[JK: I received the following press release from Mike Brandi, chair of the Saratoga Springs Republican Committee]
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY – Mike Brandi, Chairman of the Saratoga Springs Republican Committee (SSGOP), today announced significant legal victories stemming from two court cases challenging the Saratoga Springs City Council’s approval to pay private legal fees for Commissioner Dillon Moran and former Commissioner Jason Golub.
The cases originated in April 2024 when the City received a subpoena related to an investigation into the misuse of “on-call” pay by certain deputies. Commissioner Moran retained a high-priced New York City-based criminal defense firm, incurring legal fees of over six figures at a rate of $1,200 per hour. Subsequently, in July 2024, Moran introduced a City Council resolution seeking taxpayer funding for his substantial legal fees. Despite initial City Council approval, Brandi swiftly filed a lawsuit to halt this misuse of taxpayer dollars, obtaining a temporary restraining order.
Yesterday, the court issued its final ruling, decisively finding that such payments were unconstitutional and beyond the City Council’s legal authority. This ruling marks a significant triumph in safeguarding Saratoga Springs taxpayers from financial abuse.
Chairman Brandi praised the decision, stating: “It’s clear Commissioner Moran has never met a scandal he couldn’t make worse, but fortunately, Saratoga Springs taxpayers won’t be stuck paying the bill for his poor judgment. This ruling is a resounding victory for every taxpayer in Saratoga Springs. It sends a clear message that public officials cannot treat taxpayer dollars as their personal slush fund. We will continue fighting relentlessly to ensure accountability, transparency, and responsible stewardship of public funds.”
Brandi was represented by Chris Obstarczyk of the Obstarczyk Firm.
On June 25, 2025, Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran willfully violated his oath of office and abused his authority when he refused to comply with a request by the City Police Department for a document required in a prosecution. The result of his impropriety was that the charges against a key ally of Moran were dismissed.
Among the responsibilities outlined in Article 7 of the city charter is that the Commissioner of Accounts serves as the keeper of public records. In this case, Moran was required to provide either a copy of a “demonstration declaration” requested by the police or, in this instance, a statement indicating that no such document had been received by the Accounts Department.
His failure to comply constitutes a violation of the city charter and his oath of office. It may potentially be considered a misdemeanor under the New York State Municipal Officers Law.
His refusal to provide the document may also constitute obstruction of justice since because of his abuse the case had to be dismissed.
The Violation
On April 26, 2025, the Saratoga Springs Police Department contends that a demonstration involving more than twenty-five persons was organized by Joe Seeman and took place on the steps of City Hall. It was alleged that Mr. Seeman failed to submit a “declaration” to the police before the event.
As thoroughly documented by this blog over several years, individuals organizing a demonstration involving more than twenty-five persons are required by the city to submit a document called a “declaration.” The document is simply meant to alert the Police and Fire Departments to the location and size of the proposed action. The purpose of this is to enable the city to marshal its resources to ensure public safety. The document also informs the organizer of their responsibility to clean up any debris associated with the event, along with an advisory that the participants are not to carry weapons, etc.
Mr. Seeman, among others, has tried to misinform the public that the purpose of this “declaration” is to be an impediment to their right to demonstrate. The problem with this campaign of disinformation is that it is easily exposed as false. Seeman’s demonstration proceeded without incident despite his failure to submit the declaration. In fact, the Police provided protection for the event. Notwithstanding Seeman’s and Moran’s shrill accusations, nothing was done to impede Seeman’s demonstration. Yet he, along with Moran and others, continue to try to gaslight the citizens of our city that all of this is a conspiracy to deny them their rights even after multiple demonstrations were allowed to proceed without complying with the declaration requirement.
There is a delicious irony that the only Commissioner who has ever rejected a “declaration” to have a demonstration is Dillon Moran, who refused to allow the city union to have a demonstration. Unfortunately, neither the article in the Daily Gazette nor the WAMC story revealed any of this.
So the requirement of a declaration is an administrative obligation and is entirely separate from the right to demonstrate. While Seeman was able to organize his protest without interference, he was charged with a violation for failing to provide the required paperwork and received a summons to appear in city court. A “violation” is similar to jaywalking, and if Seeman were asked if he ever committed a crime as a result of a violation, he could correctly say no. He merely subjected himself to a modest fine for failing to submit the required form.
