A proposal brought before the Saratoga Springs City Council by Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran at the Council’s September 6th meeting would require all temporary outdoor dining areas to be subject to review and approval by the city’s Design Review Board.
This amendment to the City Code would provide more vigorous oversight to protect the esthetics of Saratoga’s historic downtown.
“It is important that as we adjust to our new normal, we also continue to support the Saratoga Springs Brand and all it stands for. Toward that end, as promised when we first rolled out our new outdoor dining program, the second season would introduce the DRB oversight so that Outdoor Dining and our long standing Sidewalk Cafe programs are in alignment. This legislation will do exactly that.”
Commissioner Moran
A public hearing on the amendment has been scheduled for the next City Council meeting on September 20.
I emailed Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi inquiring about her transfer of $10,000.00 to an account for acquiring furniture. There is now $13,000.00 in that account. I also asked her about the decision to repaint her offices. The Finance office had acquired all new furniture and been painted two years ago after the fire in City Hall.
The following is her response to my emails and recent post and my reply.
Sanghivi: Dear Mr. Kaufmann,
I will respond to the issues you’ve raised in a recent blog post. Please print this response verbatim.
1. Furniture
When I joined office (sic)I realized Commissioner Madigan didn’t have a desk, per se. She had part of her desk and then a small conference table that sat at a right angle to serve as a desk.
As we cleared up our deputy’s office, she needed extra storage so I gave her my storage units. We gave one of our cupboard storage to IT for their storage. One of the desks was given to Civil service for their use. We had a new position our executive assistant join (more on that later) and I gave the person Commissioner Madigan’s part desk. And I ordered an L shaped desk for my office and some storage shelves and drawers.
Kaufmann: [As can be confirmed by the photos above, Commissioner Sanghvi has basically stripped the office of the Finance Commissioner of most of the furniture that existed when she took over occupancy of the space 8 months ago. Although the furniture was brand new, based on her response, there will be little if any of those furnishings remaining in that office.
Most troubling is her reluctance to be clear about exactly what items she will be replacing all this furniture with and the specific cost of each item. Here she refers to an L shaped desk and “some storage shelves and drawers”. Later she mentions wanting to change to a couch and a “seater setting”. When I asked her for specific information, she responded in an email, “Please feel free to FOIL the information.” Commissioner Sanghvi knows it routinely takes six weeks or more to get FOILed documents from the city.
These are figures one assumes that she calculated before she made the request to the Council to add $10,000 to her budget. They should be readily available.
This is a foolish and problematic response from her on many levels. I will eventually secure the figures so the public, in theend,will find out this information, and her reluctance to release the figures now only extends the life of the story, something she may regret. By denying me this information now and making me go through the FOIL process, she triggers concerns as to exactly how lavish her redecorating plan is. She also undermines her credibility about her commitment to transparency.]
Sanghvi: Commissioner Madigan also had a larger conference desk for visitors. When I set up an office, I found that style to be more confrontational than conversational. Not everyone is used to coming to city hall, many people are intimidated by it. So I wanted to change it to a couch and seater setting to make it more conversational, more inclusive.
Kaufmann: [There is a reason that offices routinely have conference tables. While the Finance Commissioner occasionally meets informally with members of the general public, the vast majority of office meetings involve internal staff of the city to discuss fiscal matters. Such meetings require an efficient design to seat a number of people who commonly will need a surface on which to place laptops or writing pads.
Sorry to descend to snarkiness, but it is hard to imagine the city department deputies spread out over sofas and easy chairs engaging in discussions trying to resolve city fiscal issues while trying to balance laptops on their knees.
I spent a good deal of my career at meetings, and my priority was that they be as efficient as possible. The meetings I went to or ran were not social events designed to be “conversational.” They were supposed to be designed to minimize chit-chat and get stuff done.
Here again, Commissioner Sanghvi exposes her lack of understanding of the nature of her office. This is particularly troubling as she has been in her position for eight months now.]
Sanghvi: 2. Grants writer
I agree with Commissioner Madigan completely that we need more support with grant writing. We had spoken about this during our transition, and our plan was to consolidate grant management in Finance since it dealt with the management of reimbursements and such. However, other departments were not particularly receptive to the idea. This is the problem of the commission form of government. Sometimes good faith efforts by commissioners are seen as power grabs. That was not at all what she or I had in mind. She added the position, and we both fought for it but were told repeatedly that it was not supportable by some of the other departments. Finally, we worked with individual departments to help them with grant-writing monies that worked based on their needs. I still believe this is something that is of use to our city in finance, but I am only one vote.
