Saratoga Springs Politics

In the November 8 edition of the Times Union Wendy Liberatore wrote a follow-up story on the charter vote.

In the story Bob Turner voices alarm that of the 8,724 ballots cast, 368 did not vote one way or the other on the charter.  Ms. Liberatore wrote, “He and Gordon Boyd, another member of the Charter Review Commission, were told by voters that not all of the poll workers told them to turn over the ballot, as the workers should have.  “We are concerned by the under vote,” he said.

Liberatore goes on to point out that the “The city’s Commissioner of Accounts John Franck, for whom the city clerk works, said he does not know of any irregularities at the polls and that it is often the case that voters don’t turn over the ballot, even when they are told to. But Franck said he didn’t tour each polling site this year like he usually does.”  In true Liberatore fashion she implies that somehow Franck was responsible for the problem.

In a considerably better article that appeared in the Gazette, Bill Fruci, Democratic Election Commissioner, explained that the training of the people from both political parties who staff the polling places is done by the county not the city.  He further noted that it is not uncommon for voters to abstain from voting on items on the ballot.  Also, to have only 4% of the ballots not completely marked is a very modest number.

Liberatore continues, “The charter review commission countered that Franck’s involvement in the fight was also a violation of state law because elected officials are to remain publicly neutral when city voters consider adopting a new charter.”  Since the Charter Review Commission dissolved at 9:00 PM the night of the election, I will guess that this came from either Turner, Kane, or Boyd or all three.  Why Ms. Liberatore did not properly attribute this complaint is unclear.  Consistent with the past comments of the pro-charter spokespersons they (and Ms. Liberatore) ignored that Mayor Yepsen and Commissioner Mathiesen had not been publicly neutral.  Both had written letters to the editor, made statements to the press, and appeared prominently in the pro-charter mailers.

Saratoga Today also has an article in this week’s edition on the on-going saga of the charter. In it Bob Turner in a demonstration of wretched excess compared the charter election to Florida in 2000.  He warns us we are heading for brand new legal territory.  In fact, reliable sources tell me that the “It’s Time Saratoga!” people have hired attorney Jim Long to represent them when the absentee ballots are opened and to potentially challenge them.

In response, there will be a special meeting of the City Council on Monday to consider hiring a lawyer to represent the city in this process.  I spoke to John Franck who told me emphatically (John Franck knows how to tell you something emphatically!)  that the purpose of the lawyer representing the city is not to challenge any ballots but to insure the proper process is followed and to advocate on behalf of the city that to the extent possible, all ballots be counted.  This is to say that should the “It’s Time” people challenge a ballot the attorney representing the city will review and if appropriate defend such ballots.

So, dear reader, you might ask “what is the point of challenging a ballot when you do not know if it is for you or against you?”  Well, the names of all the people casting absentee ballots are public.  Excessively zealous individuals could contact these people trying to find out how they voted.  They could then attempt to invalidate the ballots of those people on the other side of the issue.  I know it sounds bizarre but it has been done in the past.

In contrast to all of this, Richard Sellers on behalf of SUCCESS told the paper, “We’re confident in the Saratoga County Board of Elections and we look forward to a clear outcome.”

I do not know the Republican Commissioner of Elections but I have known the Democratic Commissioner, Bill Fruci , for decades.  Bill, aside from being an extremely nice person has demonstrated over the years extensive knowledge of election law and a high standard for fairness.  Notwithstanding Bob Turner’s hyperbole, this is not the first election in which absentee ballots have  been scrutinized and potentially challenged.  In the end, if one or more ballots are challenged, a judge will determine their validity.

Ballots can be invalid for a number of reasons but the issues are not as obscure as hanging chads.  If the voter checks off more than one choice for the same office or propositions, that particular selection is obviously invalid.  The envelopes the absentee ballots are sealed in must be properly signed and dated.  The post mark must be prior to the election.  All of this is fairly straight forward.  In general the courts have been reluctant in these cases to rule ballots invalid emphasizing the need to protect the right to vote.

Here is a link to the article.

The following was posted on November 8 on the “It’s Time Saratoga!” Face Book Page:  “…we were outspent 2-1..” 

 “It’s Time” is the PAC that was established to promote charter change. In a pair of earlier blogs I posted the latest financial filings with the NY State Board of Elections  by both “It’s Time” and SUCCESS, the group that opposed charter change.  SUCCESS reported raising $22,799.00.  It’s Time Saratoga reported raising $22,399.00.

