On August 13, 2023, people gathered in front of the Saratoga Springs downtown Post Office with, as reported by the Times Union, “messages of tolerance and vociferous support for people of color, the LGBTQ community as well as Muslims, Jews, and other targets of the extreme right.” The rally was prompted by a brief appearance downtown on August 5 by a group who identified themselves as the Proud Boys.
One might ask, who would condemn a peaceful and earnest crowd calling for tolerance?
Oddly, the answer is the local group that identifies itself as Saratoga Black Lives Matter. In a lengthy and densely worded manifesto posted on their facebook page the group states:
“…we feel compelled to speak out against the….counter protest organized by individuals on Sunday.”
[The entire BLM statement appears at the end of this post.]
BLM Objects to Organizer’s Call for Civility
Apparently one of the major objections BLM had to the rally organized by Linda LeTendre, a white woman, was the list of ground rules she announced for the event.
According to the Times Union
“The group Sunday was peaceful and the proceedings began with a list of ground rules read aloud by the organizer, Linda LeTendre. Attendees were not to vandalize, use profanity, make threats of or engage in any physical violence.”
Times Union August 13, 2023
In response, BLM’s Statement called these ground rules “counterproductive andunjust“. They wrote on their facebook page:
“Setting rules for participants to be ‘respectful’ and ‘friendly’ to law enforcement during a protest…is deeply problematic.”
According to BLM Ms. LeTendre’s ground rules constituted “tone policing”. By tone policing they apparently mean, requiring participants to speak civilly to each other and the community and eschewing intemperate foul language and making threats. They wrote:
“Saratoga BLM understands that there is a clear divide between the strategies and goals of Black Liberation organizations versus many white social justice groups, however the language used when organizing this counter-rally was both counterproductive and unjust. Tone policing Black activists dismisses the deeply rooted emotions and righteous anger that arise from generations of systemic racism and oppression. Suppressing the raw and unfiltered expression of these feelings undermines the authenticity of our demands and detracts from the urgency of addressing the very issues we are protesting against.
-BLM Statement, August 17,2023
BLM Objects to Leadership Role of White People in Organizing the Rally
In their statement BLM also objects to the “…centering of white voices and their desires during the counter-protest.” According to the manifesto, attempts by white people to organize against intolerance somehow suppresses those discriminated against in our society.
The BLM post asserts that “…elevating white voices to the front inadvertently creates an environment where privileged perspectives dominate, suppressing the agency and leadership of those who are most effected by the issues at hand.“
And
“It is vital to understand that centering white individuals in social justice movements does not merely reflect an innocent desire for inclusivity, it can result in profound consequences that hinder progress. Instead, the path forward involves actively listening to marginalized voices, amplifying their stories, and supporting their leadership.”
BLM Statement August 17, 2023
While at one point their statement acknowledges that “The struggle we are facing is a great one, which…requires collective action…” they seem to be saying here that actions should only take place under their leadership, that white leadership of any movement or organization for social justice can “hinder progress”. Would this then in their view eliminate a white trans person, a white disabled person, a white Muslim, etc. from leadership positions or does this only apply to white women?
BLM Blames Past Council Members and One Current City Official for Presence of Proud Boys
Without being specific BLM blames former Mayor Meg Kelly, former Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton, and current Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino for the Proud Boys “feeling…..welcome” in Saratoga Springs.
They wrote:
The actions taken by individuals such as Robin Dalton, Meg Kelly, and Jim Montagnino throughout their time in office are in direct connection to neo-nazi organizations feeling as though they are welcome to come into our communities to spread (sic) biggoted messaging.
BLM Statement August 17, 2023
BLM does not describe what specifically these three city officials have done to make the Proud Boys feel welcome nor do they explore why the Proud Boys also “felt welcome” in Waterford and Ballston Spa where they also marched on the same day. According to the press this particular group of Proud Boy belong to a Troy chapter which would seem to make Troy even more welcoming than Saratoga Springs. No sign of BLM calling out any of those city officials, though.
Jane Weihe, my wife and editor, and I want to thank the many readers of this blog for their interest and input.
We started this blog in the summer of 2015. The decline and indeed disappearance of local newspapers lead us to want to create a forum for information about and the discussion of issues in our city, Saratoga Springs. We also were hoping to provide a forum where people of good will could disagree without being subjected to the vitriol that was becoming so common on social media sites.
Traffic was rather slow that first year, and we worried about the relevance and interest in what we were publishing.