Kaufmann:[I’m having a hard time making sense of this. The position was adopted in the 2022 budget. Commissioner Sanghvi had the authority to simply hire the grant writer. She did not need approval from the current Council, and there was never any public discussion about who did or didn’t support this and why. Petty bureaucratic turf anxiety from unnamed colleagues (I understand Mayor Kim was adamantly opposed to the position) should not be an impediment to filling a position that even Commissioner Sanghvi admits is really needed.]
Sanghvi: Finally, with the money we did have in our budget, we hired an executive assistant. This is more of an issue of parity – the Mayor’s office, DPW, DPS (I believe they’ve used this position differently for many years now) all have executive assistants. When I spoke to the city council (all except Commissioner Scirocco since he was unwell at that time), they agreed all departments should have one.
Kaufmann:[Parity? Because they have one, I should have one? This mentality is how budgets become bloated. Staffing is supposed to be about efficient management of resources and not the dividing of spoils.]
Sanghvi: Commissioner Madigan, indeed, was very fruitful in her time at City Hall and we are working on bringing a lot of those projects to fruition right now such as the NYPA project about our street-lights, SIFI project about fiber. In addition we’ve added one of our own projects with Participatory Budgeting. As you may know, my position is only part time and while many other Commissioners are retired or are able to work full time for this role, I can’t feed my family on $14,500. My full time job as a professor at Skidmore requires my time and efforts too. Hence, we decided to hire an executive assistant. The position was discussed at city hall and in the civil service committee, the ad was posted by HR. Kindly do you (sic) research and feel free to look up the ad to learn more about the position.
Kaufmann: [Commissioner Sanghvi had a responsibility to assess whether she had the time to do the job of Finance Commissioner before running for the office. If she had told the public that, if elected, she would have to hire a position that would cost the city $72,000 a year to fulfill her duties, voters might very well have voted for someone else. Even worse, is it possible she didn’t even consider the problem of not having the time to do the job properly before deciding to run?]
Sanghvi: 3. About Travel
I have been meeting and discussing capital budgets with all departments long before August. We’ve been having good open communications on recession clouds and our capacity to borrow. I have been very transparent about city finances from Day 1.
I have also been working with our team on all issues related to finance and our budget while in India, often at 2 am at night. However, you asked why I went. It was not for a children’s book (thank you for the correction). I wrote a novel, which is being released by Harper Collins India in what I’m told will be the first lesbian romance novel in India. SUrely, you get what a monumental moment this is for LGBTQ rigts (sic) in a country of 1.4 billion people.
Kaufmann: [I never asked Commissioner Sanghvi why she went to India. She has publicized her travel on her Facebook page.
Sanghvi: And while this trip is for work reasons, I do want to point out for all our future posts about my travel – I travel to India as often as I can. Which means, sometimes it is twice a year. You see, my father is 78 years old. Average life expectancy in India is about 69 years for males. Because I’m a business professor, I did some simple math. If my father lives to about 90 (about 1 year longer than this (sic) father), and I visit him once a year, I will see him about 12 times before he dies. I came out to my family 20 years ago – India and US, for that matter, was a different landscape for LGBTQ rights 20 years ago. They stood by me and supported me despite the criticism and ridicule they faced in their community. The least I can do is maybe visit them more than 12 times before they die. So when I go to India in December, you will know why.
Kaufmann: [I have no problem with Commissioner Sanghvi taking time off to travel to India. I am glad for her that she has such a supportive and loving family. My problem with her trip was its timing. It was done during the beginning of the crafting of the city budget for 2023. The departments submit their requested budgets to her office in August. Readers should understand that crafting such a budget is extremely challenging and time-consuming both in terms of the very extensive reviews and research and in terms of the political tensions it generates. With respect to the Commissioner, this was not the best time to be away.
What troubled me most, though, was her decision to advise citizens writing her that she would not be allocating time while away to answer their emails. In all the years I have been covering politics, I have never experienced an elected official who would publicly advise the citizenry that for some three weeks, they would not be taking the time to answer email inquiries.]
Sanghvi: Thank you for your keen interest in the minutia of city hall. You also sent me another email about the paint in my office: “I understand that you have repainted your office. What color did you paint it and why did you have it repainted?”
Kaufmann: [As her offices were only recently painted two years ago as part of the city hall renovation, it seemed odd that they would be painted again, thus my question to her. I knew the office had been painted using historic colors to compliment the carpeting. I suppose it was trivial of me to have asked about her new color choice.]