So based on public records, where would “It’s Time Saratoga!” come up with this extraordinary claim.  One would have hoped with the election being over we might be spared the continuation of these kinds of dubious claims.

I have emailed Rick Fenton, Bob Turner, and Gordon Boyd who have been prominent spokespeople on this site asking them for some sort of supporting documentation for their claim.

 

 

 

There seems to still be confusion about the problems with the Charter Review Commission’s qua survey so in spite of my earlier post on the subject, I thought I would go into more detail here.

An entire industry has developed along with a huge academic discipline regarding how to accurately assess what a particular population believes about something by using surveys.

The classic debacle of the Truman vs Dewey election of 1948 is a sterling example of a survey gone wrong. In this case telephone interviews were done of a sample population to try to predict who the winner of the Presidential election would be that year. Newspapers printed headlines based on the results of that survey showing Dewey defeating Truman which obviously turned out to be wrong.  The flaw was that, at the time, telephones were something of a luxury.  By using that medium the sample was skewed to a group that was more affluent than the overall population and thus not representative of voters in general .

Wikipedia is usually a helpful resource for things like this and here is a link to their explanation about what the methodology for surveying is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_methodology

When most people hear the word survey they naturally assume that it references the kind of survey explained in the above Wikipedia entry.

To begin with, there is the challenge of designing the questions.  Critical to this is having disinterested professionals craft questions so that they are free of language that would tend to prejudice the respondents.

Next is the selection of the sample population.  Usually the greater the sample, the more accurate the results.  Costs are commonly a limiting factor.  So a variety of strategies are developed to determine how to get a representative group.  In the case of city hall there would be a variety of problems in developing that sample.  For example, it would be reasonable to assume that certain positions would be more impacted by interactions with commissioners then others and therefore might have stronger opinions on the strengths or weaknesses of the current form of government.  The work of a clerk for example might make them less affected by decisions made by a commissioner than a mid management position.  There is also the factor of how well a particular employee might get along with a particular commissioner.  If they got along particularly well with a commissioner it might prejudice them to support the current form whereas if they did not they might be prejudiced to oppose it.  I am sure there are more issues but this is the kind of analysis that a rigorous professional in the field of survey methodology would be thinking about.  They would be struggling with how can they develop a model for sampling that gives an accurate picture of the population.

Another key element in a professional survey is to insure that the respondents are not allowed to be prejudiced in their responses.  There are a variety of tools and techniques applied to this process.  One of the things to control is that the respondents are reached in a manner and time that keeps them from speaking to one another about the survey.   The last thing a professional wants is for partisans with interests in the survey to affect the respondents.  As I understand it, some surveys where the risk of such interactions cannot be avoided build in a variety of algorithms to adjust the results accordingly.

It is axiomatic that the last thing a proper survey wants is self selecting respondents.  This is a reference to surveys where the participants are not selected according to the designed sample but where the sample is simply based on the people who want to fill out the form.  No adjustments are considered to deal with why some people decided to participate while others declined so it is impossible to determine to what extent those taking the initiative to answer are representative of the larger group.  They may in fact, like those with telephones in the Dewey example, share characteristics which set them aside from the population the survey is looking at.  Thus their responses will not be useful in determining what the group in general thinks.

To be blunt and obvious, no one would pay for a survey in an electoral race if they just sent out questionnaires  with a self addressed envelope to people in a particular district and asked them who they planned to vote for.  Even if they limited the mailing to registered voters or voters who cast ballots in the last two elections, what intelligent person would tabulate the results to determine whether a particular candidate was going to win based on who took the time to send the survey back?

So what did the Charter Review Commission do?

Did they seek the professional assistance from an expert in surveying to help them craft the questions?  No.  They crafted the questions themselves.

Did they consider that the questions might have hidden biases?  No.  They assumed that it was just a matter of asking some straight forward questions.  They were so sure of their good intentions they had no fear that there could be any problem with what they came up with.

So did they seek a professional to help them determine how many respondents they would need in order to draw conclusions about the target population (city employees)?   No.

Did they ask a professional how to determine what a representative sample of employees would constitute?  No.

Did they ask how they might solicit responses in such a way to insure that the survey would not be interfered with by partisans or that it could be done in a way in which respondents would not discuss the survey with others?  No.

