Author: John Kaufmann

Jim Montagnino will become the Commissioner of Public Safety in January. Assistant Police Chief John Catone will retire in January. Mr. Montagnino contends that the current Public Safety Commissioner, Robin Dalton, has acted improperly in selecting a replacement for Catone in the last month of her term. He took his case to the media.

Times Union story

Daily Gazette Story

Foothills Business Daily

Mr. Montagnino makes a number of arguments supporting his opposition to the appointment.

First and foremost, he references the decision by New York State Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the Saratoga Springs Police Department over their handling of the Black Lives Matter protests in the city. He observes that it is unclear whether the investigation will identify members of the police department as having acted improperly. He told the Times Union in a December 2,2021, article, “It would be beyond embarrassing to discover someone who got promoted during the course of the investigation could end up being involved in wrongdoing.” He added, “As long as there is an investigation ongoing, there shouldn’t be any promotions.”

Second, he believes that Commissioner Dalton cannot legally make the appointment. He told the Times Union that “I told her [Commissioner Dalton] she did not have the authority.”

In a conversation I had with Mr. Montagnino, he argued that until the Assistant Police Chief actually retires, there is no vacancy to be filled. He expanded his argument by speculating on the issue of timing. For example, what if Catone were to retire next August? Would it be appropriate for Dalton to make an appointment in December? In our conversation, he told me that even if he has submitted his paperwork for retirement in January, Catone could change his mind. Mr. Montagnino emphasized that there is no vacancy to be filled until Catone is no longer Assistant Chief.

The Times Union story included this poorly worded text:

Montagnino is also distressed that all of the top jobs in the police department are currently not open and competitive, as per the city’s civil service rules. That means no one, other that current members of the Saratoga Springs police, can be appointed to leadership positions.

TU December 2, 2021

This language is confusing. It could be read as indicating that the appointment violated the civil service rules or it could be read that the current civil service rules somehow are not “open and competitive.” I believe that the TU meant the latter. The current civil service rules restrict applicants to members of our local police department.

Specifically, New York Civil Service laws require that “as far as practicable” promotions must draw from the local department.” They also grant bonus points for candidates based on their longevity at the local department. [see below]

Drawing on this standard, the local civil service standards limit candidates for positions such as the assistant chief to currently employed public safety staff.

Montagnino doubles down on this point asserting that “…the upper echelon [of the police department], all white, is guaranteed by civil service commission to keep it that way.”

Like Most Things It Is Complicated

I spoke at some length with Commissioner Dalton who responded to Mr. Montignino’s complaints.

Commissioner Dalton noted that she is not actually filling Catone’s position. The roster of the Police Department has two Assistant Police positions. One is currently vacant. She is filling the vacant position.

Without going too far into the weeds, the original reason for the second position is due to the fact that the Police Chief has no administrative support. There is no administrative assistant or secretary for the Chief. This is unusual for the head of a department as large as the Police Department. The idea of the second assistant was to take on some of the administrative duties. Due to funding limits and other priorities, the position was never filled.

Technically the actual appointment being filled is not Catone’s position but the second Assistant Chief. The candidates for the position are the top three scorers on the test for Assistant Chief. The idea is to provide the appointee with a transition period during which this person will work with Catone.

The three eligible candidates are all lieutenants. Commissioner of Finance Madigan has found the money to supplement the salary of whoever is selected to bring it in line with the Assistant Chief position during the transition. The transfer of funds to support the position during the final days of 2021 was approved at the December 7, 2021, Council meeting.

Commissioner Dalton told me that she had offered to let Mr. Montagnino participate in the interviews but he declined. He told me that he did not want to offer legitimacy to the process.

There is a history of late-term appointments. For instance, incoming Public Safety Commissioner Rick Wirth (R) objected when Ron Kim (D), the outgoing Commissioner, moved during his last weeks in office to appoint a new Police Chief. Wirth ended up participating in the interviews and joining Kim in a news conference to announce the appointment.