I emailed Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi twice seeking the details of her projected $13,000.00 purchase of new furniture. I was asking what furniture she was purchasing and what was the expected cost of each item. When she did respond, it was as follows:
Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi has been in office for eight months. She does not yet seem to understand what the city’s consent agenda that she votes on at every meeting is all about nor her role in developing the city’s budget. She has, however, been granted a new position for an executive assistant in her office without any explanation of what this person would do and a $10,000 addition to her budget to buy furniture for her office, which was just completely redone two years ago.
A Well Appointed Office
Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi received unanimous approval from the City Council at the August 16 meeting to transfer $10,000.00 from the “Help Desk Technician Furniture/Equipment” line to her “Office Furniture/Equipment” budget line. This brings that budget line up to a total of $13,000 to replace the furniture that was just bought two years ago when City Hall was refurbished after the fire.
The item was on her August 16 agenda listed as “Discussion and Vote: Budget Transfers – Payroll.”
Commissioner Sanghvi was absent from the August 16 meeting (more on that later), and Mayor Kim assumed her responsibilities for presenting her agenda at the meeting.
The link to this agenda item takes you to this document:
Mayor Kim merely read the agenda item without explaining what it was about and moved the adoption of the budget transfer item that allows for the furniture purchase. There was no discussion before the unanimous vote to approve the transfer of funds.
The current Finance Office furniture was purchased roughly two years ago. It is basically brand new.
Sources tell me that the money is to redecorate Commissioner Sanghvi’s personal office. We really don’t have any details because no one on the Council saw the need to ask Commissioner Sanghvi exactly what she planned to buy with $13,000.00.
I emailed the Commissioner asking for clarification. I received the following email back from her:
Re: Furniture
Hello. I am out of the office from August 8th through August 30th and will not be checking my e-mail during this time. (my emphasis) Please contact the following for any matters during my absence:
I understand Commissioner Sanghvi is on a tour of India promoting a [this is a correction] gay, romance novel she has written.
I have been sending emails to City Council members for decades. Politicians sometimes prefer to ignore emails regarding unflattering issues and do not reply. I have never received an email, however, announcing that a commissioner will not respond to any email at all for weeks.
So, I emailed Sanghvi’s deputy, Heather Crocker, with the same question and received no response.
Doesn’t Everyone Deserve an Executive Assistant?
In addition to generously adding to the Commissioner’s furniture budget, this Council also voted unanimously at an earlier meeting this spring to add a new position to the Finance Office again without anyone asking the Commissioner to explain the need for this.
In her last budget, former Commissioner Michele Madigan added a “grants writer” position to her department. As she explained at the time, the position, similar to the information technology office (IT), would serve all the city departments. Commissioner Madigan noted that to effectively secure grants in a highly competitive environment for critical city needs, it is important to be nimble and skilled.
Interestingly, the city has just contracted with a consulting firm to write grant applications for the Mayor’s infrastructure committee chaired by Joanne Yepsen, with an initial payment of $25,000.00.
Commissioner Sanghvi has decided to jettison the grant writer position and instead create for herself an executive assistant without explaining exactly what this executive assistant will do and why she does not see the need for an employee dedicated to seeking grant money.
The annual salary of the position is $51,490.00. Including benefits, the position costs $72,000.00 annually.
I spoke to Michele Madigan, the previous Commissioner of Finance, about this change. She expressed disappointment. “The city really needs an additional grants writer. Increasingly, money from the state and federal governments is available competitively. A skilled grants writer can produce money for the city well in excess of what the position costs.”
I can tell you there are many grants we fail to compete for because of the lack of a grant writer – particularly for water related projects and public safety. Updating the city dam is going to cost millions. There is money out there for water projects. Tina Carton does a great job seeking funds for sidewalks, trails, etc. but she has only so much time.
Michele Madigon
Madigan also expressed surprise at the idea of an executive assistant. “I was Commissioner for ten years. There is no doubt that the job requires many hours for what is supposed to be a part-time position, and it would have been nice to have another body, but we always managed successfully to run the department with the staff we had.”
Readers may recall that in addition to her regular duties overseeing the finances of the city, during her tenure, among other things, Commissioner Madigan was instrumental in creating the solar energy system at the city landfill and in facilitating the agreement that will create a city-wide fiber optic network, all done without an executive assistant in the office.
