Category: Uncategorized

This blog has previously reported on the two years during which Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran promised numerous dates for deploying the Short Term Rental (STR) portal, which property owners can use to register.

According to the timestamp on his campaign Facebook page tonight (November 3), on the eve of the election, Moran claims that he deployed the software last Friday (October 31) and that his office is already processing applications.

This is a screenshot from Moran’s campaign Facebook page. The red line was added.

The problem is that, according to both the available documents and his remarks at the October 31 pre-agenda meeting, it was not up on Friday.

In this clip from the Friday meeting, he tells his colleagues that it would take twenty-four hours for the vendor to deploy it. He then says, presumably because the next day is the weekend, it would not be up until Tuesday.

So if it takes twenty-four hours and if he advised his colleagues of this on Friday morning, it could not possibly have been available that night.

In addition, this time stamped city website page from Saturday morning, November 1, shows that the page had not been updated since August,

Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran has promoted himself as the successful architect of short-term rental management. In fact, his campaign mailing focuses on this as one of his main achievements.

A casual scrutiny of what he has actually done and not done reveals a very different story.

Moran had the city purchase the software for a portal to be used by short-term rental owners to register with the city. It was purchased on February 6, 2024. The cost for using the software for the first year was $56,000.00. It was not deployed, so the city wasted the money for that year. On February 6, 2025, the city paid for the next year in the amount of $55,000.00. By his own admission, the portal will not be functional until the end of the year, so that is another $55,000.00 wasted.

During this period, he successfully received support from the city’s civil service to hire an additional staff member to handle STRs. As the software has not been deployed, hiring anyone was premature. He also successfully raised the salaries of employees in his office because the alleged workload for STR was added to their responsibilities.

Accounts employee X was hired on July 26, 2023, at a salary of $66,668.00. On February 20,2024, her salary was increased to $83,380.00 to compensate her for her additional duties with STR. The new budget crafted by Minita Sanghvi raises her salary to $92,687.00

Moran has routinely announced at City Council meetings one date after another that the STR software would be deployed. In fact, on October 20, 2025, at the League of Women Voters forum, he announced it would be up the next day. Of course it was not. The latest date he has announced is now December 31, 2025.

There is further confusion because the annual registration date, which involves a fee, is in June. Therefore, if the owner of an STR registers on January 1, 2026, (it remains to be seen if the portal will be operational), they will be required to register at the full rate for a year, with their registration expiring in June.

There is also the problem that these STRs must be inspected by the city, and it remains to be seen when this will happen and how long it will take.

Many of the folks with short-term rentals are, not surprisingly, frustrated and angry at the mess that Moran has created.

This is yet another example of Moran’s desire for headlines and his utter failure to actually manage.

The Saratoga Springs Democratic Party has sent out their final campaign mailer. Interestingly, it doesn’t tout their platform or even mention who their candidates are. No, the message the local Dems want to leave their audience with is its phony claim that One Saratoga is a tool of the MAGA GOP. This is the local Dems oft repeated big beautiful lie that they hope will win them this election. The Dems do not seem to realize that this kind of over-the-top attack only serves to damage their local committee’s reputation and their endorsed candidates. If they would lie so blatantly in this kind of mailing, how can people trust what their candidates will say if they are elected/re-elected?

The best antidote to this kind of campaigning is to share with the public who One Saratoga is. So here are two members of One Saratoga who the local Dems want you to believe are really MAGA operatives. You decide.

Courtney DeLeonardis, Chair of One Saratoga, Addresses The Voters

Jane Weihe, Campaign Assistant, One Saratoga Addresses The Voters

[I received this essay from Lew Benton. This year was not the first time Sanghvi has mishandled the budget process. Lew goes back to 2023 to detail how Sanghvi failed to follow best practices and charter requirements in putting together the 2024 budget. He notes also her penchant for consistently overestimating revenues and underestimating expenditures which has contributed to today’s dilemma. ]

Why Make the Proposed City Budget Opaque?