Ironically Seeman had always filed declarations in the past when he lead demonstrations in the city. Seeman’s refusal to comply with submitting a “declaration” can best be described as pettiness rather than principle.
Moran Comes To The Aid Of His Ally
The “declaration” is required to be submitted to the city’s Accounts Department.
To prosecute Seeman, the City Attorney determined that a formal acknowledgement from the Accounts Department that they never received a “declaration” would be required to document the violation to the court.
Lieutenant Frederick Warfield contacted the Accounts Department requesting the document. Lieutenant Warfield received the following email from Commissioner Moran:
As this email may be difficult to read on some people’s devices, let me repeat what Commissioner Moran wrote, “I won’t be providing a sworn statement to anyone, nor will my staff.”
Because of this, City Attorney David Harper wrote to Judge Wait, who was overseeing the proceedings, stating that the city would be unable to pursue the case in court. In addition, Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll has been forced to discontinue the requirement for “declarations” because Moran has made the requirement unenforceable.
Moran and Seeman-Political Allies
In his recent unsuccessful race for a New York State Assembly seat, Joe Seeman received $200.00 from Moran. Seeman subsequently received another donation of $100.00 from a “Jack Mehoff.” The latter gross attempt at humor was made through the ActBlue website, and the donor’s address matched Moran’s home address. Moran claims his account must have been hacked. The obscene donation is under investigation by the New York State Campaign Board.
Seeman, along with BLM leader Lex Figuereo, are co-chairs of the Saratoga County Working Families Party which has endorsed Moran’s candidacy for Commissioner of Accounts in this year’s upcoming city election.
So there is, at a minimum, the appearance of cronyism.
Moran Is Not A Judge
In the July 10, 2025, edition of the Daily Gazette, Moran defends his actions by asserting that Mr. Seeman is innocent.
“I was told last Thursday that they were preparing to exercise a search warrant on my department. A search warrant for an item that doesn’t exist,” Moran said. “Joe Seeman did not organize that protest. He did not fill out a Demonstration Declaration for the protest. They cited him without evidence. And it doesn’t matter what I say, they have no evidence that he did that. That’s why the case was thrown out.”
Daily Gazette
The fact is that it was dismissed not because Seeman was determined to be innocent, but because the City Attorney was forced to request a dismissal, as Moran refused to certify what he had freely admitted to the press—that Seeman did not file the required document for holding a demonstration.
Dillon Moran is the Commissioner of Accounts and not the City Judge. It is not up to him to decide anyone’s guilt or innocence. He does not have the authority to interfere with the judicial process, no matter how strongly he believes his friend is innocent. That is for the court to decide.
A Failure By The News Media
The critical point here is that a Commissioner has violated his oath of office and the city charter, resulting in a court case being dismissed.
I believe that this is no minor bureaucratic brouhaha. This city cannot function properly if its officials are allowed to pick and choose which of their duties, as defined in the charter and in New York State Law, they wish to perform. I think it is reasonable to believe that if Moran would violate this responsibility, he is probably taking other liberties that the public is unaware of.
Wendy Liberatore has declined to do a story on this for the Times Union. The Daily Gazette and WAMC have both published stories. None of these stories effectively communicates this central issue. Instead, they provide Seeman and Moran a platform to make false statements meant to gaslight the public.
The Need For Council Action
Moran should not be allowed to flaunt his duties as Commissioner with impunity. The proper remedy is to remove him from office in the November election. Short of that, his colleagues at the Council table should challenge him to apologize for his failure, while assuring them that this incident was an error not to be repeated, so that the city can continue to enforce its ordinance regarding “declarations.” Should he refuse, he should be censured, and the Council should formally request that the Governor remove him from office.
The Saratoga Springs City Council took a brief recess during their July 1, 2025, meeting. During that time Mayor John Safford left the room and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi chose this time to go through his papers on the Council table and photograph them.
While she was photographing the papers, Public Works Commissioner Chuck Marshall returned to his place at the Council table next to the Mayor’s seat. Assuming that she was discovered, Sanghvi told Marshall, “Now I won’t have to ask him.”
