Below are two images. One is from the office of the Governor announcing a visit to get out the vote and support the local Democratic candidates. The other is from an advertisement from the Ron Kim campaign regarding the event. An innocent person might construe from the advertisement that Mr. Kim has been endorsed by our Governor, Kathy Hochul. Such a person would be wrong.
In fact Governor Hochul had explicitly announced to the press that she would not be endorsing any local candidates. This stems from the fact that India Walton, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America defeated the Democratic incumbent Byron Brown in the Buffalo Democratic mayoral primary. Governor Hochul apparently privately supports Brown who is running as a write-in candidate. In order to avoid endorsing Walton she chose to officially eschew endorsing any local candidates statewide.
In Mr. Kim’s advertisement he and the Governor appear to be standing together and the announcement explicitly states that she is coming to Saratoga to support him along with the other candidates. I do not think it unfair to observe that this gives the impression that she is endorsing Mr. Kim.
Below it is what the governor’s office actually issued. Someone has doctored the original document.
My sources tell me that the Governor learned of this and she was not amused.
I grant that the original states that she is coming to “support” the local candidates and does not use the word endorsement but given the Governor’s strong position that she is not endorsing candidates, this doctored image strikes me as misleading. Others may see it as lawyerly true. I leave it for my readers to decide.
I attempted to find out from Mr. Kim and Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee Chair Pat Tuz who doctored the image. Neither responded.
[JK: With 17 candidates running for City Council positions on nine party lines, the non-partisan group One Saratoga decided to develop a candidate questionnaire to try to help voters sort through the myriad choices voters have this year. Here is a release from One Saratoga explaining where to find out what the candidates who responded (only one candidate on the Democratic line responded, all Republicans and independents responded) to their questionnaire think about taxes, police, homelessness and more.]
One Saratoga is a non-partisan coalition of local residents that seeks to have the best qualified people governing Saratoga Springs regardless of partisan affiliations. They came together in 2019 out of concern for the City’s well-being. They include committed people who keep close tabs on our City’s governance and are willing to devote effort to this project. Their watchword is, “City before party,” they seek to unite the community, avert partisan rancor and extremism, and encourage serious candidates for public service.
One Saratoga decided not to endorse candidates for this local election season but has instead chosen to be a candidate informational resource.
Courtney DeLeonardis, Chair, of One Saratoga said, “With so many third-party lines and numerous candidates for each of the positions, we felt it would be most helpful to provide community members with accurate information on where the candidates stand on important issues that affect Saratogians.”
One Saratoga has been using its Facebook page and Webpage to share responses to a questionnaire sent to Saratoga Springs City Council Candidates. The questionnaire focused on seven core issues facing the city. The issues chosen reflected input One Saratoga solicited from Saratogians across the political spectrum.
One Saratoga received a total of ten responses from the candidates who are running for City Council.
A hard copy of the questionnaire was sent to every candidate in the mail, an electronic copy was emailed to each candidate, as well as to the city Democratic and Republican Chairs. Reminder emails were also sent to the city candidates.
Unfortunately, One Saratoga received no responses from four of the endorsed Democratic Candidates or four out of five of the Working Families Party candidates.
Candidates who DID NOT complete the Questionnaire
Democratic Party : Working Families Party:
Ronald Kim-Mayor Maxwell Rosenbaum-Mayor
Minita Sanghvi-Finance Sierra Hunt-Finance
James Montagnino-Public Safety Donald Reeder-Public Works
Dillon Moran-Accounts David Labate-Public Safety
One Saratoga has been sharing responses from candidates who participated in the questionnaire since September and will continue to do so up until the election on November 2. They release answers to questions focusing on a different core issue each week.
To find out more about One Saratoga and to see the questionnaire results, go to One Saratoga’s Facebook page at- facebook.com/RealOneSaratoga or go to their website at- https://realonesaratoga.org/
Both the Republican and Democratic parties have sent out postcards attacking their endorsed candidates’ opponents. Below are the allegations made in the mailings and the information I turned up looking into the charges the parties have made about two of the candidates running for mayor in this year’s election.
Allegations By Republicans Re Ron Kim
1. Allegation: “Ron’s Primary Residence Is Queensbury”
The allegation includes an image from a 2017 edition of the Post Star Newspaper that shows the following quote:
“He [Kim] and his wife purchased a home in Queensbury in 2008, which is now their primary residence…’It’s sort of an empty nester thing as our lifestyle has changed.'”
“Republicans said Kim’s actions amounted to voter fraud, and it said the city deserved a full-time resident’s service.”
Mr. Kim owns homes both in Queensbury and Saratoga Springs. He sought the Democratic endorsement to run against Elise Stefanik in 2018. In order to run for this position he had to live in her district, and he gave his Queensbury home as his primary residence.
According to the Gazette, Mr. Kim voted in Warren County in 2018, 2019, and 2020 before switching his voter registration to Saratoga Springs when he lead the charter change campaign to replace Saratoga’s form of government with a city manager and ward system.
Mr. Kim responded to this allegation by noting that his children both attended the Saratoga Springs schools.
Kim told the Gazette that , “…he divides time between the two communities to relieve his mother of caring for his father. He said the needs of his father, a Korean War veteran, increased during the pandemic.”
The New York State Board of Elections is very tolerant when it comes to a candidate’s residence.