Perhaps some of those who attempted to review the City’s October 27 amended Comprehensive Budget, and compare and contrast it to the Finance Commissioner’s initial October 3 presentation, came away as perplexed as Alan Turing in his early efforts to crack the Enigma Code.

If you did, you were not alone.  Unlike all previous City budgets, the proposed amended 2024 budget does not adhere to the format required by the City Charter.  

Rather than, as outlined in the Charter,  follow a standardized budget format that  employs “ …  the most feasible combination of expenditure classifications by funds, organization unit, program, purpose, or activity and object,” all proposed expenditure lines are lumped together, not disaggregated by function.

The table below presents the City Attorney’s Budget as it appeared in the proposed 2024 Comprehensive spending plan dated October 3, 2023.  The expenditure budget for each of the departments under the mayor’s administrative control follows the same format, as does each organizational unit or function in Finance, Accounts, Public Safety and Public Works.

     

CITY ATTORNEY’S OFFICE                    

PERSONAL SERVICE              2022          2023          2023         2023         2023               2024

                                                              Original       Adopted     Revised     Actual     Projected   Comprehensive

  

A301142151047 FOIL OFFIC             .00             .00                .00             .00            .00                  .00

A301142151090 CITY ATTY         89,493       93,600      93,600    71,742      93,857           93,857

A301142151110 ASST ATTY              .00             .00             82,548        57,743      82,549         105,276

A301142151117 AST CITY A              .00            .00                .00             .00           .00                 .00

A301142151276 EXASSISTAN    53,496      54,566        57,297    43,796      57,297           59,550

         

A301142158030 SS CITY PO       10,913       16,689        23,004    13,059      17,878           19,789

                    

TOTAL  PERSONAL SER VICES        153,902      164,855      256,449       186,342    251,581        278,473

    

EQUIPMENT AND CAPITAL OUTLAY      

 A301142252200 OFFICE EQ        1,360.         00               .00       .00            .00                 .00

TOTAL EQUIPMENT AND CAPITAL       1,360.         00               .00              .00            .00                 .00

 CONTRACTED SERVICES                

A301142454110 OFFICE SUP                3,019        700                   700            559         700                  700

A301142454120 POSTAGE                       346        350                   355            355         355                  350

A301142454250 CONF REG                     509      1,500                  870            107         870                  .00

A301142454440 BOOKS                        1,195      1,300               2,044            943      1,687                1,300

A301142454671 PHONE FAX                     31        .00                    216            170         216                  .00

A301142454720 PROF SER                92,816     20,000            56,250       33,049     92,312              20,000

A301142454740 SC EQUIP                   2,163      2,050               2,050          1,335      2,050                2,050

A301142454745 LEGAL LIAB                  .00          .00                   .00              .00          .00                   .00

A301142454760 LEGAL                           500        750                   750             500        750                   750

TOTAL CONTRACTED SERVICES   100,581     26,650            63,236        37,020     98,941              25,150

TOTAL CITY ATTORNEY                 255,844    191,505          319,686     223,363    350,523            303,623

This format allows ease of access and review of the proposed budgets of each city function, identification of and individual expenditure for each title, non-personal costs and costs of associated contractual expenses.  Further, this format – required by Charter law – shows the total costs for each expenditure classification.

In this example, it is noted that the Council has significantly overspent  the “PROF SER” line   this fiscal year and last.  This should beg the question of why over $90,000 has been spent in 2022 and 2023 on outside legal services while only $20,000 was initially budgeted.  And why only $20,000 is proposed for 2024.  

Is this an anomaly?  Were there unanticipated extra-legal services in 2022 and 2023 that will not be necessary in 2024?  Of course many other similar observations are made in the review of essentially all departmental budgets.

This required budget presentation is transparent, relatively simple and allows and encourages understanding.  The amended budget is opaque.  