Over the years, though, the blog has built up an extensive readership. Our reach was extended when Saratoga Today began hosting our posts on their website as well.
Today, I can report that over the eight years since we first published started to our posts we have enjoyed over 1,000,000 views on our site which does not include all the views on the Saratoga Today site. In fact, most individual posts now generate over 1,500 views between our blog site and Saratoga Today.
Jane and I love Saratoga Springs and have the greatest respect for the men and women who work for our city. We hope to continue to explore and write about our city and engage our readers in thoughtful discussions about local issues.
Thank you all!
Screen Shot From My Blog Site
Pleases note that the views for the “latest” post (931) and the views for the “Most popular post in the past year” (1,900) do not include the views on Saratoga Today. In the case of the “latest” add 606 views from Saratoga Today for a total of 1,537.
When Tina Carton left her position as the Saratoga Springs Administrator of Parks, Open lands, and Historic Preservation, she left a large hole in the city as she did an outstanding job securing and managing grants and shepherding through to completion many programs meant to enhance the quality of life in the city such as the Downtown Connector project.
Regrettably, Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim, to whom this position reports, has cynically abused the Civil Service process to promote his executive assistant, Jeannette Dunn to fill Tina Carton’s position. As far as I can tell from reading her resume, Dunn has minimal qualifications for this position. The only full-time employment Jeannette Dunn has had for more than two years since 2000 was as a self-employed beekeeper.
Worse, Ms. Dunn’s application for the position was a shocking mess. Poorly hand written, her application is peppered with contradictory entries. It was obviously simply thrown together with little concern for accuracy.
The position is one of the most important in the city. Carton secured grants meant to enhance the city’s recreation resources and sustainability.
The grants the city seeks are highly competitive. They require rigorous research and scrupulous crafting. Any errors in grant applications jeopardize their award. The slipshod application submitted by Dunn was so bad it should have eliminated her from consideration. Kim’s selection of Ms. Dunn is an example of cronyism overriding the good of the city.
An Attempt To Dumb Down the Requirements of the Position Right Out of the Gate
The city’s Civil Service position of Administrator of Parks, Open Lands, and Historic Preservation was posted on January 6, 2023. The first meeting of the Civil Service Commission following this announcement was on January 25, 2023, a mere 19 days later. Mayor Kim sent his deputy, Angella Rella, to request that the job requirements be amended.
She requested that the Civil Service Commission amend the work experience requirement from its current master’s degree with four years of full-time employment. Instead, Rella asked that the length of employment be dropped from four years of full employment to just one. She also asked that the language be changed so that the applicant would be eligible if they had acquired enough part time employment over an undetermined amount of time to equal the “equivalency” of the one year of full time employment.
Civil Service Commission Balks At Request
At their January meeting, the Civil Service Commission members pushed back. Rella had argued that the reductions in qualifications she was asking for were necessary because they were not getting responses from qualified applicants to their position posting. Commission members observed that little time had elapsed since the announcement of the vacancy. They were also concerned about the lack of promotion for the position. They observed that in the age of the web, there were many opportunities to reach a larger pool of candidates, and just posting it as a civil service notice was short-sighted.
The Commission did agree to change the requirement from just full-time to full-time equivalency but for four years, not one.
Mayor Kim Personally Pushes the Commission to Reduce Job Requirements
At the following meeting of the Civil Service Commission in February Mayor Kim along with Rella appeared asking again that the four year or now its part time equivalent be reduced to one year or that part time equivalent.
Unfortunately, the audio record of the meeting was so poor that both the reasoning offered by Kim and the response by the members of the Commission can not be heard.
As I understand it, Kim argued that the city was suffering due to the position’s vacancy and asserted the Commission needed to grant the proposed drop in the employment requirements immediately so the position could be filled
Regrettably, this time the Commission agreed to his request.
The Fix Was In
It is disturbingly obvious that Kim wanted to promote his executive assistant to this position. The changes were designed to make Jeanette Dunn eligible.
A Review of Dunn’s Application
There are a number of irregularities in Ms. Dunn’s application for the position of Administrator of Parks, Open lands, and Historic Preservation.
For whatever reason, Dunn uses two different names in the application. In the box where the applicant enters their name, she has put “Jeannette Mungas.” On the other hand, she has signed the application as “Jeannette Dunn (Mungas).”