It is also important to note that, according to Commissioner Dalton, this entire process has been carefully vetted by the city’s Civil Service office and has their approval. Mr. Montagnino is a lawyer and he may disagree with the Civil Service’s interpretation of the relevant statutes but that is their determination.

In my conversations with Mr. Montagnino he acknowledged the need to fill vacancies in the department which seemed to contradict his statements to the TU, but he emphasized that he would like to make any such appointments provisional. My understanding is that the city’s Civil Service rules would not allow for provisional appointments.

Mr. Montagnino said that his information is limited given that he is not yet Commissioner.

Commissioner Dalton also bridled at this accusation that the process is not “open and transparent.” She observed that the history of civil service is that it was created to address the abuses of nepotism. The process is a vigorous one based on publicly established eligibility rules along with a competitive test. Only the top three scorers on the test can be considered.

Dalton observed that if the Attorney General were to determine that the person appointed to the Assistant Chief’s position had violated the law they would be subject to dismissal or other disciplinary acts as established by city policy and contract.

Dalton told me that she was especially disturbed by Montagnino advocating that all promotions be frozen until the AG report is issued.

Dalton told me the Attorney General has asked the city for a huge amount of documents and video. Investigations like this can go on for a very long time. To freeze all positions in the meantime she argued would have a major, negative impact on morale.

Montagnino Rethinks

In an email to me on December 8, following the City Council meeting, Mr. Montagnino acknowledged, that his original critique had been compromised. “It’s a new ball game since last night,” he wrote. “The city council created a second assistant chief position and funded it only until the end of the year.” Actually, as noted above, the position had been authorized several years earlier.

In conversation with Commissioner Dalton, she told me the department has the money to continue to pay the new appointment in January.

Should This Have Gone To The Media?

Mr. Montagnino has raised reasonable concerns regarding the appointment of the Assistant Chief. Commissioner Dalton has offered some thoughtful rebuttals. The question to ask is, did Commissioner Dalton’s actions merit Mr. Montagnino’s media event?

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Civil Service Criteria

These are the relevant references from the state’s civil service law and from the city’s provisions:

NYS Civil Service Law 52.1  ‘…vacancies in positions in the competitive class (such as Assistant Police Chief) shall be filled, as far as practicable, by promotion from among persons holding competitive class positions in a lower grade in the department in which the vacancy exists, provided that such lower grade positions are in direct line of promotion…‘.  When a promotional civil service examination is administered, those passing candidates receive seniority credits at 0.4 points per year (max of 8.0 points) which are then included with the score provided by NYS Civil Service.

Also, our local Civil Service Rule 13.1  ‘In order to be eligible to participate in a promotional examination or to be promoted a candidate must have been employed in a competitive class or non-competitive class position on a permanent basis in a lower grade, either in direct line of promotion or in a related or collateral line of promotion as determined by the Commission. The Commission shall determine the minimum period of such service for eligibility to enter a promotion examination, and may also prescribe a minimum period of such service as a qualification for promotion from the resulting eligible list.’

The way the job specification reads currently today, the minimum qualifications call for the Assistant Police Chief to be promotional, requiring continuous time served with the City of Saratoga Springs Police Department. 

On Thursday night the City Council held a hearing on Commissioner Madigan’s proposal to amend the Unified Development Ordinance to create a new definition for “clubhouse” in the city’s greenbelt.

The change would have allowed for golf courses in the city’s greenbelt to build 80 room lodging facilities along with standing condos all under the new definition.

The city had received forty-seven comments via email regarding the change. Forty-five opposed the change and two supported it.

Todd Shimkus, executive director of the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce spoke in support of the project along with three representatives from Saratoga National. Steve Samuels of Sustainable Saratoga spoke in opposition along with three other members of the public.

Following the public comments, the City Council took up the proposal. Commissioners Scirocco, Franck, and Dalton spoke in opposition as did Mayor Kelly.

The Mayor told her colleagues that it was too late in the process to deal with a very challenging issue as there are only weeks left in the tenures of all but one member of the Council. She indicated that it would be better that any consideration of the proposal be left to the new Council.

Commissioner Madigan thanked her colleagues for their consideration and withdrew the proposal.