I ask the reader, can you imagine Sanghvi’s reaction if she found the Mayor, uninvited, taking pictures of her papers?
I wrote to Commissioner Sanghvi, asking her to explain this incident. I received the following email back.
Hello. Thank you for your email. As this is a part time position, I do not check my email everyday.
If you need an immediate response- kindly contact the Deputy Commissioner of Finance, Heather Crocker.
Some may remember the Foothills Business Daily, which journalist Steve Thurston created. He and Abby Tegnelia have launched a new site to report on Saratoga Springs. We need as many critical news sources as possible to help address the decline of traditional newspapers. Please support this latest entry.
Saratoga Dispatch
Abby Tegnelia and Steve Thurston realize there is still a deep need for daily journalism based in Saratoga Springs. With encouragement from some key business leaders in the greater Spa City area, Abby and Steve thought they would make a pretty good team since Abby was most recently the editor and publisher of Saratoga Living and knows the arts, lifestyle and food and drink community intimately. Before that, she worked at other magazines, including major national ones such as the Robb Report, Huffington Post and Marie Claire. Steve, on the other hand, has focused his time over the past five years in the area on harder news, covering city government, business, and breaking news, first for his own publication FoothillsBusinessDaily.com and then as the editor of the Post-Star in Glens Falls, his hometown. His professional life has focused on teaching about and writing local news. They are equal business partners and are working a business model that they believe is the future of local news.
[Many thanks to Barbara Lombardo for contributing her research and commentary to this blog. Barbara has owned a home on Park Place for over 40 years and until2015 was the longtime editor of the Saratogian]
Vincent and Katherine LaTerra are seeking approval to build a massive structure on the corner of Park Street and Cottage Street in a neighborhood of modest homes. For the neighbors, to say the least, this oversized project is not welcomed.
Neighbors Object
Although there are other design issues, the neighbors’ main concern is the mass and scale of the proposed building. Neighbors have appeared regularly before both the Planning Board and the Design Review Board and others have written to the Boards to urge that the project be reduced in size to be more consistent with the other homes adjacent to it. It is opposed by pretty much everyone living in the neighborhood surrounding the project.
An Elephant Squeezed Into a Shower Stall
The LaTerras are proposing to put up a three story 6 unit 18,500 sq foot condo building. The following is a list of homes on the adjacent properties in the neighborhood along with their respective square footage (sf). The numbers were researched by neighborhood resident Jason Thorud who lives immediately across the street from the proposed project. The chart below provides a sense of the extreme size of the project in relation to its neighbors.
21 Park Street 566sf
20 Park Street 1865sf
22 Park Street 1621sf
23 Park Street 2264sf
24 Park Street 1559sf
31 Park Street 2357sf
7 Cottage Street 3828sf
10 Cottage Street 1806sf
12 Cottage Street 1900sf
14 Cottage Street 1504sf
LaTera Project 18,500 sf
An Abuse Of Comparisons
The applicant went to great lengths to have a building designed that echoed the architectural style of Victorian era buildings scattered around Saratoga Springs. He argued that the size and mass of his proposed building is consistent with other similar buildings in the city. The problem is that none of the examples offered of buildings of similar architectural style and size are comparable because they exist in surroundings very different from the neighborhood where the LaTerra’s wish to build.
Neighborhood resident Barbara Lombardo took the time to visit all the buildings that were supposed to demonstrate that this project was perfectly appropriate for the Park Street parcel. Her photos below document that the comparability asserted by the developer is not credible. All the other buildings of similar scale, whether historic or contemporary, are situated in very different surroundings from the neighborhood the LaTerra’s building would be plopped down in the middle of.
A Troubling Role Performed by Samantha Bosshart, the Executive Director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation
In response to the neighbors’ concern about the mass and scale of the project, the Planning Board referred the project to the city’s Design Review Board for an advisory opinion on whether the scale and mass of the proposed building was appropriate for the neighborhood. The Board received Ms. Lombardo’s photographs and comments, Jason Thorud presented his sq ft analysis and all the other neighbors who spoke were all in agreement that the project as designed was problematic.
In the two meetings that the project was discussed by the DRB, only one person spoke in favor of the building proposal-Samantha Bosshart , the executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation. Vince LaTerra, the owner of the property, is on Ms. Bosshart’s board.