Without explanation, however, the proposed amended 2024 Comprehensive Budget is presented in an entirely different form.

For example, the several “department” expenditure lines under the auspices of the mayor are simply thrown together, co-mingled.  The reviewer is left to divine which line items are part of which of the mayor’s several department budgets: i.e., City Attorney, Planning, Building, Human Resources, etc.  

The same is true for Finance, Accounts, Public Safety and Public Works.  In the later two, Public Safety and Public Works, the task of meaningful, comprehensive review of the budgets of discrete functions: i.e., fire services, policing, EMS, etc., requires substantial investment in time and enough working knowledge to assign each line item to its respective agency.

In the Mayor’s proposed budget there are at least seven expenditure lines  alone labeled “Professional Services” but the only way to determine which department the lines apply to requires a time consuming and tedious matching of account numbers.

Why Finance elected to abandon a budget format that has always been relatively easy to read and understand for one significantly more difficult to puzzle out is itself a conundrum.  Finance must be required to reformat the proposed amended budget before its  November 28 hearing.  

Other Thoughts on the Proposed 2024 City Budget. Certain Revenues 

and Expenditures

The proposed 2024 City Comprehensive Budget as presently constructed is concerning.   It will require significant amendments if operating deficits are to be avoided next year.

First and foremost, it includes unfavorable budget variances in both major revenue and expenditure accounts.    

This comes on the heels of a 2023 budget, the first prepared and adopted by current City Council members, that preordained the 2024 proposal’s many overstated anticipated revenues and, in some cases, grossly underfunded expenditure lines.  

The proposed 2024 operating budget is not in balance and must not be adopted until it is.  To bring it into balance will require a more realistic examination of several accounts, including those referenced below, and the political will to act.  

No doubt, the lack of institutional knowledge and limited understanding of how this government functions on the part of a Council made of first term members can, in part, serve to temper the inadequacies in the 2023 budget.  But failure to recognize and correct them going forward is unacceptable and a violation of the fiduciary’s responsibility.  

Attempting to transfer blame to those who had no hand in the adoption of the 2023 budget or the preparation of the 2024 plan, citing recent high inflation and the dearth of new revenue streams for the city’s fiscal difficulties rings hollow. 

All local governments are faced with the same head winds.  It might be more honest  to acknowledge that hiring additional non-essential employees was not prudent, that budgeting non-existent revenues e and that deliberately low balling major expenditures invites deficit spending.

Following are examples of the unfavorable variances in the proposed 2024 operating budget.  There  are, to be sure, others.

Revenues

In Finance, $850,000 in Hotel Occupancy Tax revenue is proposed for 2024.  This is over $100,000 more than was actually realized in FY 2022 and over $600,000 more than has been received to date this year.  

The 2023 budget includes a non-existent ‘Cannabis Tax’ revenue of $250,000.  The proposed 2024 budget carries that same amount forward.  Potential first time revenues  such as this one do not usually meet expectations.  And by prematurely including the revenue in the 2023 budget only added to a negative revenue variance

The proposed Mortgage Tax revenue for 2024 is $1.5 million compared to the $933,400 collected to date this year.  The $933,400 is far below the $2.05 million budget.  

Mortgage markets have been depressed even here in Saratoga Springs by Fed attempts to reign in inflation.  Even the $1.5 million proposed seems unrealistic.

The Mayor’s budget is ripe with unfavorable 2024 revenue variances.  The Building Permit account carries a proposed $700,000 revenue even in the face of a major decline in permit revenues this year.  To date Building Permit revenue is listed by Finance at $352,520 with only $400,000 projected by the end of the FY.  This is $300,000 less than was budgeted.  Artificially inflating anticipated revenue only increases the structural deficit.

In recent years this revenue has been strong but, at least for the short term, it is most unlikely that in one year that revenue will increase 75%, from $400,000 to $700,000.