Newly elected Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi has gone to reporter Wendy Liberatore of the Times Union claiming, without offering any evidence, that Mayor Meg Kelly intervened in the appointment of the head of the city’s Information Technology Department (IT) to secure a job for her current Deputy, Lisa Shields.

In shockingly intemperate remarks Ms. Sanghvi told the Times Union “This is a gross abuse. It’s so egregious, so over the top.”

“This is our city’s IT,” Sanghvi said. “It’s all of our security systems and making a hire based off the favoritism and cronyism, it’s a blatant disregard for our city and our city’s safety. I’m frustrated and angry Mayor Meg Kelly is pushing her into this position. I do not like this at all.”

Times Union December 9, 2021

Ms. Sanghvi also declared that Ms. Shields is unqualified citing the fact that her computer science degree was awarded in 1981.

Due Diligence Be Damned!

Ms. Liberatore apparently made no attempt to verify the accuracy of Ms. Sanghvi’s accusations.

The IT department is under Finance Commissioner Madigan so she would be the one to hire Shields were she to decide to before leaving office at the end of the month. I contacted her and she told me that Mayor Kelly never reached out to her regarding Shields. “Never,” she emphasized.

She told me that she felt it critical to fill the IT position as soon as possible so that the current head of the department could assist in the transition. She told the Times Union that it has been a struggle to find the right candidate. She also said that she would not appoint Shields without support from Ms. Sanghvi. Commissioner Madigan was quite concerned, given the workload, that the position not be allowed to be vacant.

I emailed Ms. Sanghvi asking her what evidence she had to accuse the Mayor of inappropriately interfering in the hiring process for an IT director? A simple question which in light of her severe, public denunciation of the Mayor should be on the tip of her tongue. To date, I have received no response.

Kevin Kling is the current IT director. He plans to leave his position in January after twenty-five years on the job. According to Commissioner Madigan, Kling, who was part of the team interviewing candidates, selected Shields as who he believed should replace him. As Mr. Kling is leaving there is no possible way he would be subject to inappropriate influence.

I find it beyond strange that Ms. Sanghvi attributed the fact that Shields graduated with a degree back in 1981 as the basis for declaring her not competent for the position. Based on that standard, a large number of software engineers at Google, Microsoft, etc. who are in their fifties would no longer be competent to work with computers. I suspect that even Mr. Kling’s degree goes back a long way.

Dear reader, who would you consider better able to determine the competence of an applicant to be the head of IT? A person whose background is in accounting and marketing [Sanghvi] or the veteran director of the city’s IT department [Kling]?

A Callousness That Bodes Badly For The Future

Lisa Shields is probably among the three best public servants I have met in the fifty years I have lived in Saratoga Springs.

Most people have probably never heard of Ms. Shields. This is because she does her work quietly without fanfare.

The thing that has struck me most about Ms. Shields is her openness and her lack of defensiveness. She is an extraordinary listener. She never offers glib answers.

She is conscientious and puts in many hours.

With respect to Ms. Sanghvi, Ms. Shields would not apply for a position if she did not believe she would do a good job.

Commissioner Madigan had urged that Ms. Sanghvi meet with Mr. Kling before making any judgment about Ms. Shields, but rather than do this, Ms. Sanghvi went to Ms. Liberatore.

While Ms. Shields enjoys wide respect and affection in City Hall, it is always possible that there is someone more skilled for the position. For Ms. Sanghvi to announce to the TU, though, that Ms. Shields is not competent, aside from not being true, shows poor professional judgment and strikes me as being simply cruel.

Commissioner of Finance Michele Madigan is on a campaign to open the greenbelt to intensive development.

Commissioner Madigan would like the City Council to amend the Unified Development Ordinance definition of a “clubhouse” to not only allow for a huge expansion of Saratoga National Golf Course but also potentially other clubhouses should a developer be able to construct a golf course.

There will be a public hearing at City Hall on December 9 at 7:00 PM to consider her proposal.

Here is the language of the proposed change:

Sustainable Saratoga has an informative analysis of the threat this poses.