It would seem odd that Ms. Bosshart would weigh in on this project other than the fact that LaTerra is on her Board which she freely admitted. The location is not in a historic district. While the neighborhood has some historic homes dating back to the nineteenth century some are more contemporary, and there are a wide variety of architectural styles. Yet Ms.Bosshart felt the need to weigh in as the only voice in support of the LaTerras, repeating all the arguments the applicant had made even though the Design Review Board did not ask for her opinion.
Clearly her unsolicited opinion carried weight, however, as five of the seven DRB members ignored the comments and evidence presented by the neighbors and asserted they were just fine with the mass and scale of the LaTerra’s proposed building.
The Project Is Consistent With The Zoning
The property is situated in a UR-4 district, which permits multi-family zoning. The issue is not whether the owners should be allowed to build a multi-family structure, but whether squeezing every inch out of the property to construct a massive building is appropriate to the neighborhood. The proposal now goes back to the Planning Board which has some latitude in making adjustments to the site plan. Hopefully, it will see fit to address the neighbors’ concerns.
Here Are Ms. Lombardo’s Photos Exposing the Dubious Analysis Promoted by Ms. Bosshart and the DRB that the Scale of the Project Is Compatible with the Neighborhood and Her Analysis of the Proposal
Woodlawn Avenue
Near Van Dam St, across from a parking lot.
Nelson Avenue
Behind Brook Tavern. It’s on its own block, north of Brook Tavern, and much less deep than the proposal. The Regent Street ones are also less deep.
Regent Street
Between Phila and Caroline – green space on one side, tall multi-family on the other.
Clinton Street
Near Church Street, across from a parking lot and a commercial building.
Circular Street
At Swanner Lane, north of Lake Ave, past the funeral home. Note green on sides, parking in rear, less deep than the proposal.
Ellsworth Condos
These are on Division. Less tall, less deep, less wide – there is a space between buildings after three units. Less imposing.
Barbara Lombardo’s Analysis
The city Planning Board is considering two related applications down the block from me: First, to subdivide a .9-acre property on the corner of Park Place and Cottage Street into two lots, with the back .5 acres containing a house accessed via Cottage Street. Second, to fill the vacant .4 acres fronting Park Place end-to-end with an 18,500-square-foot, three-story, six-unit condo building.
The brick row-house-style proposal is handsome – but not for this location, or at least not without resolving addressing significant site plan issues, some of which are tied to its mass.
What recourse do we neighbors have?
The application by Vince and Katherine LaTerra develops every inch of the property as permitted by the site’s UR-4 multi-family zoning for that block. So no Zoning Board involvement is required. However, they do need approval from the Planning Board, whose role is to consider mundane but highly significant site plan details for new, multi-family development.
Nothing on this residential part of the three-block-long Park Place and one-block-long Cottage Street approaches the proposal’s mass, scale and height. More than two dozen neighbors, including me, have written and spoken out against it, primarily for those reasons, along with raising site plan concerns about trash storage and removal, National Grid transformers, snow removal, parking, traffic flow and landscaping.
The Planning Board asked the Design Review Board for an advisory opinion on the mass, scale, height and neighborhood compatibility. The DRB last month issued a 5-2 opinion in favor of the applicant. The vote followed objections by neighbors and my presentation of photos showing that none of a handful of similar buildings around the city are plopped in the middle of a residential street. The vote also followed one neighbor’s letter, which apparently went unread or at least unheeded, citing the enormity of the project compared to the square footage of neighboring residential structures.
More persuasive to the DRB was the Preservation Foundation’s full-throated endorsement of the project’s design, mass and scale – along with the acknowledgement that one foundation board member recused himself from the matter: Vince LaTerra, the project applicant. Also, the applicant made some design modifications to the DRB’s overall satisfaction: promising four entries instead of just two on Park Place, and reconfiguring the mansard roof windows.
Still, not everything is totally hunky-dory, even with the DRB members.
The DRB “encourages” the applicant to make the side and back façade more visually appealing. And it calls it “imperative” that high-quality materials be used to “further enhance and promote the look of individual residences.” Hopefully, the Planning Board will address these points and the DRB will follow up on them.