A little background. Past Mayor Meg Kelly appointed Dunn to the Civil Service Commission a few years ago. She interviewed Dunn, assuming that was her name. Persons appointed to the Civil Service Commission are required to sign an oath. When the document came across Kelly’s desk, it was signed “Jeannette Mungas.” The Mayor asked Dunn to come to her office and asked her what her legal name was. She was told, “Dunn.” The Mayor explained to her that you must use your legal name when you sign an oath. In light of the events, Kelly asked her to resign, which she did. One would have thought that this incident would have sensitized Dunn on the perils of using multiple names. Judging by the application, it didn’t.
In the boxes in which Dunn said she worked for the U.S. State Department, Dunn failed to enter the dates of that employment.
Dunn attached not just one additional resume to the application but two. The application and the two resumes contain numerous examples of conflicting information.
According to the application, she worked part-time for Frog Hollow from August 2018 to July 2022. On the other hand, according to one of the attached resumes she worked from October 2018 to July 2022. On another printed resume, she wrote that she was employed there from 2018 to 2020. So she ascribed three different dates of employment for the same position. This is particularly important because the dates she ascribed in the written application were used to calculate her “equivalent” employment requirement.
In one of her printed resumes, she reported she was employed by Beyond My Battle from 2020 to the present. The hand written application does not include this, and during that time she was employed, among other jobs, as the full time executive assistant to Kim.
In the application, she recorded that she was employed as both the part time office manager and part time chef for The Lilly and The Rose from May 2018 to April 2022. On the other hand, in one of her printed resumes, she states she was employed there as just the office manager from 2021 to the present.
Mungas’/Dunn’s application is included at the end of this post.
Did Dunn Meet The Employment Requirements?
Once the Civil Service Commission determines the requirements for a job it is up to the Civil Service Department to determine if applicants meet these requirements.
The job requirement for this position in part reads: “Graduation from a regionally accredited college or university…and one year of full time paid experience (or its part time paid equivalence) in planning and administrating parks, open lands, or historic preservation programs or environmental conservation or sustainability programs.”
In this case the Civil Service Department determined that Dunn met the work experience requirement for the job based on her self employed work as a bee keeper and on her employment with Frog Hollow.
“Financial advisory & entrepreneurial strategy consulting firm dedicated to helping clients create growth strategies that lead to capital acquisition.”
Frog Hollow home page
There is nothing on their site to suggest anything about the environment or sustainability. Their pitch is that they can help startup and regular companies make money.
Dunn entered the following description of her duties at Frog Hollow:
Worked closely with Lettucegrow, a UK based vertical farm tech company in U.S. manufacturing & operations launch strategy; administered grant applications process for research scientists at the Commonwealth Scientific & industrial research organization in Fields of environmental conservation and biomedical engineering.
Dunn describing her work for Frog Hollow
In the box titled “Hours worked /wk. [week]” she wrote “varied 5-20.”
It appears, according to notes beside this employment entry that Civil Service granted her three years and eleven months of equivalency toward the work experience requirement based on her dates of employment (as stated on her hand written application and in conflict with the two resumes she attached) from August of 2018 to July of 2022. As the company does not routinely work on environmental-related projects, it is hard to ascertain how many equivalent hours she worked on such projects during the almost four years there.
Don’t Blame Civil Service
Corissa Salvo is an outstanding Civil Service Coordinator. She has a wealth of knowledge, she is a good listener, and she is conscientious in her work. Unfortunately, the Civil Service Commission staff is made up of only her and a part-time employee. Ms. Salvo is responsible for, at a minimum, the city, the school system, and the city center.
While I might disagree with her about the relevance of Ms. Dunn’s employment history, the requirements are sufficiently vague such that people of good will can disagree.
The three Commissioners are all dedicated volunteers. Again, while I disagree with the wisdom of reducing the required employment time of four years full time relevant work, it is again an issue in which people of good will can disagree.
In the end once the standards were set and a list of the applicants who were determined to have met those standards compiled it was up to Mayor Kim to determine who was the best candidate to hire from the list.
Ms. Dunn may or may not have technically met the work experience requirements for the job even once Kim was successful in lowering them. What is clear is that her failure alone to craft a proper application for the job should have disqualified her. There were fifteen applications [see an example at the end of this blog]. All, with the exception of Dunn and one other were clearly more qualified than Dunn, but Kim chose Dunn.
A Need For Reform
People may find this shocking but the city’s hiring procedures do not require that the education and employment history of the selected candidate for a job be verified. Civil Service does not have the staff resources to do this. The city relies on an affidavit signed by the applicant affirming the truthfulness of the information they provide.