Earlier this year Commissioner Madigan asked the city’s Planning Board to review expanding the definition of a “clubhouse” as reflected in the green and white text above. The Planning Board issued an advisory opinion that such a definition “presents a significant risk to preserving the rural character in the “country” part of the city.”

Sustainable Saratoga noted:

The Comprehensive Plan states: “Discourage destination type resorts that compete with the downtown core.” (page 48). Retail establishments, spas, restaurants and banquet facilities, 80 lodging rooms, and 6 rental golf cottages is a pretty close definition of a “destination resort” that would compete with our downtown.

Sustainable Saratoga

Sustainable Saratoga urges people to attend the hearing and speak in opposition. If due to COVID people are unwilling to attend they are encouraged to email the members of the Council.

meg.kelly@saratoga-springs.org
robin.dalton@saratoga-springs.org 
john.franck@saratoga-springs.org
michele.madigan@saratoga-springs.org
skip.scirocco@saratoga-springs.org

Please copy Sustainable Saratoga on the email (info@sustainablesaratoga.org)

Alden Capital, the hedge fund which pretty much destroyed the Saratogian, is now after the Post Star.

This is an excellent story from the Atlantic Magazine on how Alden Capital is destroying the print press.

The public comment period at the last City Council meeting (11/16/21) went on for almost two hours and included numerous Black Live Matter speakers who denounced Mayor Meg Kelly for allegedly referring to BLM protesters as “cockroaches.”

Anyone who knows the Mayor would find it unbelievable that she would make such a remark. Whatever differences people may have with Mayor Kelly, those who have dealt with her know that her sense of dignity and comportment would make a remark like this totally out of character.

I tried to find the source of this allegation and traced it to the following rumor tweeted by Susan Steer. Ms. Steer served at one time on the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals and is married to Bob Turner who is on the faculty of Skidmore College and who chaired a past City Charter Commission.

What kind of person would put up such an ugly, unattributed, slur? It is truly grim especially because Ms. Steer had to know that it would be spread by other unprincipled people happy to exploit it. As the videos below document, this gross attack is repeated again and again during the gruelling hours of public comment at the City Council meeting as though it were the truth. What are we becoming?

The spreading of such an ugly lie by Ms.Steer reflects the utter madness and cruelty that our culture seems to be descending into.

The Meeting From Hell

One would have thought that a lame-duck City Council with only one member continuing would have drawn only modest public interest at this November meeting. After all, all but one of the Council members would be out of office in less than fifty days and the meeting would be one of the last three for this particular set of officials. In addition, the BLM leadership has expressed joy over the new slate that will be seated in January.

The only hearing scheduled was regarding the Police Review Board introduced by Commissioner Robin Dalton, but her proposal was dead on arrival and no one expected it to get any votes.

Nevertheless, BLM turned out in strength.

Mayor Kelly began the meeting with an apology. There is a group of parents seeking improved traffic safety at the Lake Avenue school. One of the parents had been allowed by Mayor Kelly to respond to a comment by Commissioner Dalton on this issue after the public comment period had ended at the last Council meeting. This was a marked departure from what the Mayor allows at meetings.

The meeting then opened for public comment, and the BLM representatives proceeded to ignore any time limits normally required of speakers under City Council rules. The Mayor basically gave up even the pretext of trying to enforce Council rules.

The result was that between the public hearing for the obviously dead proposal for the Civilian Review Board and the public comment period, the pre-meeting melee went on for almost three hours. The Council did not begin to address city business until 10PM that night.

The rule to address the Council and not individual Council members was also ignored by BLM speakers. The focus of much of the rage was directed at Mayor Kelly who sat stoically at the table enduring the hours of verbal assaults.

What purpose did all of this serve? What was the strategy behind continually insulting the Council as a whole and the Mayor in particular? What did they hope to achieve? Nothing that I could discern.

What I find particularly interesting is that one of BLM’s demands has been an investigation into the death of Darryl Mount. The person with the authority to actually investigate the Darryl Mount death, however, is the Saratoga County District Attorney. Why, one might ask, does the leadership of Black Lives Matter not focus their attention on the DA’s office as well?