What they did was to send out a questionnaire through the city’s computer network.  They didn’t even control that process.  When I asked Bob Turner, chair of the commission, who got the survey, he admitted he did not know.  Apparently there was some sort of internal city mailing list.  Pressed he was unable to offer anything about the nature of that mailing list nor did he know how many surveys were sent out. According to the Commission literature, it was a mailing list that went to employees in city hall.  Why did their survey not include all 398 employees who work for the city?  In some cases it was apparently  because some city employees do not have access to computers but this is not true of major departments that were overlooked. It does, though, expose one of the many limitations of using workplace computers to distribute the survey.

Still, the most damning thing about this survey was that its respondents were self selected.  This means that only employees motivated to respond did so.  According to the Charter Commission’s website seventy-five employees responded.  It is unclear how many employees work at city hall.  It is unclear what constituted working at city hall. Do the police work at city hall? Some do but others are out patrolling. How many? But this is the least of the problems with this survey.  The most serious problem is that it was self selected.

No person in good conscience could claim with certainty that the respondents to this survey were representative of the employees of city hall let alone the city.  The respondents of this survey were simply the seventy-five employees who chose for whatever reasons to answer the survey. No one has any idea how representative they may or may not be of city hall employees in general.

Sometimes the “Its Time Saratoga!” people flat out say that their survey found that 65.3% of the employees in city hall support having a city manager.  Other times they are more nuanced and just say that the survey was of city hall employees then give the numbers omitting that the numbers are a percentage of the 75 respondents only. (Since no one knows how many surveys were sent out we don’t even know how significant getting 75 responses was.)As should be abundantly clear, there is no way based on what was really simply a questionnaire that any conclusions can legitimately be drawn.

As just one of many examples, Bob Turner who chairs the Charter Commission published a letter in the September 10^th Saratogian in which he asserted: “These results explain why 63.3percent [JK: The actual percent was 65.3] of City Hall employees said they believed city hall would operate better with a city manager.”  No caveats or qualifications here and patently untrue. 65.3% of city hall employees never told anyone anything. Turner can only assert truthfully that 65.3% of the respondents to that particular question answered it in that particular way. But 65.3% of 75 is only roughly 48 employees, not a number that the Charter supporters want to throw around.  Saying 12% of city employees answered a question saying they preferred a city manager form does not fit the pro charter change narrative.

Other times they simply say that their survey of city hall employees shows that 65.3% support a city manager.  I find this particularly cynical and disturbing.  The innocent reader would take it that the number represented a percentage of all city hall employees.  Instead, in a Clintonesque play of words, if challenged, they can claim they only meant the people who actually took the time to fill out their questionnaire and that they were using the word “survey” in the colloquial sense.  They didn’t mean a real survey.

Having hammered on this abuse of public trust repeatedly, their last mailing, buried among the large graphics and headlines about support for the city charter is the following: “The Commission’s survey and interviews with more than 75 employees found:”  Some might call that qualifying fragment progress.

Survey?  What survey?

One stands in wonder at the cynicism of “It’s Time Saratoga!”.   It doesn’t matter that it has been brought to their attention time and time again that they do not have the data to assert that they know the percentage of employees in city hall that support charter change and yet it seems that not a day goes by that I do not see this asserted in the media.  I am hard pressed to explain this.

In the November 3 edition of the Saratogian Rick Fenton who is the head of “It’s Time Saratoga!” repeats it yet again.   Referring to “the first ever survey” of city hall employees he asserts:

“To the question, does our current charter ensure accountability? 57 percent said no. Does it prevent wasteful spending? 67 percent said no. Effectively manage the city? 72 percent said no. Should the city have a city manager? 65 percent said yes.”

Similarly, Bob Turner made the claims on a popular website during the same week.  Mr. Turner wins the award for having posted this misinformation the most times.

In the parlance of the times, these are alt facts.

There was nothing that any credible person would call  a “survey” done as I have repeatedly documented on this blog.  An unscientific questionnaire was sent out by email to an indeterminate number of city employees and a modest number responded.   The questionnaire may offer some indication that some employees in city hall support change but it is fundamentally dishonest to suggest anything beyond that.

As the leader of “It’s Time Saratoga!” I expect that Mr. Fenton shared responsibility for the door hanger that promised people the city will save $500,000.00 a year “Immediately” if the charter is adopted.  Even the controversial financial statement put out by the Charter Review Commission did not claim this much.

So I ask the readers of this blog to help me understand Mr. Fenton, Mr. Turner,  et al.