There are also no requirements that the city do any promotion for the position beyond posting it. The city should require that the process include a written plan as to how best to publicize the job using the web or reaching out to professional associations where appropriate.
The Civil Service Commission lacks the resources to implement these kinds of reforms. Structurally, it should probably be handled by the Human Resources Department. To carry this out, though, would probably require the city to expend additional money for new positions. The cost of this would be offset by the value of finding the right applicant to fill important positions. This City Council has been very liberal in approving new administrative positions in Accounts and Finance and the Mayor’s office of dubious value to the city. This Council would do better to determine where additional employees would make the city function more efficiently and effectively rather than just allocating funds to dubious positions in their fellow Commissioners’ offices.
Damage
The Civil Service system was created over 100 years ago to try to ensure that public employees were hired based on their qualifications for the job, not on their political connections. Mayor Kim in this case has maneuvered the system to allow him to put cronyism over professionalism and choosing the best person to serve the city.
Jeannette Mungas/Dunn’s Application
The following page was attached to the application.
I assume that this was an old resume which for whatever reason, the applicant included without noticing that it conflicted with the application.
The Saratoga Springs City Council proposed an amendment to the city’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) that would set a 1000-foot buffer between a “homeless shelter” and any “Educational Facility – Primary or Secondary.”
The UDO is a comprehensive document setting out policies and procedures for land-use issues. The city’s zoning is codified in the UDO.
The City Council is required to seek an advisory opinion from the Planning Board on any changes to the UDO. In this case, the Planning Board voted four to one to issue an “unfavorable advisory opinion.” In an unusual move, the Council voted to ignore the Planning Board’s advice and adopt the amendment anyway.
The following Are Excerpts From The Planning Board’s Opinion
The Planning Board’s opinion lays out issues that make the current language in the Council’s amendment potentially problematic both in terms of lack of clarity of the language used, potential future conflicts that would create non-conforming parcels of land, and unnecessary rigidity in the language that could make future placement of shelters an issue.
Here is the Planning Board’s advisory decision:
The Pitfalls Of Poorly Crafted Legislation
Converting an idea into legislation is a challenging business. Poorly crafted legislation is a magnet for litigation, especially in land-use issues and ESPECIALLY as regards the siting of a homeless facility.
The Planning Board’s unfavorable opinion was not prompted by opposition to the need for a buffer but by the lack of clarity in the language and by the potential problems with setting a rigid and arbitrary distance.
You would have thought that the Council would have engaged in some thoughtful discussion in response to the Planning Board. This was not the case.
I am told that Mayor Kim never solicited an opinion from the two city attorneys regarding the concerns raised by the Planning Board. This is yet another example of Mayor Kim assuming the role of City Attorney rather than consulting with those he has put in those positions to give him advice.
It is worth noting that Kim was a staunch advocate for locating the homeless shelter at what was the city’s Senior Center which abuts Spa Central Catholic School property. In fact he had a testy exchange with the parents of Spa Catholic students at a meeting during which he vigorously defended the proposed location.
The only acknowledgment of the Planning Board’s concerns was the rambling and incoherent musings of Mayor Kim at the Council table. At one point he actually says “I have no question that the procedures that were put in place to bring this UDO amendment forward were less than ideal for us to move this and make solid law today.”! The other Council members apparently had all tuned out at this point or didn’t care as no one, as usual, spoke up. In many ways, the remarks by Kim are a testament to the poverty of what passes for analysis and thoughtful discussion at the Council table. It is this poorly considered approach to legislation that threatens to impact our city negatively.
Saratoga Black Lives Matter has alleged that the Saratoga Springs Police Department has been responsible for frequent abuse of and violence against people of color in this city. One of their frequent chants in street demonstrations downtown has been, “How do you spell murderers? SSPD!”
According to BLM, the Darryl Mount Case is the most egregious example of misconduct by the SSPD. In this post, I offer a brief update on that case, but I have also taken a deep dive into two other cases often cited by BLM as evidence of police abuse to try to assess the validity of their claims. What follows is documentation I obtained through the Freedom of Information Law pertaining to two cases that occurred in the city in the last couple of years:
The stopping for questioning by the police of a black military personnel after a late-night break-in on Broadway.
The stopping and questioning by the police of BLM activist Alexis Brown and her boyfriend following a BLM demonstration.