Likewise, Planning Board fees are unrealistically overstated.  Actual 2022 Planning Board revenue was $122,820.  Still, this revenue line was increased to $200,000 in the adopted 2023 budget but is now projected by Finance to fall $35,000 short.  

Now, in spite of the anticipated 2023 unfavorable variance, Finance has increased the line to $250,000 for 2024.  Perhaps an explanation for this doubling of the 2022 revenue and increasing the anticipated 2023 collections by $85,000 in the 2024 budget is in order. 

Other revenue lines in the Mayor’s budget that are suspect include Insurance Reimbursement, from  -0-  this year to $125,000 next year. 

The Public Safety revenue budget includes a $300,000 increase in Ambulance Transportation charges over the $2 million projected to be realized by the end of FY-23 and is over $500,000 more than actually collected in 2022.

Unless the fee structure has been significantly increased this revenue line is likely to fall far short of the $2.3 million in the proposed 2024 budget.

Parking Enforcement revenue is now anticipate to be $462,0000 this year, down almost $80,000 from the $540,000 budgeted and $38,000 less than the $500,000 in the 2024 proposal.  

Operating Expenditures

The operating budget also includes many likely unfavorable variances.  Just as overestimating revenues in the actual 2003 and proposed 2024 budgets contributed to the city’s present fiscal dilemma, so have what appears to be unfavorable variances in the operating budgets.

In the 2023 Public Safety operating budget the City Council included $190,000 for Fire Fighter Overtime.  Finance now projects that by the end of the fiscal year $533,500 will be spent, this is an astronomical increase of $343,500 over the amount budgeted.

Similarly the Firefighter Compensation Time budget is anticipated to be overspent.  Only $190,000 was earmarked for this line in the 2023 budget but $563,000 is anticipated to be spent by year’s end, a $373.000 overage.

So too is the proposed 2024 Police Overtime and Compensation Time lines grossly underfunded.  Finance proposes to appropriate the rather odd amount of $263,637 for Compensation Time vis a’vis the $483,570 spent in 2022 and the projected $450,000 in 2023.  The 2024 OT line is set at $325,000 against the $507,505 expended in 2022 and  the estimated $450,000 this year.

In the aggregate, Finance is proposing 2024 Police and Fire Fighter OT and Comp Time expenditures totaling $1,338,637 although corresponding 2022 costs were $1,498,271 and projected 2023 expenditures are $1,981,000.

While there may have been unique circumstances that have resulted in higher than normal Police and Firefighter OT and Compensation Time expenditures this year, the proposed 2024 appropriations are well below what will be needed to avoid the necessity of transferring large amounts during the course of FY 24.  

In the Mayor’s office $20,000 was budgeted for outside legal counsel this year but Finance projects that over $92,000 will be spent.  Only $20,000 is earmarked for next year.  Now it appears that yet more outside legal services will be retained to investigate an offending mail.   This is madness. 

These references are not all inclusive.  There are many more questions to be asked and answered.  Why, for example has Code Blue shelter support been cut from the budget.  

There is time to prepare a more realistic 2024 operating budget.  I hope the City Council will do so lest the new Council be bequeathed an extraordinary fiscal challenge.

Lew Benton

Just A Few Highlights From Minita Sanghvi’s 2026 proposed budget.

• Senior citizen center support = zeroed out
• Funding for Judge Vero’s homeless (outreach court) = zeroed out
• Crossing guards for our city schools = zeroed out
• Funding for RISE for the homeless = zeroed out
• Most part-time staff and seasonal staff = zeroed out
• Money for training the planning staff or the building department = zeroed out
• Secretary for the planning board = zeroed out
• The overtime budget for special events = zeroed out
• Uniforms: funding cut from $57,000.00 to $15,000.00, leaving inadequate funds to meet contractual obligations to the union.

Reader, You Were Warned

Under the commission form of government, the Commissioner of Finance is responsible for crafting the budget for the following year. Unless a majority of the Council votes to overrule the Finance Commissioner to amend the budget, the original budget becomes the final budget.