I am from the old school.  I do not expect people to see the world the way I do but when it comes to facts, I consider it fundamental to try to get them right.  When I make a mistake of fact on this blog I acknowledge it.  I do this because I value my reputation with the readers of this blog.  If I am wrong, by acknowledging it I hope that readers will have confidence in what I say in the future.  Aside from how I am perceived, it is important to me personally to be honest with others.

I hope this blog contributes to a more thoughtful city politics.  Misrepresenting the truth to pass some legislation, no matter how beneficial it might seem, only serves to corrupt the ability of our community to move forward in a humane way.

I understand that people like Mr. Fenton and Mr. Turner want to get the charter adopted.  I expect they and other members of his group  may calculate that many of the people who read the Saratogian or their website or share this information on Facebook will have no idea that these men are presenting what appear to be compelling numbers but in fact is information that cannot be supported by fact.  What I do not understand is how little they care about the thoughtful people who see how unethically they are behaving.

What makes Mr. Turner’s actions in this all the more troubling is that he has a class of students studying this campaign this semester and he is teaching it.  What if you were a student in his class and privately critical of his behavior?  Would you express this in any of the class discussions or in any written assignments?

It makes you wonder, do these people believe that by winning an election it somehow validates them and their shrewd and unprincipled behavior?  Do they see people who value honesty as foolish and naïve?

 

There was a front page story in the Saratogian and a story in the Times Union about the city’s litigation regarding redacted emails that were sent between the city center and members of the city council.  The Pedinottis who own the Mouzon House are asking the courts to compel the city to reveal redactions in emails they FOILed the city for.

The contrast between the Saratogian’s story and the Times Union’s is striking.  Reading Ms. Liberatore’s sensationalized stories reminds me of the Damon Runyon quip, “Newspapers? They wrap fish in them.”

As always, there is another side to this story which is apparently too complex or does not serve Ms. Liberatore’s agenda which is to use the platform of the Times Union to gin up stories.

The Pedinottis are suing the city of Saratoga Springs along with the City Center over the planned parking facility.  The city has an excellent attorney in Vince DeLeonardis. 

The key issue here is that the city is being sued and their attorney in order to protect it, is going to limit wherever legally possible, access to documents sought by the litigant.  Anyone with any experience in these matters fully knows this.  I spoke to Chris Mathiesen about where the council stood on this litigation and he assured me that the council had been unanimous in their support of the city attorney in this matter.  Ms. Liberatore has been reckless in her coverage of this story.  To read her story one would conjure up conspiracies between Commissioner Madigan and the City Center as though the rest of the city council did not exist. 

 Ms. Liberatore knew when she solicited comments from Mayor Yepsen that she would play to the conspiracy crowd.  I am sorry but it was no oversight that she did not solicit comments from other members of the council.  They would have told her about the unanimity behind the city’s legal action and by unanimity I mean that Mayor Yepsen supported the litigation.  I know that this will generate a great deal of heat but the truth is that Mayor Yepsen supported the city’s litigation…before she didn’t.  This, unfortunately, is not the first time that the mayor has done one thing and told the public something else.  If Ms. Liberatore were a serious reporter she would easily have exposed this but instead she went the cheap way. 

The heart of this matter was the adoption of a city ordinance that excluded the downtown from a requirement that new construction could not cast a shadow on an adjacent building’s solar panel.  I have written previously about this ordinance.  It makes no sense to have this ordinance for the city core.  We want to focus development downtown.   We do not want businesses like the Pedinottis to be able to block projects by simply putting up a solar panel.  We could not have put up the building where Northshire Bookstore now sits if the building next to it had put up a solar panel.  It was no coincidence or conspiracy that this ordinance was passed following Mouzon House’s litigation.  The fact is that their litigation exposed a problem with the city ordinance.

 Previous to Ms. Liberatore, the Times Union reporter covering the city was Dennis Yusko.  He was a great reporter whose stories had punch but were still thoughtful.  I miss Dennis.

 

[JK: My editor is on holiday in Paris so any errors in this post are entirely my responsibility.]

Interesting who is supporting SUCCESS.  I assume that Mazzone Administrative Group is associated with Angelo Mazonne who is one of the principals of Saratoga National Golf Course.  He along with Tom Newkirk were generous supporters.  I think W.P. Dake is Bill Dake of Stewarts Shops.  I believe that John Hendrickson of Geyser Road is the husband of Mary Lou Whitney.  Charles Wait is the owner of Adirondack Trust.  I assume J. T. Roohan is John Roohan of Roohan Realty.