In fact, the BLM people for all their rage about the Council, know that the penalties they may face for disrupting Saratoga Springs Council meetings are minor to none. They exploit the tolerance of the City Council to indulge in a veritable orgy of anger and recrimination. For all of their bravado, the unspoken reality is that were they to attempt the same kind of activities at the County, the response would be very different.

BLM: There Is No Strategy– It Is About Self Indulgent Abuse

In contrast to Saratoga’s BLM leadership, Martin Luther King drew heavily on the writings on non-violence and theories and tactics for social change of Mahatma Gandhi.

Both men understood that for a social movement to succeed it not only had to have attainable and important goals, but it also had to embody compassion even toward its opponents. Hatred and bitterness, if embraced, would only serve to foster internal division and undermine the possibility for real success. A movement grounded in hate will engender institutions grounded in hate.

Make no mistake, as great as they were neither man was a saint. They were shrewd tacticians. King and his leadership team were well known for their long and thoughtful strategy meetings trying to think out every permutation. Actions were carefully planned and carried out with discipline.

It is sad that Saratoga BLM has eschewed this legacy.

The Problem Of Reporting On BLM events

The media is ill-equipped to cover the kind of BLM engagement that occurred at this City Council meeting. One challenge is that how one views the behavior of BLM members is always somewhat subjective. For some their unrestrained anger and verbal attacks could be viewed as appropriate in light of the alleged abuses they feel they have received from the police and others. For other observers, their behavior may be seen as odious and infantile.

It is impossible to provide their readers or their viewers with a complete view of the evening’s events. Lucas Willard of WAMC simply noted that the meeting was heated.

This blog provides me with the ability to dig deeper. The following are a few excerpts from what I found to be a several-hour ordeal.

For those who want to watch the entire meeting for themselves, click here.

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[JK: Some fact checking: There is copious documentation that, not withstanding Lexis Figuereo’s remarks, Commissioners Madigan and Dalton made numerous attempts to engage Mr. Figuereo. The New York Times story contained no accusations that the BLM group was responsible for the vandalism of the Union soldier statue.]

A story in the November 18 Times Union by Wendy Liberatore was titled ”Court Drops Charges Against Saratoga Protester.” The story involved Ms. Gabrielle Elliott who is the mother of Lexus Figuereo’s two children. The title was untrue, but the editor could be forgiven because Ms. Liberatore’s lead stated that “Charges against a Black Lives Matter protester…were dropped Thursday morning in city court.”

In fact, as the story noted, the court issued an ACD which stands for “adjourned in contemplation of dismissal.” Ms. Liberatore failed to report to her readers that the charges would only be dismissed if Ms. Elliot was not arrested again during the next six months. Ms. Elliott was charged with, among other things, throwing a water bottle at a police officer and resisting arrest.

This is the description of an ACD from Wikipedia:

In criminal procedure, an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal (ACD or ACOD) allows a court to defer the disposition of a defendant’s case, with the potential that the defendant’s charge will be dismissed if the defendant does not engage in additional criminal conduct or other acts prohibited by the court as a condition of the ACD

Wikipedia

The charges then are still pending. The court has made no determination regarding guilt or innocence. It is significant that the court has not dismissed the case.

One could argue that the defendant may have believed themselves innocent but agreed to the ACD in light of the cost and inconvenience of contesting the charge. What is indisputable is that the charge has not been dismissed and that should the defendant be charged with a crime during the stipulated period they would have to defend themselves against the original charge as well as the new charge.

Ms. Liberatore’s story portrays Ms. Eliot’s experience in the most lurid prose with Ms. Elliot and her children cast as innocent victims traumatized by the police. I have written about this earlier. I was there during the incident. Ms. Elliot acted recklessly precipitating the arrest knowing her children were with her.

Hopefully Ms. Elliot will learn from this experience and will be sufficiently intimidated by the potential penalty of a future arrest to show more wisdom in the future.