Past Public Works Commissioner Tom McTygue owned both a horse farm in the town of Saratoga and a house in Saratoga Springs. For years the Republican Party sought to have him disqualified from running in Saratoga Springs alleging that in reality his farm in the town of Saratoga was where he lived. It never found traction with the New York State Board of Elections.
I spoke to Saratoga Springs Republican Chair Chris Obstarczyk about the residency issue. He told me the issue was not over a violation of election law but over Kim’s not being a full time resident of Saratoga Springs.
2.Allegation: “Court Forced Ron To Pay 5-figures in Unpaid Rent.”
Mr. Kim was sued by the landlord of his law office for failure to pay rent.
Mr. Kim’s lease on his law office on Long Alley expired in August of 2008, but he remained in that space until August of 2016. Mr. Kim had signed an agreement that should he stay in that office after his lease expired, he would pay a substantial increase in rent (from approximately $1,700.00 increased to $2,800.00). Instead of paying the $2,800,00 as required by the agreement he simply continued to pay his landlord the lower amount he had been paying when his lease was in effect.
When he finally left those offices the landlord initiated the suit for the difference between what Kim had agreed to pay should he stay in these offices after his lease expired and what Kim actually paid. The landlord calculated that the amount Kim owed him in back rent during the eight years was a total of $61,000.
Kim’s requirement to pay the $2,800.00 is crystal clear. Here is the relevant section from his lease. Note “Thirty-sixth (Holdover Tenant).
See thirty-sixth Holdover
The following is from the “pleadings” in the lawsuit and show how they arrived at the figure of $61,000.00.
The suit was settled for $16,000.
An article in the Gazette quoted Kim: “’I think there is a big difference between 16 and 60,’ Kim said, pointing out that at some point it makes more sense to settle than continuing to pay lawyer’s fees.“
Mr. Kim’s settlement was, to say the least, very much favorable to him at the expense of his landlord. It appears that it wasn’t he who decided it wasn’t worth the legal expenses to pursue the case but his landlord. I guess some might view this as a shrewd business move by Mr. Kim, while others would characterize it as a dubious legal move that shafted his landlord.
3.Allegation: Served with multiple unpaid tax warrants
The New York State Department of Labor and Department of Taxation issued warrants regarding unpaid taxes for the third quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019. The total including fines came to approximately $3,000.00 which he eventually paid.
In his interview with the Gazette he explained:
For his part, Kim explained the late payments as stemming from a period of time of unexpected financial strain after a fuel tank spilled in his basement, forcing him and his family to relocate as they absorbed the cost of cleanup while litigating for years who was responsible for the spill.
“We were under some extreme financial pressure at that time,” he said of the late tax payments.
Daily Gazette September 5, 2021
4. Allegation: And Ron Still Owes The State Thousands in Workers’ Comp Taxes
[Kim] has said that he did not have any employees during that period of time and did not need to carry the insurance, and on Friday he said he was fighting the penalty.
The workers’ compensation penalty stemmed from a period during 2016 when the state said Kim failed to carry needed workers’ compensation insurance from February to July. The state board in August 2019 issued a final notice to Kim to pay $7,000 in the matter, and a court judgment was filed in October 2019 declaring Kim had still not paid the penalty.
Daily Gazette September 5, 2021
It is true that if a business owner has no employees they are not required to carry Workmen’s Compensation Insurance, but it is hard to fathom what is going on here. The judgement goes back to 2019 and according to the state he has still not resolved the issue.
One possible scenario is that Kim had employees prior to 2016 and failed to advise the state as required that they were no longer with him thus incurring the fine. It is also possible that in spite of his statements to the press he may have had employees for at least part of the period in question. I have spoken to an accountant who indicated that if he in fact had no employees it is very possible to negotiate a resolution that would reduce the fine, and it is odd that it has not been resolved by now.
I have emailed Mr. Kim asking whether he has been in touch with the Workmen’s Compensation Board on this matter and what they are saying. I have not yet received an answer from him.
Bottom line is that the issue remains unresolved and without some explanation from Mr. Kim as to why the state continues to pursue the penalty in spite of his claim about no employees we cannot know the full truth.
Allegations By Democrats Re Heidi Owen West
Allegation: Owen West sued the city of Saratoga Springs to block the building of an Eastside Public Safety Building.
It is true that she participated in the suit. It is also true, as alleged by the Democrats, that the city had to pay significantly to defend against the suit. What they leave out is that she withdrew from the suit (it was subsequently dismissed by the court) and has repeatedly assured the public that, if elected, she will follow through on the currently designed project to make it happen.
2. Allegation: “Owen West tells Democrats she’s an independent while attempting to win Trump supporters by refusing to acknowledge Biden won the election.”
They cite a story by Lucas Willard of WAMC.
West, who has the endorsement of the Saratoga Springs Republican Committee, was also asked via text message if the event featuring Scott Presler and endorsed by Representative Stefanik gave her any pause, and if she believed President Biden won the 2020 election fair and square.
The owner of three downtown clothing stores responded:
“If the other candidates running for mayor want to nationalize this race, that’s fine. But that’s not what I’m doing in my race. Those questions, and this event, have nothing to do with accomplishing my goals I’ve set out to achieve once I become mayor of Saratoga Springs,” said West.
Lucas Willard, WAMC August 26, 2021
I contacted Ms. Owen West and asked her to respond.