Contributor	Amt
ALLERDICE BUILDING SUPPLY INC. 41 WALWORTH ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	1,000.00
KUCZYNSKI ASSOCIATES 153 SPRING ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
MAZZONE ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP INC. 1 GLEN AVE. SCOTIA, NY 12302	1,000.00
WILLIAM J BURKE AND SON 626 NORTH BROADWAY SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	200.00
BAKERPO, JOHN PO BOX 1290 SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	125.00
BARKER, JONNE 286 SOUTH MAIN AVE ALBANY, NY 12208	100.00
BOCCHI, AMERIGO 4 ALFRED COURT SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	50.00
CLARK, JACKLYN B 18 JUMEL PLACE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	250.00
DAKE, W P 90 BYRAN ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	3,000.00
DALTON, JOSEPH W 14 LOUGHBURY RD SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	1,000.00
DALTON JR., JOSEPH W 14 LOUGHBURY RD SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	500.00
DELSETTE, ELIO H 15 ROCK ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	50.00
GRANDE, JAMES J 34 STORAGE LANE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
HEALY, WILLIAM J 5 VICTORIA LANE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
HENDRICKSON, JOHN 40 GEYSER RD SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	2,000.00
HOFFMAN, MICHAEL 38 HIGH ROCK AVE UNIT6K SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	1,000.00
INGMIRE, LANCE 44 TROMBLEY RD STILLWATER, NY 12170	250.00
JOYCE, CAROL A 122 CIRCULAR ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	25.00
KLEIN, PHILP W 29 WALTER DRIVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
KLOTZ, KAREN L 232 MAPLE AVE. SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	25.00
KLOTZ, KENNETH 232 MAPLE AVE. SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	25.00
KUCZYNSKI, HENRY J 153 SPRING ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
LAVIGNE, JAMES 87 RAILROAD PLACE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	1,000.00
MARTIN, RANDY 24 UNDERWOOD DRIVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
MCNEARY, FREDRICK J 264 DANIELS RD SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
MCNEARY, FREDRICK J 6 VICTORIA LANE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	200.00
NEWKIRK, THOMAS J 553 CRESCENT AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	1,000.00
PALMETTO, NICHOLAS 5 BEACON HILL DR SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
PARILLO, FRANK J 4 THERESA TERACE MALTA, NY 12020	1,000.00
POKOIK, LEE RAILROAD PLACE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	300.00
PORTER, M T 236 CAROLINE ST. SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
ROOHAN, J T 511 BROADWAY SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	1,000.00
ROOHAN, J T 511 BROADWAY SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	1,000.00
SCARBOROUGH, MIRIAM G 26 MADISON AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	99.00
SELLERS, BONITA 73 5TH AVE. SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	500.00
SELLERS, RICHARD 73 5TH AVE. SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	1,000.00
SMITH, NOEL J BROADWAY SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	500.00
SUTTON, SHAUNA M 141 NELSON AVE. SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
SUTTON, SHAUNA 141 NELSON AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
TAIT, ROSEMART BOX 136 SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
VANWAGNER, CLIFF 18 ROLLINGBROOK DR SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
VEITCH, MICHAEL 201 CIRCULAR ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
WAIT, CHARLES V 658 NORTH BROADWAY SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	3,000.00
WEIHE, MARTHA J 44 WHITE ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
ZINTER, MARIA J 4313 ROUTE 50 SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00
Total Contributions:	22,799.00

​

I recently learned that Meg Kelly is willing to meet with me… ten days after the election if she wins.

It’s Time Saratoga! is the PAC working on behalf of the Charter Review Commission to promote charter change in Saratoga Springs.

Given the expensive mailings and other media done by them I was curious where the money came from.  As it turns out, approximately 75% of the money raised by It’s Time Saratoga! came from the national and state associations of city managers.

The International City/County Management Association is located in Washington D.C.  It gave a $15,000.00 donation to It’s Time Saratoga.   In addition the  New York State  City/County Management Association located in Valhalla, NY gave $2,500.00.

There is nothing illegal about their contributions.  In fact it is not surprising that they want to see their network expand. 