As should be obvious, preparing budgets requires a solemn commitment on the part of the Finance Commissioner to be deeply informed about city finances and to oversee the collection of key information. This is an enormously demanding process.

I have repeatedly warned that Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi has been derelict in her duties in running her office. What motivated her was performing in the drama at Council meetings in her role as Commissioner. She has been uninterested in or unwilling to take on the highly demanding job of managing the city’s finances.

Sanghvi’s automatic email response informs whoever has written to her that the Commissioner of Finance position is part-time and that, if the correspondence is important, contact Sanghvi’s Deputy. This is truly emblematic of how she views her job and how we got here.

The critical issue is that unless a majority of Council members agree to a different budget, the one crafted by the Finance Office will be the budget for the following year. This is why crafting a good budget in the first place is so important.

Before Commissioner Sanghvi, the budget was crafted over many months. The Budget Director would meet with the Deputies and their Commissioners to review what they were spending money on, their contractual obligations to vendors and city unions, and the legal limits on the respective departments’ obligations. There was also an analysis by the Budget Director working with the Deputies to project potential revenue for their respective departments. The finance people would also correlate their findings with the budgets from previous years. All of this required multiple follow-up meetings over a protracted period.

Beginning in October, budget workshops were held for each department. The purpose of these budget workshops traditionally was to fine-tune a thoroughly prepared budget. Not with Commissioner Sanghvi; her colleagues at the Council table received a rudimentary document listing slashed items meant to balance the city’s revenues with its expenses.

As it takes a majority vote to amend Sanghvi’s budget, the other Commissioners begin scrambling to negotiate not only with her but also with each other to secure a majority to fix her mess.

Basically, this budget is being written largely from scratch. That is how, in this case, the city got a budget with no money for school crossing guards.

Taking Care of Herself and Her Friend Dillon Moran

What Sanghvi has done over the past three years is to arbitrarily cut items and exaggerate income until she arrives at a budget that appears to balance with the anticipated city income.

These policies have reflected who her allies are.

Consider this chart that shows how much she anticipated each department would raise in income to contribute to her budget. It documents not only her favoritism but also how little she understood the alleged revenue streams for her department and Dillon Moran’s.

For example, her 2024 budget projected that the short-term rental program in the Accounts Department would raise $250,000.00. It raised zero. It budgeted $250,000.00 in cannabis tax revenue. It raised zero. (Not coincidentally, both these projections came from her ally, Dillon Moran)

During her first years in office, when her Democratic party ran the Council, her generosity was breathtaking. Anything that her colleagues, Ron Kim, Jim Montagnino, Jason Golub, and Moran, wanted was no problem.

During this period, Sanghvi showered repeated bonuses on their deputies and funded numerous new positions in their departments and in hers.

Magical Thinking Instead Of Real Analysis

Commissioner Sanghvi’s approach to budgeting is more about chaos than rigorously crafting how the city should spend its money.

This is no exaggeration; it is the grim reality. Each fall, as the budget was coming due, Sanghvi would throw together budgets that ignored contracts, state law, and the lobbying of her fellow Commissioners. If you watch the budget workshops for each department, you will see that Sanghvi relied on these meetings rather than her staff’s own research to identify which budget items violated city contracts, state law, or required the replacement of key equipment.

Forget planning; what followed were crazy events in which the departments tried to reason with Sanghvi about why her appropriations were not workable. Sanghvi, who is truly clueless, would arbitrarily fund some activities while rejecting others.

Take overtime in the Public Safety Department. Sanghvi slashed overtime. This money is essential for special events, as event venues must operate in a safe environment that requires additional police and fire protection.

This is no way to run a city the size of Saratoga Springs. The proof of Sanghvi’s folly is the 2025 budget. This city is running out of money.

Important Deadline Missed

The city’s quarterly financial report is a key document because it provides an ongoing status report on the fiscal condition of the city.

