Saratoga Springs Politics

In the ongoing scandal over improper on-call payments to Deputies, it now turns out that the final version of the resolution authorizing such payments was improperly tampered with. It was edited in a way that apparently was meant to help make the Deputy Accounts Commissioner, Stacy Connors, eligible for on-call payments.

Tampering with the city’s legislative records is, at a minimum, a violation of trust and possibly a violation of the law.

A Cumbersome System

The last City Council frequently amended resolutions at the table during Council meetings but regularly did not read the entire amended resolution aloud before voting on it as had been the custom of previous Councils. When this happened, the Council meeting’s minutes contained only the amendment and not the full resolution. The entire final resolution, as amended, is eventually supposed to be loaded into Laserfiche, located in the Accounts Department.

Historically, the assistant city clerk was responsible for updating the text of resolutions that had been amended. The assistant clerk would then store it on the city server in Laserfiche. The resolutions on Laserfiche are not available for direct access by the public. I had to FOIL for this document.

The resolution that established on-call pay was amended at the Council meeting on February 9, 2023, to remove wording in order to allow the Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety to be eligible for on-call benefits. (Ironically, Jason Tetu, the Deputy Commissioner, however, was the only Deputy not to seek payments.) This amendment is recorded in the minutes and the video of the meeting. This is not the wording of the amended resolution, however, that now appears on the Laserfiche in the Accounts Department.

Where Did That Come From?

The resolution adopted by the Council limited eligibility for on-call pay to departments that had emergencies outside of normal city business hours.

Someone tinkered with the text to add the two words “and events.”

The doctored document that was uploaded to Laserfiche had something called meta-data attached to it. This file contains the record of who created the document and when. In this case the record shows Accounts Deputy Stacy Connors created it on February 14, 2023, five days following the adoption of the actual resolution.

Connors’ On-Call Pay Form Contains The Tampered Language

Stacy Connors was the first Deputy to submit a form to the Finance Department to get on-call pay. Significantly, the form she submitted contains the word “event” that was not used in the actual Council resolution.

Here is the text of the header on the form:

Notice that her request for payment form echoes the resolution that was doctored.

The significance of the two words “and events” that were added to the resolution becomes evident in reviewing Connor’s payment forms, all of which contain Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran’s signature authorizing the payment. On her form, she lists under “reasons” such “events” as City Council meetings and a wake. As we shall see, Moran uses the word “events” to go even further in an effort to justify paying this money to his Deputy.

Moran’s Narrative

Moran has been on a campaign in city hall vehemently denying that anything was wrong in paying Connors for “being on call.” He claims that Connors works sixty hours a week (snark alert: an impossible thing to do on a regular basis given the routine responsibilities of the very fully staffed Accounts Department, which basically provides licenses, special documents, and assesses real property.). As such, he alleges that she deserves the on-call benefit.

Unfortunately for Moran, the resolution was not for overtime (which, as a salaried employee, she is not eligible for anyway) but for being on call for “emergencies,” to which the Accounts Department is not subject.

An Email Exchange That Says It All

Included below is an exchange of emails between Ginny Scavuzzo, a concerned citizen, and Moran. Ms. Scavuzzo emailed City Council members expressing concern over the on-call pay for Deputies issue. Moran replies with a series of unusual arguments in defense of the pay. Here are some highlights:

To begin with, lest there be any confusion, Moran writes to Ms. Scavuzzo:

“Nobody, let me repeat, nobody has done anything wrong.”

He then asserts that the purpose of the resolution was to address the long standing issues with inadequate pay for the Deputies. On one level, this is true. The same resolution that established on-call benefits increased the salaries of all the Deputies by a considerable amount. Ms. Connors went from a salary of $80,818.00 to $91,650.00. I actually have no problem with this. I am willing to accept the arguments put forward at the Council table of the need for these increases to attract and keep qualified Deputies. (It is interesting to note, though, that there are no job descriptions for the Deputy positions, nor are there any requirements as to who can be hired.)

Unfortunately for Moran, the issue in question is not the merit of the raises for Deputies but who, according to the resolution, is eligible for on-call pay.

Moran then goes on to attack Ms. Scavuzzo for alleged misogyny. 

What is concerning to me is that you have only been prompted to ask about the women in these positions, not the men. I find it off putting that those “reporting” on this somehow leave them out. 

Dillon Moran

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It is interesting how mercurial Moran is about which women benefit from his largess. Consider Lisa Ribis, the assistant city clerk in the Accounts Department, who records the minutes of Council meetings. Under Mayor Ron Kim, the Council meetings would go on for hours, often late into the night. For reasons that only Moran would know, he decided not to compensate her for her time at these meetings as required by her contract. She had to submit a grievance to the State Public Employees Relations Board, which Moran lost, in order to compel Moran to compensate her properly.

Moran goes on to make further use of the term “event” claiming:

My department is responsible for a number of aspects of our government including our Special Events, which were relaunched after 2 years of inactivity. We completed 63 events in 2023 and my deputy was on call for every one of them and very often was required to respond on weekends and holidays. 