The problem is that the Charter Commission people have gone on ad nausea about how completely apolitical city managers are.  In fact, as far as I can tell, these associations do preclude their individual members from participating in politics.  This, however, apparently does not preclude the associations themselves  from pursuing their own self interest by involving themselves in one of the most contentious city elections in my memory.

Like so many of materials, the apolitical nature of city managers was at least overstated.

I expect the people at It’s Time Saratoga! and many of their supporters will shrug this off as they have all the other abuses committed by this group in their zealous pursuit of charter change. 

Below is a list of the contributors to It’s Time Saratoga! from the New York State Board of Elections  site where PACs are required to report.

Contributor	Amt	Contr. Date
INTERNATIONAL CITY/COUNTY MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION 777 NORTH CAPITOL ST, NE, SUITE 500 WASHINGTON, DC 20002-4201	15,000.00	17-OCT-17
NEW YORK STATE CITY/COUNTY MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION 20 FOXHILL RD VALHALLA, NY 10595	2,500.00	12-OCT-17
ALDRICH, PHYLLIS 49 GRANITE ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	10-OCT-17
BARNETT, TIM 22 FIFTH AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	21-OCT-17
BOARDMAN, JOHN 118 WHITE ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	25.00	17-AUG-17
BOARDMAN, JOHN 118 WHITE ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	01-JUN-17
BOYD, GORDON 99 STATE ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	250.00	12-SEP-17
BOYD, GORDON 99 STATE ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	500.00	26-JUN-17
CUNEO, JULIE 7 BEACON HILL DR SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	250.00	26-JUN-17
DAKE, GARY PO BOX 435 SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	500.00	26-JUN-17
ENGLERT, LINDA 52 FRANKLIN ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	26-JUN-17
FENTON, RICHARD T 23 LEFFERTS ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	26-JUN-17
FENTON, RICHARD T 23 LEFFERTS ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	20.00	17-MAY-17
GAGNE, MARGARET 22 VICHY DR SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	26-JUN-17
GEIGER, J T 51 WATERVIEW DR SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	26-JUN-17
GLASER, BARBARA L 110 SPRING ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	500.00	03-JUL-17
GOLD, JAMES 199 WOODLAWN AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	250.00	04-OCT-17
HART, SARAH 177 SPRING ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	26-JUN-17
HOLMBERG, ARTHUR 21 SUMMERFIELD LA SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	50.00	26-JUN-17
KANE, BETH BRUCKER 19 MARION PL SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	200.00	26-JUN-17
KRACKELER, RACHEL 190 LAKE AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	300.00	26-JUN-17
LAIRD, MARTI 12 PINEWOOD AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	23-OCT-17
MASIE, CATHY 46 CIRCULAR ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	17-OCT-17
MORRISON, CHARLES 88 COURT ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	400.00	26-JUN-17
NICHOLSON, JOHN 306 NELSON AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	27-SEP-17
PROUGH, MARGARET 22 FERNDELL SPRING DR SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	26-JUN-17
RILEY, ALMEDA 156 LAWRENCE ST #203A SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	500.00	26-JUN-17
SCHULTZ, FRANCIS X 18 PINEWOOD AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	200.00	08-AUG-17
SCHWARZ-LAWTON, HELEN 209 NELSON AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	03-JUL-17
SHOEN, TIM 136 NELSON AVE SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	50.00	15-OCT-17
THOMAS, BARBARA PO BOX 964 SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	200.00	26-JUN-17
THOMPSON, RICHARD 26 FREDERICK DR SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	50.00	26-JUN-17
TRYPALUK, BARBARA 211 CIRCULAR ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	50.00	25-SEP-17
VAN METER, MARGIE 175 WASHINGTON ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	26-JUN-17
WAINWRIGHT, JOHN 80 CRESCENT ST SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY 12866	100.00	26-JUN-17
Total Contributions:	23,295.00

 

There is a wonderful irony about this post.  By its nature it is directed at people who do not read my blog.  I am writing for people who are actually interested in drilling down on issues and understanding them better.  They do not necessarily agree with my perspective but they are interested in the facts and documented narratives that are at the heart of what I write.  In fact, they may very well disagree with me on charter change as is the case with my friend Chris Mathiesen.  The readers welcome the challenge of rethinking issues.

This charter campaign has been a teachable moment for me.  What I have been learning has not been necessarily pleasant  but it has revealed a trend in politics that I had begun to sense but had not quite grasped. To me the charter change campaign is a reflection of the worst of what has become routine cynical campaign techniques.