Here is the text of her message:
“I don’t know how to be any more clear, Joe Biden won the election and he is our president, fact! Attacks and fictitious rumors about me are distracting, misleading for voters and not what our citizens are looking for. Let’s focus on the real issues facing Saratogians.”
Heidi Owen West
This particular attack by the Democrats is particularly cynical given that the Chair of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee solicited Owen West to Run as a Democrat.
Apparently the Democrats did not believe that Ms. Owen West was a Trump acolyte when then city Democratic Chair Sarah Burger repeatedly tried to persuade Ms. Owen West to head up their ticket.
Although Ms. Burger and others have recently tried to deny this, I have come into possession of the texts below in which Ms. Burger repeatedly solicited Ms. Owen West to run for mayor on the Democratic line.
The texts from Ms. Burger to Ms. Owen West begin in mid-February, 2021. I have selected representative texts from a lengthy exchange. Sarah Burger’s texts are black letters against a white background. Heidi Owen West’s are white letters against a black background.
3. Allegation: “Owen West is not making affordable housing a priority and indicated there is not a problem with the amount of affordable housing in the city”
This allegation is based on an exchange during the League of Women Voters Forum and specifically references as its source the October 5, 2021, story in the Foothills Daily. Given the content it is hard to understand how the Democrats could make such an allegation. Here is the text from the Foothills Daily:
Owen West: “I believe the…community development office actually has done a great job of working with builders and real estate firms to secure housing for residents in the city. I think a lot of what happens is, we’re not aware of all the opportunities. Right now the city’s on target to exceed units more than twice what HUD requires, so I think part of it is really getting the message out there and the knowledge about the programs that are available so that everyone is insured a place in Saratoga Springs.”
Kim response: “I don’t hear anyone saying we’ve got enough affordable housing. To the contrary, what I hear is that this is an absolute need that has to happen.”
Dalton response: “It insults residents to say that we’re just not aware of all this low income or affordable housing. So I just wanted to point out, it is a huge priority of mine…And that means creating more workforce and affordable housing, and it does not exist right now.”
Owen West response: “So I didn’t say that I that…there was enough affordable housing, I said I would start by making sure people were aware of what we have, what’s in the pipeline…I just wanted to be sure that people understood that we were at twice the limit of the HUD requirements so that we are doing a great job, but we can always do better. I did not say there was enough.”
To claim, based on this exchange that Ms. Owen West does not support additional affordable housing can be characterized as, at the very least, disturbingly misleading.
4. Allegation: “Owen West is backed by thousands of dollars from big developers and she’ll be in their pocket when it comes to key city appointments”
In July, Ms. Owen West reported to the New York State Board of Elections on the contributions she had received. There were ninety-six contributors. The only contributors whose names I recognized as developers or whose names appeared to imply that they were related to the development industry were Tom Roohan who is the owner of Roohan Realty, a Mike Morgan who apparently owns Morgan Construction Services, and a Brett Balzer with Balzer Tuck Architecture.
I would also observe that because a candidate receives contributions from a developer does not always mean that they have been bought. Our current Mayor has received donations from members of the development community and her two terms do not reflect any prejudice on their behalf.
The flyer also trumpets an ethics complaint the Democrats made to the New York State Board of Elections against Ms. Owen West. The allegations are as dubious as the others in this flyer but as nothing will happen before the election they are yet another example of campaign abuse.
The Chairman of the Saratoga Springs Republican Party, Chris Obstarczyk, has chosen to engage in an ugly exchange with Commissioner of Public Safety Robin Dalton in the pages of the Times Union. He accused Commissioner Dalton of abusing her position to force her department to pursue electoral fraud charges against Samantha Guerra who is the endorsed Republican candidate for Commissioner of Accounts.
For a history of the original charges readers can go to my earlier post on it. It is an unflattering account in which neither Mr. Moran, who made the accusations, nor Ms. Guerra emerge unsullied.
Times Union reporter Wendy Liberatore has now written two articles back to back regarding a police investigation into the alleged election “fraud.”
In a disturbing turn of events, Saratoga Springs Republican chair Chris Obstarczyk has used the Times Union to launch an attack on Commissioner of Public Safety Robin Dalton rather than Dillon Moran, Guerra’s opponent and the source of the allegations. Worse he has questioned the integrity of the police in general and a specific police officer in particular as part of his attack.
Some of this may be related to bitter attacks made by Commissioner Dalton against the Republican endorsed candidate for mayor she is running against, Heidi Owen West.
In a Gazette article Ms. Owen West stated that she had been approached by Sarah Burger, who was chairperson of the city Democratic Committee at the time, to become the Democratic endorsed candidate for mayor. Ms. Owen West declined, and the Democrats went on to settle on Ron Kim as their candidate.
In a video on her Facebook page, Commissioner Dalton accuses Ms. Owen West of lying and claims that the Democrats never approached Ms. Owen West to run on their line.
In fact Sarah Burger did indeed try to persuade Ms. Owen West to run as a Democrat endorsed candidate.
The city’s Republican Committee Chairman Chris Obstarczyk said that the investigation is politically motivated, led by current Commissioner of Public Safety Robin Dalton who is now running for mayor.