From the city charter:

4.4.9 of the city charter requires that “the commissioner of finance shall submit to the Council, for each quarter, a written financial report on the status of the City’s financial plan. Such financial plan shall include a comparison of estimated and actual income and expenditures to date and shall be submitted within 45 days after the end of each quarter. Each quarterly summary shall be forwarded to the City Clerk’s office and shall be available for public review.

This is a bit in the weeds. The final quarterly report has been routinely delayed for many years beyond the 45-day requirement. It is submitted after the report on the city’s finances to the New York State Comptroller, which is due on April 30 each year. Past Finance Commissioners, upon filing the city’s annual report on its financial condition with the Comptroller, have then submitted the report summary to the City Council shortly thereafter, as required by the charter.

This is an essential report for assessing the city’s fiscal health. It includes the fund balance. The “fund balance” is the amount of money the city has in reserve. It assesses how each department did in staying within its department budget.

This year, Sanghvi never submitted the preliminary financial report (fourth quarter for 2024). Sanghvi quietly posted the report on October 17, 2025, almost 6 months after it should have been submitted to the Council.

This report provides key information on trends in the city’s financial condition. It should have revealed that the city’s spending rate was unsustainable. It should have prompted a serious discussion months ago as to what needed to be done in light of excess spending over revenue.

Hang On!

I have no idea where all this will end up. I am sure there will be a large tax increase (Sanghvi raised taxes in her first two budgets, but for obvious political reasons, she refused to raise taxes when she was running for the state Senate, and now that she is running for Supervisor), and Sanghvi will draw money from the city’s reserves–if she can figure out how much money is there.

On October 20, 2025, the Saratoga County League of Women Voters sponsored a forum for the candidates running for Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Public Works. League guidelines require that candidates must refrain from making statements of a personal nature about other candidates and require respectful and civil discourse.

Following some particularly aggressive personal attacks by candidate BK Keramati on his opponent, current Commissioner of Public Works, Chuck Marshall, the moderator reminded Keramati and Marshall:

“I’m going to remind both candidates we are going to try to keep the discourse around the issue and not at each other.”

After Keramati attacked Marshall again, the moderator offered:

“BK, We’re not going to attack each other tonight”

The League found Keramati’s remarks in his closing statement so problematic that they edited Mr. Keramati’s statement and sent the following email to Mr. Marshall.

From: LWV Saratoga <>
Date: Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Subject: Re: Forum Monday- phone contact needed
To: Chuck Marshall <>

Mr. Marshall,

Thank you for participating in the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County candidate forum.

The following statement has been added to the description of the recording:

Candidates agreed to the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County’s guidelines prior to beginning the webinar. The guidelines were reiterated at the beginning of the webinar. Due to a violation of the guidelines for closing statements, the final statement in the Commissioner of Public Works forum was clipped to remove the objectionable portion.

To stay impartial, we do not consult or discuss with candidates our decisions regarding issues that may arise.

Sincerely,

Lori and Elizabeth

No Humility Here- Keramati Doubles Down

There is nothing apologetic about Keramati’s response to the League on his Facebook page.

On Keramati’s Facebook page, in a video, he falsely accuses Marshall of getting the League to remove his closing statement. He asks the public to contact the League and get them to post his full statement.

He also offers the following in all caps.

BK KERAMTI IS CALLINGON LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF SARATOGA COUNTY TO RELEASE HIS FULL CLOSING STATEMENT OF THE DEBATE ON 20 OCTOBER

Below is the “Cease and Desist” letter I recently received from Jason Golub’s Attorney:

A Classic Way To Threaten

There is a classic tool used by attorneys called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. Attorneys try to intimidate advocates challenging their clients by making demands and issuing implied threats of litigation.

From Wikipedia:” Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP suits or intimidation lawsuits),^[1] or strategic litigation against public participation,^[2] are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.”

Let me be clear. I have no intention of apologizing or of refraining from covering Jason Golub’s use of city employees. For Mr. Golub to resort to this kind of threat only further undermines his own reputation.