Matt Taibi is the political essayist for Rolling Stone Magazine. In a talk he gave  recently  on the past  Presidential election, he  explained that there is an entire sub specialty among political operatives that crafts speeches for these campaigns.  Using a variety of methods including focus groups and polling (you will remember that Bob Turner promoted one of these polls before it was “outed”), they seek phrases that will resonate with voters.  These are things like “wealth creators”, “common ground”, etc.  They then string these together to create the appearance of a speech.  They are looking for the “tune” that will make voters feel good about the candidate.  “Such and such will stand up for America.”  “Such and such is committed to inclusion not prejudice,” ad nausea.  These are all phrases with no real policies behind them because once you get into actual substance, messages tend to lose their happy factor.

This technique has become particularly popular in the age of the web where tweeting and Facebook have become the new forms of communication.  In a time when ideas are limited to being expressed in 140 characters or to photographs with captions or memes, a mass of people have no time or interest in anything requiring sitting down and spending time carefully considering the complexity of issues.  For many the only question is how many stars did they get.

There is also the tribal effect.  The scope of information is further reduced by the fact that the only people to be listened to are members of your particular tribe.  People are busy and it is so much easier to go to the Facebook page of a reliable leader of the tribe to find out what the correct position should be.

We can find many of these techniques in the current charter campaign in the city. While examples of the use of these techniques can be found on both sides of this issue the pro charter forces seem to me to most consistently use the techniques described above.

“Silos” and   “fiefdoms” are tag words liberally used in charter materials and these are words I often hear repeated almost by rote from many of their supporters both in the press, in person, and on social media. These terms are rarely accompanied by any specific examples. When specific examples are given they turn out to be projects that have been held up because of factors that have nothing to do with interdepartmental rivalries or tensions or the form of Saratoga’s government.

Take their complaint that extending the Geyser Crest Bike path has taken 13 years.  This is true but the delay has had nothing to do with the Commission form of government or tensions between departments.  In fact the Council vote was 5-0 in favor of the path. Getting state approvals and funding were the main culprits in this process and that won’t change with a city manager.  What is most disingenuous is that some of the projects that have not been completed are due to lawsuits brought by some of the very people who are now cynically telling voters to blame the Commissioners and the form of government.  And guess what—citizens sue cities that have city managers too.

But the current campaign for charter change is also incorporating  many of the techniques its supporters found most distasteful in the Trump campaign.

I have found myself in casual conversation with a variety of charter supporters who are the same people who look down their noses at the people who supported Donald Trump.  They marvel at the gullibility of such people who believe Trump’s promises to say bring back coal production.  They contemptuously ask how “those people” can ignore facts and they consider themselves far superior in intellect and knowledge to the people who voted for Donald Trump. 

 I have attempted to engage some of them in conversation about the proposed charter. I have found that they often have never heard or read anything critical of the charter and that they have absolutely no interest in hearing any counter arguments. What I hear from them are beliefs that there will be no politics or conflict once we have a city manager.  Projects will be completed  quickly and efficiently.  Remember, these are often the same people who cannot understand how people accept everything Donald Trump says and yet they similarly have often accepted the arguments for charter change without considering that some of these arguments may be based on misrepresentations.

 So let’s look more closely at some of the materials from the charter change leadership, particularly the group It’s Time Saratoga  are distributing in the community.  Their door hanger is  a shrewd and pernicious piece of propaganda, a study in shallowness and spin.   To me it epitomizes the decline in political discourse.

 Here is what it promises. My comments are in parenthesis:

 SAVE MONEY, LOWER TAXES  (Well, there is a phrase that anyone can latch on to)

IMMEDIATELY: HALF A MILLION $$ PER YEAR (The web people like to use symbols like $$ when they can.  The highest savings number  the Charter Commission has used is $403,000.00 but apparently the author(s) of this door hanger thought $500,000.00 has a better ring to it).

GET BETTER SERVICES (Your street will be plowed continually during snow storms.  No more need for snow tires, no more walls of packed snow in front of your driveway)

DEPARTMENTS RUN BY PROFESSIONALS RATHER THAN POLITICIANS (This business with the word “professionals” shouts competence.  One wonders how the USA has survived continuously electing people as President or allowing people to be appointed to the Supreme Court without requiring any degrees or experience)

A UNITED CITY HALL, NOT FIVE DEPARTMENTS (“United” has a clarion ring to it.  This nicely plays up the narrative of the divisiveness that people hate about politics. Except there will still be departments and conflicts as in  any organization )

HOLD CITY HALL ACCOUNTABLE (Harder to do with a council with four year staggered terms!)