The Darryl Mount Case
The Mount family has sued the city, claiming that the police killed their son, Darryl Mount. This case is finally to be tried this fall, and an independent jury will hear the evidence and decide whether the city has any culpability in the matter.
While for the last two years, the New York State Attorney General’s Office has been conducting a review of interactions between the SSPD and BLM, particularly related to a demonstration in July of 2021, none of the police officers who were involved in the Mount incident have been subpoenaed.
The local media have reported that BLM leader Lexis Figuereo has met on several occasions with the Attorney General’s office. According to Figuereo, the AG has been updating him on the progress of her investigation into the interaction of police with BLM protesters. He has never brought up, however, the failure of the AG’s office to investigate the Darryl Mount case.
Figuereo has repeated many times that the police “murdered” Darryl Mount and that he wants Justice for Darryl Mount. One would have expected Figuereo to be outraged at the apparent unwillingness of the AG to pursue an investigation into Mount’s death. It is interesting that rather than publicly criticizing the AG for her inaction or organizing protests to try to pressure her to investigate the Mount case, Figuereo is silent.
The Case of Michael Vaughn
Michael Vaughn was an active-duty army captain visiting family in Saratoga Springs when he was stopped by the police following a late-night home invasion incident on Broadway in 2022. He submitted a complaint about being stopped.
The call to 911
On May 6, 2022, just before midnight, the police received a 911 call from a woman living on Broadway that a man had attempted to enter her apartment through a window. Here is the recording of that call (it has been slightly edited to protect the identity of the victim).
According to police records, the call was received at 11:57 PM. As the shift change for the police is midnight, the four-to-twelve shift was returning to the police station when they were directed to deploy in the downtown area looking for the suspect.
As indicated in the call, the victim gave sometimes contradictory descriptions of the intruder, which is not unusual for first-hand accounts.
The police encountered Captain Vaughn on Maple Avenue just after midnight. Captain Vaughn met some of the characteristics described by the caller.
The Body Cams
The following are two body cams from the officers responding to and questioning Captain Vaughn. A plainclothes detective, who is not required to wear a body cam, had already engaged Captain Vaughn 20 seconds before the officers wearing body cam arrived. Captain Vaughn is questioned for about 5 minutes.
Captain Vaughn submitted a complaint to the police department about the incident. Lt. Laura Emanation was tasked with reviewing his complaint. Following is the audio file of her phone conversation with Captain Vaughn regarding her investigation of the incident. While it is 35 minutes long, I urge readers to listen to the entire recording where Captain Vaughn lays out his concerns, and Lt. Emanation responds by explaining the police procedures that were followed minute by minute. Among other things, she asks Captain Vaughn if he thought the police could have done anything differently that they didn’t do that night. He replies, “Catching the guy who did it before approaching me.”
Alexis Brown Stop
Following one of the BLM downtown demonstrations in 2021, the police stopped Ms. Brown and her boyfriend, who were returning home from the downtown action.
Ms. Brown’s friend had been reported to have placed a bag of some sort in their car, and the police were dispatched to check the bag.
Ms. Brown has repeatedly denounced the police for this stop. She described the experience as traumatic but did not file a complaint.
Body Cam Footage Of Brown Stop
Some Thoughts
As a person committed to social change, I believe that it is important to criticize and insist on change where government fails in its responsibilities, but it is just as important to praise and support those we see as performing in a manner we want to continue.
The central question is whether it is fair to associate the actions of our police with the excesses that we frequently see on national television occurring in other cities. Are the gratuitous acts of excessive force and belligerence against people of color graphically dramatized on the evening news regularly replicated here in Saratoga Springs?
This city is fortunate to have had many outstanding police officers who have performed in a way that we should admire and support. I would also add that some of our best people on the force have retired prematurely due to the abuse of authority by our current Public Safety Commissioner, James Montagnino. We should not confuse his unfortunate behavior with the men and women who serve under him.
In my opinion, the officers in these incidents showed professional restraint and courtesy in their interactions with the individuals they stopped. I leave it to the readers of this blog to assess for themselves whether these incidents support the BLM claims.
Both Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim and former Mayor Joanne Yepsen have a history of violating the city’s ethics code. Yepsen’s involvement in Kim’s nomination for Mayor by the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee is yet another chapter in that unfortunate history.
Some History
Both Ron Kim and Joanne Yepsen were cited by the city’s Ethics Board for their failure to adhere to the city’s ethics requirements. In the case of Joanne Yepsen, she was found to have solicited business from Saratoga Hospital while she was Mayor and while the hospital had business before her. In the case of Ron Kim, he inappropriately put links to his campaign website on the city’s website.