“The ethical – and normal course of action – would be to send to a different investigatory agency and a different prosecutor outside of the county,” Obstarczyk said in an email. “The police department is politically conflicted because the lead investigator on this case is first in line for an upcoming promotion that would be awarded by mayoral candidate Robin Dalton. The investigator was put in a terrible, political pressure-cooker situation overseen by Robin Dalton. This is a clear-cut political hit job.”
Chris Obstarczyk, TU October 12
Obstarczyk alleged on Tuesday that the investigation came at the direction of Dalton, whom he said was doing a “political hit job” on Guerra. He also said that the police department, which Dalton oversees, is appeasing Dalton so that the lead investigator could get a promotion. [JK: My emphasis] He said on Wednesday he stands firm with his statement.
TImes Union October 13, 2021
These are serious allegations which would seem to warrant some sort of outside investigation perhaps by the county District Attorney or the New York State Attorney General.
But is there really anything to investigate?
Robin Dalton is running for mayor. Why would she want to pursue charges against Samantha Guerra who is running for Commissioner of Accounts and not mayor. Where is any evidence that she interfered with a police investigation?
The police officer who is likely to be promoted to be the assistant chief of police upon the retirement of John Catone is Lieutenant Robert Jillson.
On what basis does Chairman Obstarczyk accuse Commissioner Dalton of interfering with Lieutenant Jillson?
In fact, the implication of Chairman Obstarczyk’s attack is that Police Chief Crooks would allow such interference and worse, that Lieutenant Jillson would pursue a case he did not believe in to cull favor with the Public Safety Commissioner.
In my experience, Lieutenant Jillson is a stand up guy. He has demonstrated calm and thoughtful leadership during the difficult demonstrations here in the city. It may not have been that Obstarczyk intentionally threw Jillson under the bus, but his intemperate remarks have done just that. It was utterly unfair of him to put a cloud of suspicion over Lieutenant Jillson.
The entire business is bizarre. It would appear that Chairman Obstarczyk used the dubious fraud allegations against his candidate for Commissioner of Accounts not to go after the people perpetrating that narrative, but against the person running against his endorsed candidate for mayor.
In an even stranger twist, Mr. Obstarczyk sent an email to the website Foothills Daily which included this allegation:
“Dalton implicated Democrat Commissioner John Franck, who is spearheading the campaign of Ms. Guerra’s opponent, as being the city official who was applying political pressure to the police investigators.”
So who exactly now, if anyone, is interfering in the investigation?
This stuff is extremely troubling. The Times Union has now used Chairman Obstarczyk’s poorly considered remarks ‘s to sensationalize its coverage at the expense of our police department.
All of this is an unfortunate distraction from a discussion that should be taking place instead about the real issues facing the city in this election year.
This year the City Council voted unanimously to change the closing time for downtown bars from 4:00 AM to 2:00 AM.
Currently the county government is responsible for the closing time of bars subject to the approval by the New York State Liquor Authority.
At this year’s League of Women Voters of Saratoga County(LWVSC) forum the candidates for County Supervisor were asked if they supported closing the bars early as advocated by the City Council.
In his remarks, Republican candidate John Safford noted that he had knocked on 500 doors in his campaigning and the overwhelming numbers support closing the bars earlier. This matches my own anecdotal experience.
I found it stunning that Supervisor Matthew Veitch answered the question by saying unequivocally that he supports keeping the bars open until 4:00 AM.
Supervisor Tara Gaston gave a rambling response that I will take as a no to supporting the closure, but I leave it to the readers of this blog to determine where she stands based on her remarks (see video below).
John Safford’s position is that a Supervisor should represent the City Council at the county and he would advocate for closing.
Shaun Wiggins was crystal clear. He supports closing the bars at 2:00 AM.
The media coverage of the conflict between the local Black Lives Matter group and the Saratoga Springs City Council and Police Department has portrayed the city as arrogant and intransigent. An innocent observer would believe that the City Council and Police Department have been unwilling to engage thoughtfully with a group seeking racial justice. In fact, for roughly two years BLM has had ample opportunity to sit down and meet with the members of the City Council and the Police, and has chosen not to.
While it is not easy to write about a highly charged story such as this, the public has in general been ill served by recent reporting.
The September 24 edition of the Foothills Business Daily (FBD) represents a clear example of this problem. The reporter writes:
The fallout from the arrests that began on Sept. 7 has meant that BLM Saratoga will not enter into a mediated discussion with Saratoga Springs city officials.
Foothills Business Review (FHBR)
So the article states, as if fact, that the recent arrests of members of the local Black Lives Matter group is the reason they will not participate in mediation. This narrative implies that had there been no arrests, mediation would have gone forward. As we shall see there is plenty of evidence that BLM never intended to engage in mediation regardless of what events unfolded.
A more accurate story would have avoided inserting assumptions made by the writer and simply stated that Samira Sangere, a leader of the BLM group, speaking at the September City Council meeting, had declared that there would be no mediation unless the charges against the members of her group were dropped.
How Can One Negotiate With Evil?
Members of the City Council and the leadership of the Police Department have repeatedly reached out to BLM, and BLM has never demonstrated a serious interest in engaging. The reality is that BLM has only “engaged” with the Council and the Police through the news media, during the public comment period at City Council meetings, and during their demonstrations. For roughly two years they have had ample opportunities to sit down and meet with the members of the City Council and the Police in situations that would have been more conducive to productive conversations, and they have chosen not to.