Ms. Eliot and Lexus Figuereo are allowed by Ms. Liberatore to go on about the trauma to their children and about their plans to sue the city. I am not an attorney (their attorney characterized the charges as ”garbage”) but it would seem that an actual dismissal by the court rather than the ACD would have been more helpful were they to sue the city.

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A Note To My Readers

Readers who have followed my blog are aware that I have written quite a few posts about errors in Ms. Liberatore’s reporting.

For a contrast to her story readers might read articles that appeared in the Foothills Business Review or the Daily Gazette covering the same events.

When I first started writing my blog I wrote to both Ms. Liberatore and to her editors about inaccuracies in her stories. I soon learned the futility of such efforts. I no longer make any effort regarding these, frequent as they are. Ms. Liberatore enjoys the full support of her editors.

Addendum

Late breaking news–Daily Gazette reports “Saratoga County DA Charges Elliott’s Lawyer mischaracterized motive for conditional dismissal.”

In an article that will appear in tomorrow’s (11/21/21) Daily Gazette, Brian Lee reports that County District Attorney Karen Heggen said the defense lawyer for Gabrielle Elliott of Ballston Spa, “mischaracterized why her office agreed to conditionally dismiss three misdemeanor charges [Ms.Elliott] faced.”

The story says that Heggen refutes Elliott’s lawyer, Jasper Mills’, statement to reporters that Heggen recognized the case against Ms.Elliott as a “pile of garbage.”

“According to Heggen, ” Lee reports, “the DA’s offer of an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal to the three charges….wasn’t offered because of problems with the validity or substance of the charges filed against Elliott as Mills speculated” and it was an offer made to many defendants in similar situations.

Heggen stated “As with all cases that are adjourned in contemplation of dismissal, the cases regarding Ms. Elliott are technically still open in Saratoga Springs City Court and will remain open until May, 2022. The cases will be dismissed at the end of the six-month period of time if Ms. Elliott is not charged with any new crimes during that time period. If she does not remain arrest-free during that time period, the cases could be reopened and the charges placed back on the court calendar.”

It remains to be seen if Ms. Liberatore will report on Ms. Heggen’s statement.

According to the November 3, 2021, Times Union, the leadership of the Black Lives Matter group is “ecstatic” over the success of the Democratic candidates in the November city election.

A Grand Jury?

To their credit, they have successfully put the investigation into the death of Daryll Mount into play some eight years following the incident in which he sustained an injury that led to his death. Both James Montagnino, elected as Commissioner of Public Safety, and Ron Kim, elected as Mayor, have publicly committed to calling for Karen Heggen, the Saratoga County District Attorney, to convene a grand jury to investigate Mount’s death.

It is undeniable that the leaders of BLM’s dogged campaign to have the case reinvestigated has had an impact.

Of course, the District Attorney, Karen Heggen, can ignore all this.

Maybe we will finally find out why she apparently ignored the referrals from the New York State Attorney General to review Mount’s injury and death back in 2013.

An Unstable Alliance

An alliance based on a shared enemy is notoriously unstable.

Lexis Figuereo, Alexus Brown, and Samira Sangare attended the election-eve gathering of the Democrats and cheered the results.

The Democratic candidates had successfully gained their support during the campaigns.

A careful analysis of the Democrats they supported suggests that the honeymoon between these people may not last very long.

The following is from the November 3, 2021 article in the Foothills Business Daily:

Montagnino expects to draft a report ready for his first day as commissioner. In it, he plans to outline both what happened and what the various legal concerns may be. He admitted, that he will let people draw their own conclusions on who or what caused the death [JK:My emphasis], but he believes a full report is needed for a community discussion.

Foothills Business Daily

Mr. Figuereo, Ms. Brown, and Ms. Sangare have made it crystal clear that as far as they are concerned, the police murdered Darryl Mount. How will they respond to a report by Mr. Montagnino if it fails to support their claim?

In another article, Mr. Montagnino floated that the composition of the police review board may be based on a pool of potential members similar to the selection from a jury pool.

I anticipate that Mr. Figuereo, Ms. Brown, and Ms. Sangare expect that activists such as themselves should be appointed to the civilian review board.