One would have hoped that these findings would have educated Kim and Yepsen regarding the need for greater care regarding ethics. Apparently, it had no effect.
What Don’t They Get About Conflicts of Interest?
According to Kim’s reporting to the New York State Board of Elections, he paid invoices to Joanne Yepsen’s firm, Yepsen and Pikulski, on September 13, 2022, November 7, 2022, March 11, 2023, and June 5, 2023. The total for this period was $6,600.00. Kim had previously paid Yepsen $5,531.44 during his campaign for Mayor in 2021. Yepsen and Pikulski’s website promotes them as offering “Public Affairs Services” which include “Mission Based Marketing, Fundraising, Government Relations, Media Strategy,” and something called “Issues Management.”
On February 7, 2023, as a member of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee’s nominating committee, Joanne Yepsen interviewed Kim and Chris Mathiesen who were both seeking the committee’s endorsement as candidates for Mayor of Saratoga Springs. The nominating committee recommended Ron Kim be endorsed by the full Committee which it went on to do.
It is also worth remembering that the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee refused to allow Democrats Chris Mathiesen, Tim Coll, and Michele Madigan to address the full committee before voting on the nominating committee’s endorsements. Only after a flurry of bad press and editorials did the Democratic Committee relent and agree to have Mathiesen and Madigan address them, but of course, by that time, all the incumbents had been endorsed as had been predetermined, and it was too late to have any impact.
Email to Otis Maxwell, Acting Chair of Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee
I wrote to Otis Maxwell, the current chair of the city Democratic Committee regarding this:
Otis:
On September 13, 2022, November 7, 2022, March 11, 2023, and June 5, 2023, Ron Kim’s campaign paid invoices to Joanne Yepsen’s political consulting firm for a total of $6,600.00. On February 7, 2023, Ms. Yepsen, as a member of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee nominating committee, was one of the people who interviewed Chris Mathiesen when he sought your Committee’s endorsement to run for Mayor. Ron Kim, who used the services of Ms. Yepsen’s firm, was also seeking and subsequently obtained the Democratic Committee endorsement for Mayor.
On its face, this seems like an egregious conflict of interest both for Joanne Yepsen and Ron Kim. As Yepsen was being paid to assist Kim’s campaign, she should have resigned from the nominating committee or recused herself from any involvement in the committee’s deliberations and recommendation of a mayoral candidate.
I ask the following questions:
Do you see the role played by Ms. Yepsen in the Democratic Committee’s nominating process as inappropriate?
If so, do you plan to bring this to the attention of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee to consider some action to address this?
Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you.
JK
He responded:
Thanks, John. The timing of the invoices suggests that Joanne Yepsen was working for Ron Kim in the past and during his current campaign, but not at the time the Nominations Subcommittee was doing its work this past winter. Still, I can see how this could look like a conflict of interest. The work of the Nominations Subcommittee is done for this election cycle, but we’ll keep an eye out for similar scenarios in the future. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Otis
From everything I hear Otis Maxwell is a very decent person. It is a sign of the corrosive influence of Kim and others on the Democratic Committee that Maxwell would offer his tepid defense of Yepsen and Kim and decline to bring the issue before the full committee.
I have been working on a post regarding the recent primary between Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim and Democratic challenger Chris Mathiesen. My work has been hampered by the failure yet again of Ron Kim to comply with New York State’s campaign spending reporting requirements.
Under the New York State Board of Elections statute, the recent candidates in the June 28,2023, primaries were required to report their final contributions and expenditures by July 17, 2023.
While Chris Mathiesen filed as required. There was no report available for Mayor Ron Kim’s campaign organization.
In 2021, Kim failed to meet the November 29, 2021, deadline for filing. I wrote about this at the time. Kim told the Times Union that he had filed, but technical problems at the state board of elections were the reason it was not available. I contacted the NYSBOE, and they told me there were no problems with their website. They told me that if he had filed, the information would be on the site.
The following image is from the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee’s Facebook page.
Democrats Working Against Montagnino
This is from Ron Kim’s Facebook page promoting a different Public Safety Commissioner candidate, Kristen Dart:
Kristen Dart announced the launching of her campaign for Public Safety Commissioner on her campaign page, and both Democrats Dillon Moran (a Democratic Committee member ) and Minita Sanghvi “liked” it.