At the September 2, 2025, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, BK Keramati and Gordon Boyd attacked Commissioner of Public Works Chuck Marshall with the most soaring, exaggerated rhetoric, alleging that he is “hiding” a threat to the city’s water from the city’s residents and the Council. They cite a recent study of the city’s reservoir by Barton and Laguidice (B&L), which they claim Marshall is trying to keep the public from knowing about.

Boyd tries to gin up the threat on his Facebook page with phony dire warnings to support Keramati.

In the video below, Keramati tells the Council that when he read the report on the reservoir, “I couldn’t believe my eyes.” He tells the Council he can’t believe that Marshall had not advised the Council and the public of the looming catastrophe. He offers the same shrill claim in a campaign mailing he has sent out attacking Marshall. The problem is that their colleagues, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and former Public Works Commissioner Hank Kuczynski, were informed by the consulting firm of these very issues over a year ago. So much for hiding threats.

Who Is Hiding This “Catastrophe”?

Unfortunately, Boyd and Keramati leave out of their hysterical narratives the fact that Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran’s office had received correspondence from B&L in September of 2024, more than a year ago, advising Moran of the very same problems they are now claiming to expose. The DPW Commissioner’s position was vacant, and Moran was overseeing the department. Moran was aware and silent about the very same problems Keramati and Boyd claim Marshall is now supposedly hiding.

In addition, Kuczynski, after becoming Commissioner of Public Works, received an internal email acknowledging the same problems with the reservoir back on December 4, 2024. Using Keramati’s and Boyd’s logic, Kuczynski also”hid” the threat from his colleagues and the public.

Let me be clear, I do not see Moran or Kuczynski as perpetrators of a cover-up any more than Marshall is. This is all a made-up crisis by Boyd and Keramati, unfortunately meant to alarm voters as part of Keramati’s election campaign.

The Studies

Loughbury Lake, the city’s reservoir, has had many challenges. Early in the twentieth century, Loughbury Lake had a variety of manufacturing operations on its shores. The last functioning industrial business on the lake was Congress Gas and Oil. The U.S. Department of Environmental Protection forced this company to remove its dated storage facility in the 1980s.

Studies dating back to the 1980s have warned of potential problems with Loughbury Lake. Back on May 2, 2024, the city hired the consulting firm Barton and Laguidice (B&L) to again study this source of water for the city.

All the studies have identified problematic trends in the lake’s declining capacity. Due to toxic metals in the lake’s sediment that must not be disturbed, the reduction in the reservoir’s capacity also reduces its safe yield. The lake must maintain a certain volume to prevent stirring up the bottom.

It would have been helpful if Boyd and Keramati had acknowledged that, while the report recommends we pursue additional water sources, the water we do have is safe.

The Saratoga County Water Program Staff offers similar findings.

Marshall Has Been Vigorously Seeking A Long-Term Solution

Soon after Marshall was sworn in as Commissioner of Public Works on March 4, 2025, he met with representatives of B&L (the final report had not yet been completed) and, at B&L’s prompting, issued an RFP on March 7 for a study of actions the city could take to address the need for additional water. The consulting firm CT Male was awarded the contract for the work on June 3,2025.

Marshall is working with CT Male as they seek other sources of drinking water.

The Attack

When I asked Boyd on his Facebook page why Marshall would “hide” the report from the public, Boyd responded, “Good question, perhaps you might ask him.” This shows the depth of Boyd’s cynical, cavalier attitude toward making accusations without proof. Boyd did not care whether his attacks were fair or true; the point was to damage Marshall to promote his candidate, Keramati.

The only thing Keramati offered as he addressed the Council (see video below) was that the report should have been made public before work on the 2026 budget began. What Kermati failed to grasp was that the B&L report revealed the problems in the reservoir but not the solutions. Without proposed solutions, it is impossible to determine a cost to use when crafting the budget. It is hard to believe that, given his engineering background and that he had read the B&L study, he does not grasp that, without a proposed plan—the purpose of the current study by CT Male—it is impossible to determine what correcting the reservoir problems will cost.