When they bought the property a couple of years ago, they immediately installed a tall, sight-blocking vinyl fence around the entire site, shutting themselves off except for their driveway on Cottage Street. They failed to keep the sidewalks free of snow, allowed brush to overgrow on the sidewalks, and removed trees. And they proposed a structure as wide as legally allowed, knowing the west side of the building will overwhelm a historically renovated adjacent single-family house. So I’m skeptical when the owners claim to care about the neighborhood.
I’m also skeptical about their application drawings, which show trees on Park Place, when in reality the street will have power poles and wires. What else in the plans are merely aspirational?
Many questions remain regarding Cottage Street. Where are trash and recycling containers for six units going to lined up for pickup? Where will the transformer pad for electrical service be located? How will ice and snow be handled for the sidewalks and for the ramp to basement-level parking in the U-shaped building? Where will plowed snow be placed? How will parking spaces fit, and how will vehicular access in and out of Cottage Street look and work? How will the owner physically and visually separate the newly subdivided property?
Though the zoning indicates this block is right for multi-family housing, there is no pressing demand to “enhance” the neighborhood with million-dollar-plus condos. It would be regrettable to have a building with basically no green space, unlike almost every existing residence on Park Place and Cottage Street. I’ve been cautioned that what could be built there could be worse, but let’s set a higher bar.
I remain hopeful that the Planning Board will address the site plan issues, and that the applicant, whose drawings demonstrate thought and suggest quality work, will modify their project to better fit on this block, where I’ve lived for more than 40 years.
Former Saratoga Springs Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub and his lawyer, Karl Sleight, have promoted the narrative that City Court Judge Jeffery Wait’s recent dismissal of the case against Golub for “Official Misconduct” exonerated Golub and that Golub was a victim who, for unknown reasons, was the subject of a great injustice. This is hardly the case.
Regrettably, the media has provided them an uncritical venue to spread this false narrative.
The Times Union quoted Sleight: “As I said from the beginning, these charges were completely baseless. Today’s decision confirms that fact.”
WNYT television featured Golub saying, “These trumped-up charges have been a heavy burden for me and my family to carry for the past 10 months. The weaponization of law enforcement against me for political or personal reasons should be gravely concerning to everyone.”
However, even the most cursory reading of Judge Wait’s decision exposes the futility of their attempt at spin.
A Faulty Criminal Charge That Can Easily Be Corrected Is No Exoneration
The charges against Golub stem from a December 2023 incident when city workers performed work on their boss’s, Jason Golub’s, private residence. Golub was charged with “Official Misconduct”, a misdemeanor.
City Court Judge Jeff Wait’s decision asserts that the document charging Golub was “deficient” because it didn’t address whether Golub knew that the city employees working on his sink were on city time.
In legal terms, Judge Wait’s dismissal was “without prejudice.” If it had been dismissed “with prejudice,” then Golub would be cleared because no further legal action could be taken against him. As it was “without prejudice,” it meant that Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen could simply resubmit the charge, amending it to explain why the prosecution believed Golub was aware of the impropriety of using the city plumbers.
So the basis of the dismissal was an easily corrected technical error.
While Heggen told the press that she believed her original complaint was legally correct, she declined to resubmit a corrected complaint for some unexplained reason. To say that her decision was deeply disappointing would be an understatement. Golub’s lawyer did not introduce any new evidence that would have provided some rationale for her decision not to pursue the case. If DA Heggen believed the charges were justified, it is difficult to understand why she did not continue to carry forward the prosecution.
Golub Never Paid The Plumber
Like the telltale question in the Sherlock Holmes story- why didn’t the dog bark in the night?-The prosecution might have asked Golub at trial, “Why didn’t you pay the plumbers?”
If Golub believed the city employees working on his sink were not on the clock, and thus not being paid by the city, why didn’t he offer to pay them? Did Golub think that the work being done on his house was free? Why did Golub think that Ken Dooley, whom he didn’t know, would fix his sink for free?
Ken Dooley, the city plumber, told the police he was ordered to appear at the Golub house not once but twice. We know that Golub was present both times.
In fact, on one of the visits there, Dooley was accompanied not only by Deputy Commissioner O’Neil but also by another DPW employee.