For months the Saratoga Springs City Council has stumbled from one poorly crafted resolution to the next in a so far failed attempt to adopt a document that would accept item #41 from the Police Reform Task Force Plan of 2021.
At their July 6, 2023, meeting the Council failed to pass a resolution for the third time.
A Brief Review Of The Failed Resolutions Histories
Item #41 of the Police Reform Task Force reads:
“Divert all seized proven drug profits from convicted drug charges to Community Based Restorative Groups for conflict resolution.Reinvention Plan: Toward a Community Centered Justice Initiative,
February, 2021 Police Task Force Recommendation #41
I have documented the torturous history of Task Force Recommendation #41 in previous posts (Link 1, Link 2),but here’s a brief review.
This item was problematic from the beginning. During the deliberations of the Police Task Force, then police Chief Shane Crooks tried unsuccessfully to explain to the Task Force that recommendation #41 as drafted would conflict with state and federal regulations on the use of forfeiture money. The task force ignored the chief’s concern without any effort to determine its validity.
In the previous administration’s deliberations on adopting the Police Reform Task Force’s recommendations in 2021, then City Attorney, Vince DeLeonardo, advised Meg Kelly and the Council of the problem with #41, and it was not adopted.
The local Black Lives Matter group pilloried Kelly and the then Council for this.
In May, Finance Commissioner Sanghvi placed a resolution on the City Council agenda that would basically adopt item #41 as written. Sanghvi was apparently ignorant of the legal problems with this when she added it to her agenda. She was subsequently advised of its conflict with existing federal and state statutes, and she withdrew it at the meeting.
Mayor Kim placed a resolution on the June 20 Council agenda to adopt item #41 only to withdraw it during the Council meeting after Tim Coll, candidate for Public Safety Commissioner, pointed out further legal problems with this version.
One More Try!
So at the July 6, 2023, Council meeting Kim offered yet another version of a resolution to adopt #41. This time the resolution dealt only with the federal forfeiture program and ignored the state program. There was no acknowledgment or explanation as to why the state program was no longer part of the resolution. This is probably because of the inconvenient truth that the state program does not allow for its money to be used outside of law enforcement.
This time there was an actual discussion of the resolution.
The discussion took up some twenty minutes as commissioners asked questions and raised concerns.
Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino told the Council that the forfeiture money available for local use was limited to $25,000.00. He asserted that the administrative reporting requirements to use the funds were onerous, and the cost of record keeping and reporting probably cost as much to comply with as the money the city could receive. Presumably, if the money was less than $25,000.00, the situation would be even worse.
I spoke to retired FBI agent Tim Coll, who is running this year for Commissioner of Public Safety. He told me that the original forfeiture program was plagued by abuse in using the money. This is what prompted the rigorous and extensive reporting that is now required.
The revelation of the cost of reporting led to the obvious question of how much federal money might be involved. Neither Montagnino, who oversees the use of the funds nor Sanghvi, who is supposed to manage the city’s finances, knew. I find it interesting that no one on the Council thought to ask this question and get an answer before they spent all this time and energy repeatedly having this on the agenda.
This kind of down-the-rabbit-hole discussion was documented in the video above, where each question only raised more questions.
In the end, Kim withdrew the resolution for the third time, and Montagnino agreed to provide Sanghvi and the Council the numbers by the middle of August.
Just Another Example Of The Breakdown In Governance Of This Council
So now there will supposedly be yet another resolution (the fourth) sometime in the future.
The discussion at the Council table revealed that for over two months and multiple resolutions, there has been little in the way of either legal research or any conversation between the Commissioners about it.
Readers should understand that this kind of serial failed resolution was pretty much unheard of in the past.
This is because, as I have documented in my previous blogs, past administrations would raise concerns at the public pre-agenda meetings held the day before the regular meetings. The deputies used to attend these meetings and, at times, other staff members if needed to give information about pending resolutions. Questions about resolutions would be raised and either addressed, or the item would be withdrawn then rather than at the regular meeting. This allowed issues to be addressed and resolved later rather than taking up time unnecessarily at Council meetings discussing a resolution that wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Pre-Agenda meetings with the current Council are now a ritual where there is rarely any discussion. Council members simply read the names of their resolutions rather than engage in substantive conversation. This failure by current Council members to prepare for Council meetings by communicating and doing their homework contributes to the marathon regular Council meetings we currently have.