Similar to the approval of the furniture, none of Commissioner Sanghvi’s Democratic colleagues on the Council asked any questions about dropping the grant writer position and instead creating an executive assistant for her.
Budget Time: When the Rubber Hits the Road, but Where is the Commissioner of Finance?
This City Council is about to get a dose of reality when they attempt to do their first budget. The process is very demanding, and a continual source of potential conflict as the departments compete for money to run their operations for the next year.
The process is supposed to begin in August when the departments are required to submit their budgetary needs for the coming year. Former Commissioner Madigan describes the work to be done this time of year.
August is when requested budgets are due. I would spend a lot of time analyzing all department budgets including the recreation department and the IT department. I would begin meeting with commissioners, deputies, chiefs, rec commission, and various non-profits. It was also a time I would review the capital budget as that is due to the Commissioner of Finance by September 15 after a vote by the Council.
Michele Madigan
This is not a great time for Finance Commissioner Sanghvi to be hard to reach on a book promotion tour in India.
To date, the Council has been cavalier about spending city money, as evidenced by Commissioner Sanghvi’s furniture and new assistant, Commissioner Montagnino’s extremely generous proposed deal with the police department in order to realize his myopic campaign over shift hours, and let’s not forget the legal bills Mayor Kim is racking up for the city in his frivolous lawsuits.
All this is as the city faces necessary costs to operate the new fire station on the east side.
This will not be an easy budget year.
Will Commissioner Sanghvi Up Her Game
During the ongoing debacle about the Travelers insurance settlement, it became embarrassingly evident that Commissioner Sanghvi knew almost nothing about the “consent agenda.” Apparently, she had not ever really looked at the consent agenda she had been voting on at each meeting when she echoed Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino’s false claim that it only contained minor items such as “mops and buckets.” It was bad enough that Montagnino and Mayor Kim did not understand the criteria of what went into the consent agenda and that there were individual entries involving many thousands of dollars. What was truly disturbing was that Commissioner Sanghvi, who is responsible for managing the finances of the city, suffered from the same ignorance.
Well, readers, tighten your seat belts because we are entering budget time, and Commissioner Sanghvi is going to find out that she’s going to have to take the job she has signed on for of overseeing the city finances more seriously.
A number of people have told me it would be helpful if I could provide an analysis of what happened at the conference requested by Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim with U.S. District Court Judge Mae D’Agostino on August 11 regarding the Wales case. The full transcript of the meeting was contained in a previous post and can be found here.
Attending the ten-minute phone conference were:
Judge Mae D’Agostino
John Aspland (attorney of record representing Saratoga Springs on behalf of Travelers Insurance)
Kevin Lauilliard (attorney representing Tim Wales, the plaintiff)
Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim
Ron Kim is Still Not the City Attorney
A number of issues stood out for me when I read the transcript. The first was that Ron Kim still does not seem to understand that being Mayor does not empower him to also act as the city’s attorney in spite of the fact that, as he likes to frequently remind us, he has a law degree. One would have thought that he had learned this basic lesson when he was reprimanded for trying to act as the City Attorney in City Court before first Judge Vero and then Judge Wait. Apparently not.
On August 5 Mayor Kim inappropriately sent a letter to Federal District Court Judge Mae D’Agostino asking her to reinstate the Wales case and “set a time for a conference with the parties.” The proper protocol would have been for Mayor Kim to request that John Aspland (the attorney of record) contact the court requesting the conference rather than write a letter to the court himself. So it should come as no surprise that the transcript of the conference call begins with Kim again being told by a judge that he has no standing to participate in this meeting.
According to the transcript the Judge stated the following:
The only individuals who have standing to participate in this conference as far as the court is concerned are Mr. Lauilliard and Mr. Aspland. I understand that the mayor is on the phone but I’m only going to be hearing from Mr. Lauilliard and Mr. Aspland.
Judge D’Agostino
And then the Judge asks:
Mr. Aspland, what in the world is going on here?
Judge D’Agostino
Kim’s Criticisms of Travelers are Baseless- He Does a Stunning Reversal
The second thing that stood out for me in this transcript was that it makes clear that the criticisms that Kim continues to make about Travelers Insurance handling of the Wales case are baseless.
In Mayor Kim’s letter to the judge requesting the conference he cited the failure of the insurer to seek Council approval in settling the Wales case as grounds for reinstating the case and prompting the need for the meeting.