How will they respond if the method for selecting members of the board frustrates their expectations?

I find the BLM alliance with mayor-elect Ron Kim especially odd. In their fervor to defeat Republican Heidi Owen West, they have chosen to ignore the significance of the fact that Ron Kim served as Commissioner of Public Safety for two terms. Conspicuously absent during his tenure was any public discussion of issues of racism or misconduct in the police department.

Is it really plausible that somehow the police department was free of racism and excessive force during his terms but that somehow three years later under his successor, Public Safety Commissioner Chris Mathiesen, the department descended into bigotry and violence?

Overall it is clear that the leadership of BLM credits themselves for being a major factor in the success of the Democrats. That belief has led them to have high expectations about what they deserve from the new administration.

Mr. Figuereo told WAMC radio, “We are definitely looking for reciprocation, for sure. One hand washes the other.”

In the same article, Mr. Figuereo speculated that with the new commissioners that jobs might open up for members of his group.

He told WAMC, “There’s a lot of different positions that are going to be available. We would like them to be opened up to everybody, not just the normal people – Caucasians – of our community.”

It remains to be seen what will happen should the new City Council not meet BLM’s expectations.

It is hard to believe, given the bitter denunciation of the Saratoga Springs Police Department at the BLM demonstrations as being white supremacist murderers, that the recently elected candidates will not also eventually find themselves the targets of BLM’s anger.

[JK: I will be writing in more detail regarding the November election in a later post.]

How Candidates Campaign Tells Us A Lot About How They Will Govern

I simply do not know how to run a more negative campaign than to accuse your opponents of being a threat to democracy as the city’s Democratic Committee did in this year’s city elections. Their mailers included images from the January 6 events in D.C. alleging that the Republican endorsed candidates for city offices were somehow complicit in these events. This is in spite of the fact that the Republican endorsed candidates had gone on record deploring this event. Surely Pat Tuz, the chair of the city’s Democratic Committee was fully aware of this. Ms. Tuz is too sophisticated to believe in this kind of myth promoted by her candidates’ campaign, but apparently, concerns of fairness and accuracy simply gave way to a disturbing ruthlessness. Concern over the damage to the fabric of our community was jettisoned in the interest of winning at all costs.

How are these hyper attacks different from the allegations made by the supporters of Donald Trump that the Presidential election was stolen? How can the Democrats answer the argument that they have made up stories that are simply not true?

A Brilliant Strategy On The Road To Hell

The way candidates campaign tells us a lot about how they will govern. If they will flagrantly misrepresent the truth in their campaigns, it is likely that they will use similar tactics when they sit at the city council table. It also reflects how they will deal with others who may disagree with them. I hope I am wrong, but Saratogians should prepare themselves for some very ugly behavior come January at the Council table.

It’s Just Politics?

I know that partisans on both sides will just dismiss this kind of behavior as “just politics.” My problem is that these are the same people who deplore the fraying of the fabric of our civil society. Those who dismiss this kind of over-the-top campaigning might want to think about their own role in the decline of our institutions.

Aren’t we better than this?

Let me finish this post with a quote from a November 7 feature from Spectrum News 1:

Kim says there are a number of other challenges he plans to face, like infrustructure, but unifying the Spa City Tops the list.

Spectrum News

I hope the irony of calling for unity after gratuitously characterizing their opponents as anti-democratic insurrectionists is not lost on the readers of this blog. In the magical world of Mr. Kim and Ms. Tuz, bitterly marginalizing people has no consequences. The reality is that rather than strengthening and protecting democracy, their strategy can only serve to further weaken it.

The office of the District Attorney is a powerful one. As will be discussed below, complaints by citizens over the death of Daryll Mount were sent to the New York State Attorney General who in turn referred them to the DA back in 2013. The DA has the power even today to select from a number of options to see that an independent review is carried out. Instead, it appears that the referrals by the Attorney General fell into a black hole.

Several weeks ago Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton was kind enough to provide me with the documents below. They represent the 2013 correspondence from the then-Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, to the Saratoga County District Attorney’s office.