The BLM leadership has made crystal clear that they think Council members and the Police are unredeemable, hard core racists. Their message has been repeated over and over again in chants in the streets calling the Police murderers and in repeated condemnations of City Council members in the media and in person at City Council meetings.
So there is a certain logic to their refusal to sit down to talk with city officials. If the Council and the Police are hardened racists, what point is there to meet with them outside of the public spotlight because nothing can come of it.
This explains to some extent their actions at Council meetings. The statements made to the Council are really meant to tell the public what a bankrupt institution our city government is and not to move a conversation about reform forward.
The History
Attempts to Reach Out: Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton
In June of 2020, Commissioner Dalton began reaching out to the BLM leadership about meeting. Things looked promising as the Facebook page from this period reflects. There seemed to be some real interest in meeting. Unfortunately, BLM withdrew. Based on the thread it appears that for some reason Dillon Moran worked to undermine engagement. In fact, Mr. Moran is wrong in saying that the Commissioner and the Chief were required specifically to set up a meeting. The Governor’s executive order simply required the City Council to seek input which was accomplished by the establishment of the Police Reform Task Force.
In July, the following month, Commissioner Dalton and Police Chief Shane Crooks set up a Zoom event which they described as Community Conversation/Active Listening. The event devolved into a medium for the BLM participants to shout invectives at Commissioner Dalton and Chief Crooks. It ended with the image below where some of the BLM people can be seen giving the middle finger.
Subsequently Commissioner Dalton gave Mr. Figuereo her cell phone number hoping to establish an effective dialogue. Consider these texts from May and July of this year from Commissioner Dalton’s cell phone. Mr. Figuereo’s text is the first one in black and white, the rest come from Commissioner Dalton. What follows are messages from May and July where Commissioner Dalton reaches out to Figuereo, and he is unresponsive.
Finance Commissioner Madigan’s Failed Quest
Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan made a valiant attempt to set up a mediated meeting with the leadership of BLM. For weeks she continually called and texted Lexis Figuereo in a vain attempt to set up a mediated meeting.
Given the acrimonious and heated events that marked BLM’s participation at City Council meetings, Commissioner Madigan understandably felt it was important to involve a professional mediator. An unstructured meeting, it was feared, would have been just another event full of rage and invective.
The following is a thread of texts and unanswered calls in which she chases Lexis Figuereo trying to make the mediation happen. Somehow, Mr. Figuereo can never get back to her to commit to a meeting.
More Attempts to Reach Out: Police Chief Shane Crooks
Chief Crooks had Lieutenant Robert Jillson reached out to Mr. Figuereo offering to meet with him on multiple occasions. Mr. Figuereo acknowledged this publicly at one point saying he would meet when he was ready. Mr. Figuereo ended up responding to their repeated attempts by telling them to stop calling him.
Lieutenant Thomas Mitchell extended the offer on Chief Crooks’ behalf at a City Council meeting to meet with Mr. Figuereo to no avail.
Chief Crooks told me that he approached Mr. Figuereo at a meeting of the Police Reform Task Force and Mr. Figuereo simply turned and walked away.
Mayor Meg Kelly
Mayor Kelly told me that Mr. Figuereo has never reached out to meet with her.
In a comment submitted to my blog on September 28, 2021, Dillon Moran accused me of lying. I had stated in a recent post that, among other things, Mr. Moran had created a fake website meant to confuse citizens seeking information from a group called “The Real One Saratoga.”
Here is what he wrote:
That is a complete lie. The site you refer to was created by Pat Kane, campaign manager for Heidi West. I registered domain names, a common practice called cyber squatting, a business Ms Dalton has been active in. I have never posted any content on any of the sites you reference, but then again, lying is what you do. In addition, every Democratic Candidate committed to the Saratoga Today Debates when they were offered, but why let the truth get in the way of a headline.
Dillon Moran Comment September 29, 2021
First, it is rather stunning that Mr. Moran admits that he participates in cybersquatting. Cybersquatting is an unsavory business.
Cybersquatting is generally bad faith registration of another’s trademark in a domain name.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
Mr. Moran, as he admits, was clearly involved in cybersquatting during last year’s contentious battle over an attempt to change the city charter to create a city manager form of government. Mr. Moran supported the charter change. The image below is from one of the bogus websites he created, pirating the name chosen by a group called Saratoga Works that was opposed to charter change. Here is a link to the post I wrote about this.
It was sloppy of me to attribute to him the cybersquatting that was directed at a different anti charter change citizen group called “The Real One Saratoga.” This group renamed themselves “The Real…” because their original name “One Saratoga” was also taken over by those supporting charter change in order to confuse and misdirect people from their site. Mr. Moran, though, denies that he was responsible for that particular attack.
I admit to my readers I simply assumed his involvement given his history. I should have been more careful, and I apologize.
A Stunning Falsehood
In his comment Mr. Moran also falsely states that Pat Kane is mayoral candidate Heidi Owen-West’s campaign manager. I have checked with both Mr. Kane and Ms. Owen-West. Both confirm that Mr. Kane is not Ms. Owen-West’s campaign manager as Mr. Moran asserts.
A Further Misrepresentation
In my post I wrote that while I had been assured by a good source that the full Democratic slate would be participating in the Saratoga Today candidate forum in October, at the time of the post they had yet to confirm their attendance with Saratoga Today publisher Chad Beatty.