Saratoga Springs City Attorney Michael Phillips presented data at the June 20 City Council meeting indicating the rate of Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests the city is receiving has doubled during the Kim administration. No one on the Council bothered to ask why.
The Facts And Nothing But The Facts?
Phillips repeatedly punctuated his presentation with the assurance that he was just laying out the facts and leaving it to others to “draw your own conclusions.” The problem is the Council was not interested in drawing any conclusions.
The facts Phillips presented comparing FOIL requests beginning with 2021 during the previous Meg Kelly administration with requests made during the Kim administration through June of this year (2023) are truly stunning.
Requests
Appeals
2021 (Kelly Period)
333
4
2022 (Kim Period)
557
21
2023 Jan-June (Kim Period)
315
7
Phillips observed that based on the demand so far this year, he projects 630 requests for 2023. The yearly rate of FOIL requests has just about doubled since Kim took office.
A Meaningless List
In his presentation, Phillips displayed slides showing who asked for five or more FOIL requests each year. He dubbed these “frequent flyers.” Phillips’ attempt to be witty seemed to imply that those people and organizations with the most FOIL requests were somehow abusing the system.
Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi then asked that he read aloud the names on the lists adding to the feeling that this was an attempt to somehow shame those who dared exercise their legal right to ask for city documents.
Sanghvi also wanted to know whether the most frequent person requesting FOILs in 2022 was a city resident. This seemed like an odd question. According to Phillips list many if not most FOIL requests come from companies or individuals doing business in the city and the law firms representing them. Obviously many of theses requests would be coming from individuals who may not live in the city.
Blogger’s Name Included in Phillips’ Hall of Shame
Although this blogger’s name got mentioned in Phillips’ presentation, I was not among the top FOILers. This blogger’s name did not appear in the list for 2021 “frequent Flyers” and is well down on the list for 2022 and 2023 .
The requests that put me on the 2022 and 2023 lists have been the result of the unwillingness of the members of this Council to respond to pretty much all my inquiries, whether by email or even asking questions during the public comment period at Council meetings.
The previous Council members were available, whether by email or telephone. The need to FOIL to get information during the past administration was minimal. So this explains the increase in my FOIL requests but what about the rest?
The Central Question That Went Unasked
As in the famous Sherlock Holmes story, The Hound of the Baskervilles, the most telling aspect of this part of the Council meeting was the question that was never asked:
Why did the requests for FOILs explode in 2022 and 2023?
The corollaries to this question are:
Why did Phillips’ investigation stop with the statistics rather than attempt to understand the source of the explosion?
Did the change in administration from Kelly to Kim factor somehow into the increase?
Why didn’t anyone on the Council ask Phillips if he had any idea about why the change?
Why didn’t anyone on the Council tell Phillips to extend his work by looking into the causes of the change?
The Real Purpose Of Phillips’ Presentation
Following Phillips’ presentation, Kim announced he would be seeking funding for yet another staff person for his office to handle FOILs. In hindsight, it is pretty clear that Phillips’ presentation was a pitch on the Mayor’s behalf to hire yet another employee.
As we have no idea why the FOILs increased, it is impossible to thoughtfully speculate about what can be done to address handling the number.
In its editorial on this issue, the Daily Gazette praised Kim for wanting to reduce the backlog of FOIL requests but asked whether there might be other ways to at least ease the problem other than hiring another employee:
To reduce the number of FOIL requests filed, city officials should look through the existing FOILs for commonalities.
If several people are requesting the same or similar information, or if the information being requested doesn’t require some kind of legal review, the city should consider posting that information on its website so people don’t have to formally request it.
This “proactive disclosure” can be done at little expense, the information only has to be posted once, and it cuts down on the number of FOIL requests that staff have to process.
Another tip: If the city has information that’s regularly requested, it should gather it in a single place and have it readily accessible to its clerks so they can respond faster to common requests.
City officials also should be more generous with releasing public information in general to avoid putting citizens in the position to having to ask for it in the first place.
Editorial June 26, 2023
There Is Something Seriously Wrong Going On
I honestly can’t think of any business or public organization I have dealt with that would not have pressed for answers as to why this increase occurred and whether there was some way of addressing requests for information that might ease this problem other than hiring more staff.
The fact that no one asked any serious questions only adds to the worry about how poorly this city is currently being managed.
The fact that FOILs have spiked during the last year and a half raises serious questions about how information is being provided to the public. This issue deserves proper investigation, but it is regrettably clear that there will be none.
Saratoga Springs Politics 