state that the actual reason they canceled the policy was that “The City of Saratoga Springs’ approach to risk and safety management creates an unacceptable increase in the hazards contemplated for the City.”
Scary Implications
So the obvious question is, does he actually believe what he’s telling voters in this mailer and in public statements he has been making?
The worst possibility is that he does. There is no sign that he has done anything to address Travelers’ actual concern.
Why would any well-run insurance company be willing to underwrite our city with a Mayor so divorced from the truth on such a critical issue? What vulnerabilities is the city subject to because of the breakdown of Risk and Safety?
Last year, the Saratoga Springs Accounts Department made a clerical error that, according to court papers, cost the Saratoga Springs City School District $215,400.00 in tax income. During the contentious discussion at the September 7, 2023, City Council meeting, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran did not dispute that there had been a clerical error in his office, but Mayor Ron Kim questioned the amount which at the time of the meeting was $217,000.00. The central dispute, though, appeared to be the remedy. The city refuses to provide the school district with the lost income.
The issue is arcane, involving the city’s failure to include Quad Graphics on its tax rolls.
I have to admit that I do not fully understand the technical issues surrounding the error. In February, the Daily Gazette reported on it for those who want to explore the details. I have also included the full video of the presentation made to the Council at the bottom of this post, during which Eleanor Mullany, the attorney representing the School District, explains the error that precipitated the conflict.
Commissioner Dillon Moran has refused to support making the school district whole by paying the lost income. Instead, he advised the school district to either:
Resend all the tax bills to the over 20,000.00 taxpayers in the Saratoga Springs City School District which extends beyond the city’s boundaries.
Eat the loss. Moran lectured the Superintendent of the Saratoga Springs School District Mike Patton and Ms. Mullaney that $215,400.00 is a tiny fraction of the total school budget, so they should be able to make some minor cuts and absorb it.
The following is an excerpt from the presentation during which Ms. Mullaney attempts to explain to the Council why sending out twenty thousand revised tax notices would create chaos for the district.
Moran’s tone in responding is problematic. At one point, he accuses Ms. Mullaney of “misrepresenting the conversations we had.” As the excerpt below documents, he tells Mullaney, “We will see you in court.”
It was quite disturbing to observe Moran’s open hostility to the representatives of the school district, who were, in contrast, quite conciliatory.
The insurance carrier that underwrites the Saratoga Springs Fire Department’s vehicles (it may cover more items) has notified the city that due to a failure to pay its bill, the city’s policy will be canceled on November 8, 2023.
I do not know who was responsible for this screw-up, but since the notice was sent to Risk and Safety, one reasonably suspects that the City Assistant Attorney, Michael Phillips, who Mayor KIm has put in charge of Risk and Safety, may be the responsible party.
Saratoga Springs Politics 