Mr. Moran accuses me of lying, asserting that the Democratic candidates had committed to participating when the invitation was first offered. In fact, the Democrats only finally advised the publisher of Saratoga Today on Tuesday, September 28, that they would be attending his event. This was thirteen days past the deadline to respond.
Mr. Moran should be more careful in the future before he hits the send button.
Yesterday (September 29, 2021) Democrats informed Chad Beatty, publisher of Saratoga Today, that their candidates will participate in his paper’s election forum. This was thirteen days after the deadline for them to respond.
The Saratoga Today debate will take place over two nights. Candidates for Public Works, Accounts, and County Supervisor positions will appear on Tuesday, October 12, beginning at 6PM. Candidates for Finance, Public Safety, and Mayor will appear on Thursday, October 21 beginning at 6PM. The debates will be closed to the public but live-streamed.
The local League of Women Voters prematurely advised the press that, with the exception of Commissioner of Public Works Skip Scirocco and county Supervisor Matt Veitch, none of the other Republican endorsed candidates would be participating in their forum.
I say “prematurely” because all of the Republican candidates have notified the League that they plan to participate.
The candidates had missed the League’s deadline for responding, but the League had still encouraged them to participate which they have agreed to do.
Saratoga Today will also be sponsoring a candidate forum. Their deadline for the candidates to respond was September 15. While all Republican and independent candidates have responded, the Democratic candidates have yet to agree to participate. A person in a leadership role on the Democratic Committee assured me that they will attend, but so far nothing has been confirmed. We will have to wait and see if all or any of them participate.
All of the Republican and independent candidates have agreed to participate in both forums.
The followers of this blog know that I have been highly critical of the League. For me, in the past few years, it has squandered its traditional and well earned reputation for scrupulously fair dealings and being above partisanship.
Curiously, in the past when the majority of League members were Republicans, Republican candidates frequently did not participate in League events whereas the Democrats consistently showed up.
The old League would do everything it could to avoid a hint of partisanship. That League would never have gone to the press because they were sensitive that it would be used to embarrass one party and make it that much harder to work with them. Their decision this year to publicize the fact that the Republicans had failed to meet their deadline would never have happened in the past. It also explains the Republicans’ current reticence regarding participation.
The Times Union was happy to write a story alleging that the Republicans would not be participating in the League’s forum. It will be interesting to see whether they now publish a story that the Republicans will in fact be participating, but the Democrats have yet to agree to the Saratoga Today forum.
Prior to the decision by the Republicans to participate, I asked Robin Dalton, who is running as an independent, if she planned to attend the League event. She responded:
My feeling is every debate is an opportunity to tell the voters what I stand for. I don’t care who’s moderating.
Robin Dalton
It is important to note that Democratic candidates Ron Kim (Mayor), Minita Sanghvi (Finance), James Montagnino (Public Safety), and Dillon Moran (Accounts) have also ignored requests from myself and from The Real One Saratoga to address specific policy issues whereas all of the Republican candidates and most of the independents have responded to both requests. The Democrats, with the exception of their Public Works candidate, passed up the opportunity to write unedited answers to questions about important and substantive local issues. In my case it was on the UDO. The Real One Saratoga asked questions on a variety of issues facing the city including development, policing, and taxes. They are publishing the unedited responses of the candidates who replied on their website and Facebook page.
[An explanation regarding the “Real One Saratoga” name and site. This bi-partisan group of individuals had originally planned to name their site “One Saratoga” but Dillon Moran (candidate for Commissioner of Accounts) learning of their plans created another One Saratoga site. His site incorporates unpleasant attacks on this group.]
It is apparent that these four Democrats prefer to limit their social media presence to only those sites that they feel are clearly friendly to them.
I will be posting a link to Real One Saratoga and giving a brief history in a later post. They are asking thoughtful questions to the candidates about substantive issues.
All this runs against the stereotypical myths about Republicans and Democrats.
It is the current slate of Republicans who are willing to engage about issues wherever the opportunity arises.
I would note that I do not agree with some of the positions taken by some of the Republican candidates, but I applaud their willingness to go on the record.
On September 13, 2021, Dillon Moran, the Democratic candidate running for Commissioner of Accounts in Saratoga Springs, accused his Republican opponent, Samantha Guerra, of voter fraud. I did some digging into Mr. Moran’s claims, and while I find his accusations of fraud against Ms. Guerra quite dubious, I was reminded of Mr. Moran’s own involvement in creating fraudulent documents used in his 2019 race for Commissioner of Public Works against Skip Scirocco.
In putting together this hit on Ms. Guerra, Mr. Moran and his campaign manager Libby Post have shrewdly exploited the media whose timelines and lack of investigative resources make them, and thus us, easy victims.
The Reveal
On Monday, September 13, 2021, I received a text inviting me to Dillon Moran’s “Town Hall” where, the message informed me, he would discuss “voter fraud challenges this November in Saratoga Springs.”
The text provided a link to attend what appeared to be a virtual event.
I emailed Mr. Moran asking if he could share his information on voter fraud. I also clicked on the invitation text link. The link took me to a website where I answered a series of questions that provided his campaign with my name, email address, telephone number, and home address.
Consistent with my previous experiences with Mr. Moran, I received no acknowledgement of my email request let alone a substantive answer. In addition, in spite of providing him with all my personal information, I was never allowed to participate in his town hall meeting.
What follows is based on press reports along with a Powerpoint presentation he did as part of a press conference he organized.