“…The city of Saratoga Springs City Council has never voted to dismiss this matter nor settle it….and certainly not the Mayor’s office….has authorized counsel of record for the City of Saratoga Springs to settle this matter and discontinue it” he complains in the letter he signed.
During the call the Judge asks John Aspland if he had the authority to agree to the settlement without getting City Council approval.
Mr. Aspland, did you have the authority to settle this case on behalf of the city of Saratoga Springs when you did enter into the settlement and signed the closing settlement.
Judge D’Agostino
Aspland responds:
Yes, Your Honor. It’s not a consent policy with Travelers. So Travelers agreed to pay the money and executed the documents that we always execute, and that was the process.
John Aspland
The Judge then re-affirms what Aspland has said:
OK. So you’re telling me that in the contract of insurance between the city of Saratoga Springs…there was no need for the city of Saratoga Springs to consent?
Judge D’Agostino
Aspland confirms this in the transcript.
Judge D’Agostino later decides to give Kim permission to speak. She addresses Kim about Travelers ability to settle the case without involving the city in the decision.
But what I’m hearing from the counsel of record (Aspland) is that the insurance company had full authority to settle the case without the consent of the city. I’m pretty sure you disagree with that. You have permission to speak. Correct, Mr. Kim?
Judge D’Agostino
In a startling reversal of what he said in his letter to the court and what he has said repeatedly at the Council table, Kim bizarrely responded to her, stating:
No, actually, your honor. We don’t disagree with that…We do not disagree, [with] the interpretation of the policy.
Mayor Kim
Then Kim tells the judge:
We wanted to make sure that the court understood how this settlement was reached, and then basically, …. we need to find out additional facts about potentially cancelling. That’s why we asked for this (the conference). We do not disagree [with]the interpretation of the policy
Mayor Kim
It’s challenging to parse something coherent out of this statement but, first, and most disturbing, if we take Mayor Kim at his word, he has asked for this hearing with the Judge so he can figure out how to cancel the Travelers Insurance policy.
The Court Addresses Another Complaint Kim Has Made about Travelers Insurance
While not contained in his letter to the Judge, Kim has also repeatedly complained about the $25,000 deductible the city owes Travelers as part of the $100,000 settlement Travelers paid out in the Tim Wales case.
The Judge repeats the fact that the city did not have to agree to the settlement then asks Aspland about this deductible:
There was no need for the City of Saratoga Springs to consent. Was there a deductible?
Judge D’Agostino
Aspland responds:
So my understanding is that there was a $25,000 deductible under the employment practice policy, that typically what would happen is Travelers would pay the full amount to settle the case for the plaintiff when they choose to do so. Then how the process works is that the insured client, here the city, gets an invoice from Travelers for the deductible, and that the deductible is then paid in the normal course of business.
John Aspland
As documented in a previous blog, this indeed is exactly how previous insurance settlements have been handled over the years. Hopefully this court transcript will now finally make this clear to Kim, and Commissioners Montagnino and Sanghvi who expressed surprise and outrage that the city owed this bill. It is unfortunate that the three of them did not take the time to do their homework and find this out ahead of time before they wasted time, energy, and the city’s resources stirring up conflict and angst over baseless charges.
Kim’s Obsession with Dillon Moran’s Alleged Conspiracy
Speaking of baseless charges, another interesting part of this transcript came when Judge D’Agostino graciously allows Kim to speak. Kim takes this opportunity to launch into a wandering statement claiming that an unnamed member of the City Council (who Kim eventually identifies as Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran) had a conflict of interest in the case and somehow ended up negotiating the settlement.
Kim tells the Judge:
What we wanted to call attention to the Court was that this settlement discussion was conducted by a representative of the city council that basically has an extreme conflict of interest when he conducted this. He presented himself as far as we know to this Court in front of Judge Magistrate Stewart as a representative of the city…
So then he [Moran] spent about two to three months based on email records that we have, again don’t have a full picture, basically negotiating on behalf — well purporting to negotiate on behalf of the City Council and the city of Saratoga Springs, while having this clear conflict of interest where he was essentially a witness.
Mayor Kim
Strikingly, Kim uses a lot of qualifiers in making his rambling accusations. He says Moran presented himself as a representative of the city “as far as we know”. He concedes that “again, don’t have a full picture” and backtracks at one point after accusing Moran of negotiating for the city to add “well purporting to negotiate…” whatever that means.