A Sober Look

Among the many false claims Boyd makes on his Facebook page is that Marshall issued the RFP for actions the city could take to address the city’s water issues on February 13, “weeks before, not after, the B&L report was handed in last March.”

Indicative of the way this whole business was thrown together, Boyd does not even have the correct date. The RFP was issued on March 7 and not February 13. Marshall was not even in office on February 13. He was sworn in by Judge Vero on March 4.

The actual date the B&L report was delivered to the city, despite Boyd’s odd concern about the alleged date conflict, is not important. As the city engineer’s correspondence above makes clear, B&L was in close communication with the city about the issues it was uncovering during its research.

When the city has an agreement for a study like the B&L one, there is regular communication between the consultants and the city, well before the final report is issued.

Working On A Solution

Marshall won his seat on January 28, 2025. Five weeks later, and only days after being sworn in, after consulting with B&L, he issued the RFP to pursue a solution to the city’s water issues.

Unfortunately for the city, the watershed that sustains the reservoir is in Wilton and Greenfield. Marshall’s staff has been meeting with officials from these municipalities to discuss what they might do to help address toxins in groundwater that flows into the reservoir.

Commissioner Marshall told me that before any dredging or other actions can be initiated regarding the reservoir, the work on the new dam for the reservoir must be completed. When driving along Excelsior Avenue, you can see the Bast/Hatfield signs along the protective fence. The heavy equipment behind the fence is being used for the new dam.

Cheap Shots

So, Marshall has been proactive in addressing the watershed issue. In talking to the Commissioner, he told me that any public discussion of the water issue cannot be informed without the benefit of the second study on what can be done. He sees his role as analyzing both studies and submitting a proposal to the city for action supported by the two reports. Publishing the report on the problems is not helpful without some idea as to what the city must do. It is important to remember that, contrary to the false alarm Boyd and Keramati are promoting, the B&L report, as well as the County, have confirmed there is no immediate threat and the city’s water is perfectly fine to drink.

You may agree with Keramati about releasing the report earlier, or you may be happy with what Marshall has done.

What is, though, troubling are the shrill attacks by Boyd and Keramati assailing Marshall for “hiding” the study. This suggests a maliciousness on Marshall’s part that does not hold up under any kind of scrutiny. Boyd and Keramati would like to fool the public into thinking there is some sort of scandal that does not exist.

As noted earlier, there is no apparent motive for Marshall not to have brought the report to the Council. When Keramati requested a copy of the report, Marshall gave it to him immediately. Marshall could have required Keramati to FOIL for it, in which case Keramati would not have gotten a copy until after the election. Marshall is being open and transparent to his opponent.

Keramati and Boyd offer no proof or even speculation as to why Marshall has not yet published the report publicly. Keramati and Boyd do not acknowledge the possibility that Marshall was simply gathering all the information to both understand the scope and nature of the problems and their solutions before presenting the Council with what the city should do.

Instead, the two men try to exploit the situation by spreading fear among the city’s citizens, claiming that Marshall has a darker purpose. It is disappointing that Keramati has adopted this as his primary campaign strategy.

The Videos

I have included four videos. The first is Keramati’s presentation to the City Council. The second is Boyd’s statement to the Council, the third is Commissioner Marshall’s response. The fourth is Gordon Boyd’s yelling about his right to respond to Marshall despite the Council’s rules on public comment.

Note that Keramti asserts that the city should be using the B&L report to take action, and he is “at a loss” as to why it has not. The answer is that the B&L report only identified problems, but not solutions. It is the second RFP issued by Marshall, which is intended to produce a set of options for the city to address the issues identified by B&L. Only when the city has identified a solution to its water problems can it begin to determine the cost.