The Allegation
The Republican candidates circulated petitions to get an additional line on the November ballot. The name of their second line is United Saratoga.
Mr. Moran, who is running for Commissioner of Accounts, alleges that his Republican opponent, Samantha Guerra, forged twenty-five signatures on the United Saratoga petitions.
In support of his allegations he included a number of images comparing some of the signatures on the petitions with the registration signatures maintained at the Saratoga County Board of Elections.
He also included the image from one of the petitions showing a number of entries that appear to be written by the same hand.
According to a story in the Times Union, their reporter interviewed a person named Trudy Gilbert who asserted that the signatures attributed to her and her son were not theirs.
According to the power point presentation, three local citizens (Suzannne Kwasniewski, Al Ormsby, and Mark Pingel) somehow became aware of these problematic documents and submitted a letter on June 10 to Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Hagen alleging that fraud had been committed. The letter, judging from its language, was clearly drafted by the law firm Greenberg Taurig. The letter directs Ms. Hagen to contact two attorneys at the firm should she have any questions. A copy of the letter appears at the end of this post.
The letter requests that not only should the particular twenty-five signatures out of 630 plus be ruled as invalid but that all the petitions, including those circulated by other persons, should be disqualified and all the candidates be denied the United Saratoga ballot line.
A Mistake Is Not Fraud
I spoke to Terry Briscoe whose signature was among those that were alleged to be fraudulent.
Terry explained to me that Samantha Guerra had come to his door asking him to sign her petition. Terry had injured his hand in a bicycle accident. He told me that due to his injury he had difficulty writing on the petition and ended up using block letters. He told me that his wife was in the kitchen, and he asked her if she wanted to sign in support of Ms. Guerra. She said yes, and Terry took it upon himself to write in his wife’s name as well.
Terry told me that sometime in June he was contacted by Dillon Moran regarding the signatures. He explained to Mr. Moran what had transpired.
In spite of this, Terry’s name remained on the list of alleged forgeries in the objection submitted by Mr. Moran’s attorneys.
Here are the two relevant documents. The first page is from Mr. Moran’s attorney’s objection. The second page contains Terry and his wife’s signatures.
As Terry’s wife did not personally sign the petition, her signature could legitimately be subject to disqualification.
While Samantha Guerra was remiss in not catching this error, she would not be the first person to have made mistakes while circulating petitions. No reasonable person would have construed this as a criminal act.
This should have been a wake up call to Mr. Moran that entries like Terry’s and his wife’s are not necessarily “forgeries.”
Readers should take note that the second column heading reads “Name Of The Signer” rather than “Signature of the Signer.” It seems more than possible that people given the petition to sign might have interpreted this as simply requiring them to write their name in a legible manner (block lettering). In fact signatures on petitions are not required to be in cursive.
A Squandered Opportunity To Get At The Truth
New York State election law provides a powerful vehicle for complainants like Mr. Moran and others challenging the legitimacy of petition signatures.
The complainants could have had a hearing in state supreme court way back in June with the right to subpoena witnesses and to question them under oath.
The reader should understand that the courts recognize the critical importance of expeditiously resolving such claims due to the pressing timetables of elections. These cases are not allowed to drag on, and Mr. Moran’s case would have been ruled on in a timely manner.
If Mr. Moran had been in earnest about actually disqualifying the petitions he would have taken this route.
The reader should understand that the District Attorney to whom he submitted his complaint had no authority to disqualify the petitions, but the state supreme court could have.
Why The Inaction For Four Months?
Mr. Moran is not shy. One has to wonder why he waited until now (September 15) to publicly raise this issue. More critically, why did he fail to pursue his allegations which allegedly involve serious criminal behavior for four months?
According to the Foothills Business Daily:
Moran said he did not act over the summer given how much was on the DA’s plate: the city saw a particularly violent time that included many fights and a homocide (SIC).
“I’m allowing her [DA Heggen] the benefit of the doubt,” Moran said, but also said he turned to the press when “The Republican district attorney has sat on it. That’s a problem.”
Foothills Business Daily September 15, 2021
The District Attorney?
Moran said he acted at the behest of counsel who told him to follow the criminal route that involved first sending the letter to the district attorney’s office.
Foothills Business Review September 15
So according to Moran, his attorneys directed him to write to the District Attorney rather than go to the state supreme court. This begs credulity. Greenburg Taurig is a prestigious international law firm. It is difficult to understand why they would advise their client to squander an opportunity to resolve the issue in an expeditious hearing before the state supreme court in June. They would (should?) have known that the DA would not have the authority to disqualify the petitions.
In addition it is unusual for the DA to initiate an investigation based on a citizen inquiry. While the DA does have some investigative resources, normally actions by her office are triggered by law enforcement organizations or by judges.
Why would Mr. Moran hold a press conference before trying to determine why the DA had taken no action? Why did he not explore other options for pursuing his allegations over all these months such as the Saratoga Springs Police Department or the New York State Police?
The Messy Business Of Circulating Petitions
Anyone who has been associated with the process of collecting petition signatures knows how challenging the process is.
There is a reason that there is a rule of thumb among political operatives regarding how many signatures to gather. That rule is “gather twice as many as the minimum because you need a wide margin due to probable errors.”
It is hard to get signatures. People are not home. They don’t answer their doors. If you solicit signatures on the street you have people who sign who may have a Saratoga Springs address but don’t actually live in the city.