According to the documents the Attorney General received quite a number of complaints regarding the Saratoga Springs Police Department. Many of these complaints related to the Darryl Mount incident. As the readers of this blog know, Mr. Mount was mortally hurt following a police chase in Saratoga Springs in the fall of 2013.

The Attorney General referred all of these complaints to James Murphy III. Mr. Murphy had been the Saratoga District Attorney for decades. However, at the time these referrals were made, Mr. Murphy had left the DA’s office and become a New York State judge.

Karen Heggen had been Judge Murphy’s assistant at the District Attorney’s office and with his leaving she became “acting” DA. She subsequently was elected District Attorney and is currently serving in this office. She would have been responsible for addressing the referrals made to her office by the Attorney General.

Each complaint had an accompanying cover letter. The letter requested that the DA’s office take “…whatever action you deem appropriate.”

What If Anything Did The District Attorney Do In Response To the Attorney General’s Referrals?

I was interested in learning if there had been any effort by any public institution to initiate an independent investigation of the Darryl Mount case. To that end, I FOILed the city with the following request:

“This FOIL is to request all correspondence between the city and other public institutions requesting that an independent investigation into the death of Darryl Mount.”

Unfortunately, while the city acknowledged that they do have documents pertaining to my request, they denied me access citing “…they pertain to inter-agency and intra-agency documents that contain opinions, advice, recommendations, etc. which may be withheld pursuant to Public Officers Law 87(2)(g).”

Subsequent to this denial I wrote to Saratoga County DA Karen Heggen as follows:

In October of 2013 Eric Schneiderman, then the attorney general, referred to your office complaints about the troubling circumstances of Darryl Mount’s injury and subsequent death.

Do you recall how you responded to these referrals?

Email from John Kaufmann to Karen Heggen

So far Ms. Heggen has not responded.

Karen Heggen Is The Critical Player In Any Independent Investigation

This all led me on a hunt for understanding what role the District Attorney had in this matter. I explored the issue by searching the web and I reached out to my network of attorneys.

First, my legal contacts all observed that an incident like Mount’s required an independent investigation. Asking an institution like a police force to investigate itself was problematic. At a minimum, the optics would ensure what we have seen, that a cloud would hang over the institution.

They also explained to me that not only did the District Attorney have the tools to pursue an investigation at the time, but that there is no statute of limitations keeping Ms. Heggen from acting even today.

She has three basic options:

First, Ms. Heggen could request that the New York State Police investigate how the Saratoga Springs Police Department handled all the aspects of the Mount case. Their mission would not be to determine the potential criminal culpability of the officers involved but to establish whether there were any improprieties in the entire affair.

Second, Ms. Heggen could impanel a grand jury to investigate the entire case. Grand juries meets in secret. They can, however, issue a report to the public regarding their findings. The grand jury could potentially issue an indictment. They could also report on any problems they found with the handling of the case and issue recommendations for corrective action.

Finally, Ms. Heggen could refer the issue back to the Attorney General citing a lack of resources in her office to properly handle this. The Attorney General has considerable resources to pursue all this.

The central issue is that Ms. Heggen, as the Saratoga County District Attorney, is key to any independent review.

It is frustrating and disturbing that the Attorney General referred this sensitive case to Ms. Heggen’s office and the public has no idea what if anything she has done.

Our City Council should insist that District Attorney Heggen publically disclose what actions she took as a result of receiving the referrals from the Attorney General. If Ms. Heggen refuses to disclose what happened, the City Council should ask the Attorney General to take action.

The fact that the family of Daryll Mount is suing the city is no excuse for not having an independent body carry out a rigorous review.

Let me be clear, I have no idea how Darryl Mount died. I find it troubling that many of those protesting assume that he was murdered by the police. What is available to the public currently is insufficient to draw any final conclusions.

It is axiomatic that there should be an independent investigation. Ms. Heggen has the authority to pursue all this and it is my hope that she will rise to the occasion and at a minimum tell the public what she has done so far. Hopefully, she will recognize that justice means a credible and rigorous pursuit of all the facts by her office.

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The Correspondence