NO MORE $750,000.00 OFFICE RENOVATIONS WHILE ESSENTIAL SERVICES DON’T GET DONE (Commissioner Mathiesen, who is a major proponent  of charter change, told me that city hall is in serious need of renovation.  He also took exception to the allegations that essential services aren’t getting done.  Still “while” is great because it establishes that the crisis is here now.)

No More Back Room Deals ( Now there is a great phrase right out of the spin room.  If Donald Trump promised this these people would be doubled over with laughter, but coming from the proponents of charter change phrases like that are perfectly ok.)

 I am going to put these three together:

END DELAYS

GEYSER ROAD PATH: 13 YEARS

NEW POLICE STATION: 20 YEARS AND COUNTING

EASTSIDE FIRE STATION: 20 YEARS AND COUNTING

(Chris Mathiesen and I discussed these claims.  He was intimately aware of the issues of the eastside fire station which he and his deputy spent a huge amount of time on.  People do not want their taxes going up so you cannot just open up the city’s pocket book and buy up land.  There are issues about where it should be and what environmental factors might complicate the building of the facility depending upon the land.  As Chris noted the city has a bare bones staff so it is not easy to put the resources into these projects given the other demands on the players in all of this. And then there is the lawsuit brought against the project  which was only recently dismissed. Ironically some of the same people involved in this and other lawsuits cynically overlook the role they themselves have played in slowing down these projects and join charter supporters in  peddling the myth  that if it weren’t for the commission form of government these projects would have been finished by now. ) 

The  leadership of the Charter Commission have crafted a campaign based on “alt facts” and false promises. The repeated references to the phony city hall “survey”, the interviews with deputies that never happened and the false promises of “no more back room deals” and “end delays”  are readily embraced and shamelessly echoed by their supporters.

These are the techniques used and the promises made by callow politicians…and the leadership of the Charter Commission.

 

 

 

Tom Denny is a retired Skidmore professor of music.   I have always admired Mr. Denny.  He has served Sustainable Saratoga as the head of their urban trees program.  As such he has championed the planting of trees in our city and has headed up the volunteer battalions that annually plant trees throughout the city.

A letter that Mr. Denny wrote appeared in both the Saratogian and Gazette newspapers.  In it he asserts that:

“Nearly two-thirds of City Hall employees in Saratoga Springs (65.3%) believe that “city Hall would operate better with a city manager. Only one in seven City Hall workers (15%) disagree with that statement.” (The data comes from a poll of City employees conducted by the Charter Review Commission.)”

The Charter Review Commission distributed a questionnaire to city employees on charter change.  They called it a “survey” .I have written extensively about the problems with the methodology (or lack thereof) used in designing, executing, and interpreting the results of this questionnaire.  If you may recall the problems included that according to the CRC chair, Bob Turner, they had no idea how many or who received these questionnaires.  No effort was made to design a scientific sample.  No controls were established to insure that potential respondents were inappropriately influenced.  In other words, no effort was made to design this process to meet the most minimal standards of gathering valid data.

In addition to all these problems the city has 398 employees.  According to the CRC 76 employees responded to the “survey” although not all 76 answered each question. All percentages that can be truthfully used are percentages of the 76 respondents, not of all city hall employees and not all city employees.

In spite of this we are continually told as in Mr. Denny’s letter (and he is not alone) that this flawed survey shows that such and such a percentage of city hall employees, (or sometimes it is presented as percentages of city employees) think such and such about the current government and charter change. Neither Mr. Denney nor anyone on the Charter Commission has any idea what any  percentage of city hall employees think.  Nor do I. This does not keep charter supporters from continually restating these figures as though they were facts.

I know Mr. Denny to be a sophisticated person.  He is someone who no doubt understands the science of sampling.  How is it that he would write a letter making a statement that he has no way of knowing is true and publish it in two newspapers?  How can someone like Mr. Denny promote the idea that the city employees overwhelming oppose or support the current form of our government based on a “survey” that is so manifestly flawed?  How have we come to this?

Whether or not you support charter change, how does one explain the zealotry and excess that has marked the campaign for charter change?  What a disturbing and corrosive event this has become.  People like Tom Denny are better than this.  How poorly this city has been served by this endeavor.