Judge to Kim: “I Can’t Solve Your Issue”
Kim concludes by asking the Judge for the following help:
So, your honor, we are looking to get additional information to basically fulfill our obligation to the public to explain to them why we are paying out $25,000.00 deductible beyond the contract [JK: beyond the contract? What does that mean?] and also find out, determine if there is any other actions that we have to take.
Mayor Kim
Not surprisingly the Judge tells Kim what he, especially as a lawyer, should have known in the first place:
There isn’t anything that I can do at this point to solve your issues, Mr. Kim. This seems to be like an internal issue between you, the Travelers, and Mr. Aspland. It’s not my role as a federal judge at this point to get you information, but more importantly, I don’t have any information…The case is settled. Moneys have been disbursed. So I can’t give you whatever relief you seem to be looking for.
Judge D’Agostino
Time To Move On
At the last City Council meeting on August 16th Mayor Kim announced that his plan now is to initiate a full investigation of the settlement of the Wales case. This is truly ill-advised. Kim’s continued obsession with pursuing Moran and Travelers Insurance only serves to undermine his own credibility. His best route out of all of this would be to move on and successfully carry out the people’s business and restore his own name by producing some real accomplishments that improve the quality of life in Saratoga Springs.
After weeks of refusing to pay the $25,000 deductible the city owes Travelers Insurance for the settlement of the Tim Wales case and plenty of drama, the Saratoga Springs City Council voted unanimously to pay the bill but not before more theatrics from Mayor Kim.
As noted in a previous blog post, conspicuously missing from the Saratoga Springs City Council pre-agenda meeting on August 15 was any reference to the deductible the city owed Travelers Insurance.
At the August 16, 2022, Council meeting, however, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran offered a resolution on his agenda to pay the deductible. Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub seconded the motion. The discussion that followed the motion to pay was laden with disinformation from Mayor Kim (see video clips below). In the end Mayor Kim begrudgingly agreed to vote for the resolution but not before he repeatedly announced that his office would “fully investigate” the events associated with the litigation and settlement. Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino was unusually quiet in the discussion other than expressing his support for the Mayor to pay the bill and pursue his investigation. Finance Commissioner Sanghvi is on vacation for the month of August and was not present at the meeting.
There was no indication that the Council would have addressed this issue had Commissioner Moran not put this on his agenda. Were the other Council members just hoping this would all go away?
Mayor Kim Continues to Complain about Conspiracies
While finally voting to pay the deductible bill to Travelers, Kim persisted in airing his belief that somehow Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran had played a role in determining the $100,000 pay out to Tim Wales. Kim has yet to produce any evidence that this was the case.
At the August 11,2022, during proceedings before Judge Mae D’Agostino (see previous post) that Kim had requested, Kim claimed the following:
“What we wanted to call attention to the Court was that this settlement discussion was conducted by a representative of the city council that basically has an extreme conflict of interest when he conducted this. As far as we know, he presented himself to this court in front of Judge Magistrate Stewart as a city representative.”
Although not named, the person Kim characterizes as the “representative of the city council” who “conducted” the settlement is obviously Dillon Moran. Kim seems to have based his conviction that somehow Dillon Moran clandestinely influenced the multi-billion-dollar company Travelers Insurance to do him a favor and pay his friend Tim Wales $100,00 on the fact that Moran and Risk and Safety Director Marilyn Rivers attended a conference with the magistrate in the case that Kim claims he didn’t know about. I have seen emails to City Attorney Tony Izzo informing him of the meeting. I have seen emails from John Aspland, the attorney representing the city, confirming to Mayor Kim that Moran appeared at the court’s request. None of this seems to have satisfied Kim that there was plenty of notification of the meeting and that it did not involve Moran posing as a representative of the city to negotiate the settlement. I am FOILing for these emails but if history serves me, it will be many weeks before I can secure them if the city agrees to release them at all.
The Role of the City Attorney
The City Attorney is supposed to represent all the members of the City Council, but the reality is that the City Attorney serves at the pleasure of the Mayor. The job of the City Attorney is to give fair and unbiased advice even if it is not what city officials always want to hear.
As the following video clip shows, however, when current City Attorney Tony Izzo had the opportunity to end the controversy between Moran and Kim, he unfortunately chose instead to do his best to obscure the fact that Mayor Kim’s allegations were false.
After Kim once again claims that the city had not been advised of the settlement discussion and that Moran had attended this meeting without notifying the City Attorney, Moran calls Tony Izzo to the microphone. He asks the City Attorney if he had been notified about the conference and whether that notice included the fact that he (Moran) was among those summoned.