Are we to believe that Golub, who has a law degree from Columbia University, had three city employees come to his home to fix his sink, yet it never crossed his mind that they might be on city time? Why did he not bother to ask? If he just assumed they were not on the clock and being paid by the city, why didn’t he offer to pay them?
There are two possibilities. One possibility is that he felt so privileged that he never thought he was responsible for paying anyone. I guess that would make him innocent of the charge, but it would reflect poorly on him first as a lawyer who should have known better and second on being a thoughtless, ungenerous, and privileged human being.
The second possibility, of course, was that he knew they were there under O’Neil’s direction, were on city time, and were being paid anyway, so he did not need to reach into his own pocket. Of course, that would make him guilty of official misconduct.
Whatever the truth of his motivation for not paying for the work done at his private residence, the basic fact is that he should never have had Dooley and the others come to his house to perform a repair in the first place. A more ethical person in Golub’s shoes would have at least conceded that he used poor judgment in not inquiring about whether his employees were on the clock, and the entire matter should never have happened. Instead, he and his lawyer have dared to play the victim in all of this. They blame everyone but Golub for being charged.
Golub dismisses the idea that he bears any responsibility for this mess.
He and his lawyer continue to claim that Tim Coll somehow magically convinced state agencies to investigate false claims against Jason vindictively.
He blames his deputy, Joe O’Neill, for what happened. According to Golub’s logic, it was O’Neill’s fault for not warning him that Dooley was helping him on city time.
I guess Golub should also blame Dooley for irresponsibly coming to his home on city time and fixing his drain without warning Golub.
Golub’s arrogance in playing the victim reflects very poorly on him and again testifies to his sense of privilege and arrogance.
Jason Golub is, apparently, unfamiliar with the concept of responsibility.
Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran’s belligerent and toxic behavior has been documented repeatedly in this blog over the past three-plus years he has been in office. Still, his out of control behavior at the June 16, 2025, City Council pre-agenda meeting descended to new lows.
The trigger for Moran seemed to be an item Mayor John Safford had placed on his agenda removing the language that authorized on-call pay for the city’s deputies. The on-call pay debacle has been documented in earlier posts. It involved among other issues allegations that city documents had been altered, a State Police investigation, and Moran hiring a lawyer for $1,250 an hour that he expected the city to pay for. Safford’s proposal to take on call pay off the books was something Finance Commissioner, and Dillon ally, Minita Sanghvi had called for months ago making Moran’s fury even more bizarre.
Moran: “I am Beyond Rage”
In this excerpt from the meeting Moran makes snarky and opaque references to some kind of collusion and other alleged grievances he suffered related to the State Police On Call Pay investigation. Don’t worry if you can’t follow everything he is saying.
Dillon Ain’t Sayin’
Resolutions and actions to be considered at City Council meetings are supposed to be posted on the city website the Friday before the Tuesday meeting. This is supposed to give both the members of the Council and the public time to read and digest the proposed actions to prepare for the Tuesday meeting.
Council members convene on the Monday morning before the Council’s Tuesday night meetings for a “pre-agenda” meeting. At this meeting, they are supposed to be prepared to answer questions about and/or clarify items they have placed on their agendas to further help members prepare for the regular meeting’s deliberations.
Moran has been a serial violator of this policy, presenting resolutions at the Council table that the public and his colleagues are unaware of til the last minute.
At the June 16 meeting, Moran taunted his colleagues (and, in effect, the public) saying that he will not reveal his plans for the regular Council meeting ahead of time. In his fury, he seems oblivious to his responsibility to be transparent so that citizens are adequately informed, and he has no concept of how important courtesy is in properly carrying out the people’s business.
The Unedited Dillon Moran
Here are the full unedited sections of Dillon Moran’s rants at the meeting.
Post Script
There were no fireworks at the Tuesday night, June 17, Council meeting.
At Moran’s request, Mayor Safford pulled from Tuesday’s agenda the resolution to remove On-Call. Moran has indicated for a year and a half that he would craft a repeal of on-call pay. He will get the opportunity to do that at the next Council meeting. Stay tuned.
The thing that is most disturbing about the leadership of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee is how cavalier they are about the truth especially when it could damage their target’s personal or professional reputations.