You are not required to see an ID for someone you are soliciting. If you go to a house you don’t always know for sure that the person who is signing is the actual person who is registered there.
There are the basic common disqualifying errors like people who sign more than one petition or who think they are registered in the party they are signing a petition for when they are not.
Mr. Moran in his Town Hall asserted that signatures must be done in a cursive manner rather than with block letters. This is not true.
The Times Union article made a point that the signature for Ms. Gilbert used her nickname whereas her signature on file at the Board of Elections used her formal name. This stuff happens all the time. Some people vary the way they sign their names. Sometimes they use their middle initial and sometimes they don’t.
And of course we have the example of Terry Briscoe signing for his wife.
People make mistakes.
Proof of Point?
Out of over 630 signatures, Mr. Moran claims that twenty-five were “forged.” The Times Union was able to contact one household that asserted the signatures on one petition were not theirs. The Republicans have produced thirteen affidavits of persons who signatures were allegedly forged who reaffirmed that they signed the petition.
Throwing Around The Term Fraud
I am not a handwriting specialist, but it does appear that a number of signatures on some pages of the petition were written by the same hand.
I have no idea what the origins of these signatures are. We know in the case of Terry Briscoe he signed for his wife. Regrettably, Mr. Moran did not pursue his legal option in June to properly call witnesses under oath to find out just what happened.
At the risk of being snarky, the signatures that are alleged to be “forgeries” are not only similar but as they appear consecutively on the petitions the possible problems with them are even more obvious. It is hard to believe that these signatures were the product of some nefarious plot. Surely even the most inept person would make some attempt to make each look different if the intent was to be deceitful and fraudulently enter signatures on the petition.
More likely, some people in good faith erroneously signed the petition for themselves and other family members who agreed to be signatories as well as in the Briscoe case. As noted earlier the petition itself reads only “Name of Signer”.
There is also the obvious fact that the number of undisputed signatures is so great as to make any serious challenge of the petitions pointless. Why would someone resort to forgery when they had many more than the number of signatures they needed anyway?
I do not know and Mr. Moran has not explained this.
I do know that the forgery statute referred to in the letter to the DA specifically requires that a successful prosecution show proof of criminal intent to be successful. Such intent has not been remotely established and the opportunity to establish intent was squandered when Mr. Moran oddly chose not to pursue his investigation in court.
The Bigger Picture
As my lawyer friends often tell me, one never knows how a judge may rule.
In this case we have some forty-one pages of petitions with over six hundred names. The Moran people have identified twenty-five they purport to be forged. In the case of thirteen of those, the signatories have submitted affidavits affirming that they did sign the petitions. Even if we ignore the affidavits, that still leaves over six hundred signatures. The minimum required to get the ballot line is three hundred and thirteen.
Is a judge going to throw out all the petitions and deny the candidates their line on the ballot over these twenty-five signatures?
More importantly, as the issue of the twenty-five challenged signatures seems so marginal as regards the basic validity of the petitions, will a law enforcement organization want to devote their resources to investigate this? As there are explanations like the Terry Briscoe example and no harm was done in the sense that the problematic signatures would have no material impact on other six hundred signatures which far exceed what was required by statute, would this merit an investigation?
An Unflattering Assessment
I offer the following unflattering speculation regarding this business.
Mr. Moran had no real interest to get to the bottom of the problematic signatures. He knew that his opponent had an overwhelming number of signatures so it was not reasonably possible to disqualify enough to invalidate the petitions.
Had he actually gone to court, there was the real possibility that the court would have rejected his claim of “fraud.” Such an outcome would be disastrous to Mr. Moran given the bravura nature of his allegations.
Consistent with this, he did nothing to pursue the alleged crimes for almost four months because he believed the publicity of his sensational accusations would have most impact if he made them just before the election. Waiting would have the added benefit that if in fact the police were to pursue the case, any determination would occur after the election.
Dillon Moran Has His Own Unfortunate History
If you believe I am being too harsh on Mr. Moran, consider his history.
In 2019 Mr. Moran sent out a flyer as part of his campaign to be the Commissioner of Public Works. The flyer included a letter purportedly from the New York State Department of Health. The letter was not from the NYSDH. He had doctored (forged?) it. I wrote about this in a post.
Regarding the copy of the letter in his flyer I wrote:
“In fact this is a fake document created by Mr. Moran’s campaign. The city was not cited with a violation and this document did not originate with the New York State Health Department.”
In 2020 Mr. Moran worked to pass a charter change proposal. As part of his effort, he set up several fake websites meant to confuse people who thought they were accessing the websites of those opposing charter change. Here is a link to my original post.
Standard Procedure For The White Walkers
Mr. Moran is a member of a group I refer to as the white walkers after the HBO series Game of Thrones. This moniker is meant to identify their destructive behavior.
These people often have some valid points but they lack faith in the public to understand their issues so they resort to shrill and overthetop attacks that serve to undermine the credibility of their original points.
Rather than point out the problems with her petitions, Mr. Moran has chosen to try to destroy Samantha Guerra’s reputation. This is part of the narrative that consultant Libby Post has the Democratic candidates pursuing. “Republicans are evil people undermining our democracy so vote for Democrats.”
I prefer to judge my Democrats and Republicans one at a time.
Saratoga Springs Politics 