Rather than simply confirming that he had received an email stating that Moran had indeed been summoned, Tony responds that he received two emails and states obliquely that “individuals” were asked in one on the emails to attend.
Kim then quickly takes the questioning in another direction focusing on whether John Aspland attended the meeting. It’s hard to tell which meeting Kim is referring to or why any of that matters.
On some level, this is a very sad business. Tony is one of the nicest people I know, and he was put in the difficult position of being asked to give evidence that would contradict the Mayor’s assertions. Nevertheless, the city needs an attorney who can be relied on to give the Council correct information no matter who might be hurt or embarrassed by it.
The next video below follows a polemic by Mayor Kim claiming that he and the rest of the Council were excluded from any knowledge regarding the insurance settlement. In an earlier post, I provided readers with the notices that Izzo and Deputy Mayor Angela Rella received in July advising them of the settlement.
In response to the Mayor’s allegations, Moran asks Tony again to come to the microphone. He asks whether Tony received a notice from the insurer’s attorney about the settlement on July 11. Tony pauses. When he starts to respond, Mayor Kim tries to drown out the discussion, but Moran persists in asking Tony about a further email sent to him on July 18. Tony provides a qualified yes.
Mayor Kim Offers Rambling and Incoherent Defense Regarding His Failure to Adhere to a Council Resolution
The conflict between Moran and Kim continued at the Council table, with Moran raising the issue of the letter Kim had sent to the Judge in the Wales case asking that the case be reinstated.
At the August 2 City Council meeting, Mayor Kim had requested and received a resolution from the Council authorizing him to contact all the parties in the Wales lawsuit asking why the city owed a $25,000.00 deductible. However, the actual letter Kim sent went only to the judge in the case and contained no reference to the deductible. Instead, Kim asked that the Court reinstate the case. [This was explored in an earlier post]
Moran asked the Mayor why he felt he had been empowered to ask that the case be reinstated. Kim’s first reaction is to state incorrectly that the City Attorney sent the letter. (Only Mayor Kim’s signature is on the letter.) I will leave it to the readers to decide whether the rest of Mayor Kim’s defense against Moran’s charges makes any sense.
Kim Falsely Claims That the City Never Authorized a Source of Funding to Pay for the Wales Settlement
In the following clip, Kim alleges that the city never encumbered funds to pay for the Wales settlement. In the next clip, Moran reads from a January resolution that provided the funding and which Mayor Kim voted for.
Mayor Announces His Plan to Investigate Wales Case
This lengthy section of the Council meeting dealing with the Wales case settlement ended with Mayor Kim dramatically promising the city’s people that he would carry out an investigation into some unknown malfeasance associated with this settlement. It is unclear exactly who is going to carry out this investigation.
At the risk of sounding snarky, he might begin his investigation within his own department.
The following is the transcript of the telephone conference held on August 11, 2022, in response to a letter sent by Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim to Judge Mae D’Agostino, the federal judge who had presided over the settlement of the Tim Wale’s case, asking her to reinstate the case. I think the transcript speaks for itself. Readers will note an aside by Mayor Kim about dropping the city’s insurer, Travelers Insurance.
As the transcript shows, Mayor Kim continues to believe that Travelers Insurance, a multi-billion-dollar corporation, would allow Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran to influence their handling of this case.
I spoke to a number of attorneys about Judge Mae D’Agostino. They were universal in praise of her both as a judge and in her previous career as an attorney specializing in medical malpractice.
At a recent City Council meeting, Saratoga Springs Mayor Kim, Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino, and Finance Commissioner Sanghvi made blistering attacks on Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and Director of Risk and Safety Marilyn Rivers accusing them of trying to hide a payment for a deductible owed to the city’s insurance company in a settlement of a lawsuit against the city (see recent post). Montagnino claimed he only became aware of the settlement by using his attorney skills to find information on the web. Kim and Sanghvi asserted that they were also not told of the settlement.
As it turns out emails below show that Marilyn Rivers advised Mayor Kim’s Deputy, Angela Rella, and City Attorney Tony Izzo of the settlement in an email on July 11, 2022, a month earlier.
So how is it that Kim, Montagnino, and Sanghvi were allegedly unaware of the settlement? Ms. Rella is Kim’s deputy. Did she fail to read the email, or did she fail to inform Kim? Was Kim advised of the settlement by her and cynically made accusations knowing they were untrue?
Did Izzo fail to advise Montagnino and Sanghvi, or had they been informed but, for some bizarre reason, chose to pretend ignorance in their reckless accusations of some kind of conspiracy?