A case in point is a release issued by city and state Democratic Committee member Gordon Boyd. The release announces that he has supposedly discovered, in reviewing election documents, that the signatures of Joe Suhrada, who chairs the county Republican Party, and Jennifer Weaver, secretary of the County Republican Committee, appear to him to be identical. The logic being that the signatures may have been forged. He also writes that Charles A. Foehser, the First Deputy Clerk of Saratoga County, notarized these signatures, meaning that Froehser may have falsely claimed to have observed the signing of the documents by the named officials.
Boyd’s release included letters to the New York State Attorney General’s and Secretary of State’s offices asking them to investigate. The purpose of those letters is to amplify his story and get press coverage.
“When I looked at them, the signatures jumped out to me as way too similar. Being a notary myself, I know you’re not allowed to have signatures on something you didn’t see signed. You have to see a human being sign it and then you can notarize it,” said Boyd. “To my eye, it appears that the same hand signed for both the chairman and secretary of the party. It also appears that the purported signature of the chairman does not look like his official signature on file with the Board of Elections.
The reality is that if Boyd could find a newspaper or television station to publish his unsubstantiated claims, these grave accusations would raise doubts with the public about the integrity of Suhrada, Weaver, and Foehser, and by extension, the candidates named in the documents they signed.
It is no coincidence that three of the documents referenced in his release refer to candidates endorsed by One Saratoga, whom Boyd opposes.
Here are four of the documents that Boyd submitted to the state agencies.
The first two contain what he claims may be forgeries, along with the notarization by Froehser.
I don’t claim to have expertise in handwriting. I would observe, though, that Weaver ends her initials with a long horizontal slash, which is simply my untutored observation.
Mike Brandi, chair of the Saratoga Springs Republican Committee, has written to Boyd, demanding that he retract his letters and release and issue a formal apology.
Brandi included the following documents in his response to Boyd.
Does Boyd have suspicions that Weaver or Suhrada forged each other’s Driver’s licenses?
Does Boyd suspect that Weaver had Suhrada sign her passport?
Did Weaver sign Suhrada’s tax form?
An Inquiry To Gordon Boyd
I wrote to Gordon Boyd asking what research he did to substantiate his suspicions other than observing a handful of forms.
His disingenuous response:
I have made no such determination. I have merely asked the Secretary of State to investigate. If you were a real journalist and not such a party activist, you probably would have read more carefully.
gmb
It’s Called Being Responsible
One key question that Boyd might have considered was what the motive would have been to forge these documents. The fact that there was no apparent explanation should have at least raised the need for further investigation before going to the press if Boyd’s concerns were sincere.
It is not totally unreasonable for him to seek help from state agencies if he was indeed truly concerned about these signatures. The logic, then, would have been, though, to wait for their opinion before going to the press
Of course, this would mean he was interested in the truth rather than an opportunity to smear these three people and make it into the news cycle. It also would have meant that he maintained a high ethical standard by not wishing to bring undue embarrassment to these people if they were innocent.
It should be noted that Michele Madigan immediately enthusiastically congratulated Boyd on his press release, praising him, saying, “Nothing gets by Gordon Boyd.”
This incident is just another example of why this city needs One Saratoga.
Another Example Of The Failure of Today’s Journalism
Journalists are not supposed to be uncritical stenographers. Good journalists investigate so they can assist their readers in determining the truth between conflicting claims.
In this case, all Boyd had was a suspicion. It is incredible that the Daily Gazette would print a story with virtually no serious proof to support it. This is not journalism. It is a quest for clicks.
According to the article, Dimopoulos’s only additional investigation was an unsuccessful attempt to reach Joe Suhrada. What about the other two people being accused? Didn’t they deserve to tell their side of this story? Couldn’t Dimopoulos have asked for other documents with signatures that might have shed light on this story?
It is instructive that no other major media newspaper or television station viewed Boyd’s allegations as deserving of coverage. Even Wendy Liberatore didn’t bother. Only the Gazette.
Brandi has provided the documents disproving Boyd’s claim to the Daily Gazette, which was once an excellent newspaper. It is discouraging that they will leave Boyd’s story standing without printing Brandi’s rebuttal and evidence.
Saratoga Springs Politics 