Here is the email Marilyn Rivers sent to Izzo and Rella regarding the settlement and the deductible owed.
Attached please find correspondenc pertaining to Timothy Wales as received from Travelers Insurance. As discussed in previous conversations. This is the only correspondenc/information I will receive regarding the Timothy Wales Settlement. Additional information may be received directly from John Aspland – insurance counsel on this case file. The process at this juncture is that the City Council – in this case Tony Izzo – would share the settlement with the City Council . My insurance file is now formally closed with this email.
Marilyn Rivers July 11, 2022
Below is the full thread of the email sent by Rivers to Rella and Izzo.
The bill to pay Travelers Insurance for the deductible the city owes for the settlement in the Tim Wales case had seemed to have fallen into a black hole. The agenda for the August 16, 2022, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, sent out by Mayor Kim on Friday night, contained no reference to the outstanding bill. Readers will remember that that bill was unanimously removed from the consent agenda at the City Council’s August 2 meeting with Mayor Kim, Finance Commissioner Sanghvi, and Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino raising objections to the payment. [ see previous blog]
Sometime this afternoon (Monday, August 15, 2022), Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran added a resolution to pay the bill to his agenda for Tuesday night. Assuming he can garner a second, Mayor Kim, Commissioner Montagnino, and Commissioner Sanghvi will be challenged to either approve the expenditure or explain what they plan to do about it. There is, of course, the possibility that the three officials will vote no and avoid addressing what their solution is by smothering the discussion with false allegations, misinformation, and invectives as they did at the August 2 meeting.
Conspicuously absent from Mayor Kim’s original agenda for this meeting was also any reference to his conference with the judge in the Tim Wales case on August 11, 2022. Here again, Commissioner Moran has placed on his agenda the letter that Kim sent to the judge in the case. Readers may remember that Kim had asked for a resolution authorizing him to contact the judge to inquire why the city should have to pay the deductible [see previous blog]. The letter he actually sent to the judge (attached by Moran to the updated agenda) asked instead that the case be reinstated.
Mayor Kim will be placed in the awkward situation of having to share the Judge’s rejection of his request with the public. He may falsely claim that the conference was privileged and that he is not allowed to discuss it. In fact, the conference was not sealed, and a summary of the meeting was placed on the federal judicial website. There is no reason he cannot be forthcoming about the meeting. [see previous blog]
The Saturday Morning “Emergency” Meeting Fiasco
At the August 2, 2022, meeting, the Council voted to remove the deductible payment to Travelers Insurance from the warrant on the consent agenda.
Subsequently, Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran asserted that the entire warrant that contained this bill would have to be redone. He chose to tear up the original warrant and had the pieces delivered to the Finance Department.
On Friday, August 12, 2022, according to Dillon Moran, at 11:35 in the morning, Stefanie Richards of the Accounts Department delivered the revised warrant minus the Travelers bill to the Finance Department for review so it could be sent back to him to sign and then be paid.
Despite this, on Friday evening, August 5, 2022, Mayor Kim determined that he needed to call an emergency meeting to pay all the vendors (except Travelers) immediately and not wait for the next regular Council meeting on August 16, 2022. At around 5:30 PM Friday, he sent a notice calling for a special meeting to be held the next morning, Saturday, August 6. The agenda for the meeting had one item, a resolution from the Mayor. In an example of shrill overreach, the resolution characterized Commissioner Moran’s failure to sign the original warrant as “illegal” and authorized the Mayor to sign the warrant if Moran failed to do so by 8:00 AM Monday, August 8, 2022. Although it was unclear whether the Mayor could legally usurp the responsibilities of the Accounts Commissioner, the measure passed four to one.
The bulk of the Saturday meeting consisted of conflicting and inaccurate statements that I cannot begin to describe. I would encourage readers to view the meeting on the city’s website. It was ineptly run, and in the end, it accomplished nothing. No bills were paid. The bills will (hopefully) be approved and paid at the August 16, 2022, meeting. The meeting was an utter waste of time.
Mayor Kim, Commissioner Montagnino, and Commissioner Sanghvi Have Placed the City’s Insurance in Jeopardy
What insurance company will want to do business with the city of Saratoga Springs if the city refuses to meet its contractual obligations and pay its bills?
This is a totally unnecessary mess, and the trail of mismanagement is simply appalling, but there is no sign that any thoughtful strategy exists to resolve the mess.
Saratoga Springs Politics 