Dillon Moran

It is hard not to use hyperbole in describing how absurd his claim is. Special events are things like 5K foot races, Chowderfest, parades, events at the casino, etc. The Accounts Department is responsible for giving out permits for these kinds of events. These events are run by the sponsoring group. Sometimes, the event requires assistance from the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Public Works, but the Accounts Department has no responsibility beyond the approval of the permits for the events. It is rather stunning that he would claim his Deputy must be on-call for these events.

Next, Moran turns to a financial argument:

The amount of money being questioned is less than .01% of our budget and it’s simply revolting to me that the hardest working women in our government are being attacked because they are being paid for the work they do. 

Dillon Moran

The amount of money is small in relation to the city budget, but for most of us, the $4,136.75 that Connors was paid improperly for being on-call is still a significant piece of change. Worse, Moran ignores the more serious matter, which is that she was not eligible for this pay.

Moran goes on to make another false argument:

As it is, our deputies qualify for subsidized housing as they barely make an average income for this area. 

Dillon Moran

The Liberty Housing project for workforce housing that Moran has championed has an eligibility threshold based on 60% to 80% of AMI (annual median income).  

I don’t know if Ms. Connors is married.  If she is single, then the appropriate per-capita income would not be for households but for individuals. So, for Saratoga Springs, the median income for individuals is $57,836.00.  According to the February 11, 2023, TU story on the special wage increase awarded at the February 9, 2023, Council meeting, Ms. Connors’s salary is $91,650.00.  So, if Ms. Connors is single, she would have a salary that is almost 60% over the median income for the city and way, way over the eligibility threshold for subsidized housing.  Contrary to Moran’s statement in his email,  Deputies’ salaries are well in excess of eligibility for subsidized housing.

Moran’s History Of Falsifying Documents

This would not be the first time Moran has been involved in tampering with documents. In 2019, Moran ran against the late Commissioner of Public Works, Skip Scirocco. During that campaign, he sent out a mailer with an image of a letter from the New York State Department of Health. Moran doctored the letter so that it appeared to charge the city with having unsafe drinking water. Here is a link to the image of the flyer.

In addition, he was exposed for creating a fake website meant to misdirect people seeking information regarding charter change.

The Email Exchange

Email From Scavuzzo

From: “GINNY SCAVUZZO” <saratogagrammy@gmail.com>
To: “public comment” <public.comment@saratoga-springs.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2024 1:02:10 PM
Subject: Public Comment regarding On Call Pay

Dear Mayor Safford and Council Member,

I am submitting my public comment in writing regarding the “On Call Pay” issue. 

I have questions: 

1. Have City Deputies been improperly paid for allegedly being “on call”? 
2. Have they actually been “on call” or have they been paid for actual responsibilities that under their job description? 
3. Did three of the city Deputies, facilitated by their respective bosses, use a poorly defined provision adopted by the Saratoga Springs City Council to pay:

• Angella Rella, Deputy Mayor: $5,640.75
• Stacy Connors, Deputy Commissioner of Accounts: $4,136.75
• Heather Crocker, Deputy Commissioner of Finance: $1,128.15

1. Was the language of  the February 2023 resolution for “on call” pay for public works employees so poorly crafted,  it was vulnerable to abuse? 
2. Did Commissioner Sanghvi properly monitor and manage this perk? 

I believe others have already asked these questions, so my ask is 

1. Where has transparency been, no less accountability? Apparently others have been asking, but they claim that they have been ignored.  Ignoring a problem or a perceived one, doesn’t make it go away. 

I think we deserve to know what actual “on call” means and be reassured that it doesn’t mean “already documented responsibilities”. 

I appreciate, Mr Mayor, that you said last evening that the issue is being reviewed by the city’s legal department.  But…

1. What if, because of the way the resolution was written, these payment are not considered illegal? What then? Are they then just a) immoral  b) amoral or c) just plain greedy?

I appreciate your reading and considering my comments. 

Furthermore, I would like knowing that public comments don’t fall on deaf ears as I’ve witnessed over the past years.  

There’s a reason, Mayor Kim was not re-elected.  There also is a reason the re-elected council members (although running unopposed) may not have gotten full support on Election Day.  

We are your constituents; we elected you and we are in hopes that you listen and that you hear us.  Thank you. 

In closing, I thank you all for your service to the city.  

Ginny Scavuzzo

Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

Moran Responds

On Wed, Jan 17, 2024 at 4:28 PM Dillon Moran <dillon.moran@saratoga-springs.org> wrote:

Ms Scavuzzo,

I appreciate you reaching out. 

Unfortunately misinformation has been spread throughout the community by folks more concerned with creating political arguments than doing the work for the city. 

Nobody, let me repeat, nobody has done anything wrong. Every commissioner is equal per our charter and every deputy is equal as well. 

The pay program that was passed a year ago addressed long standing issues with inadequate pay for the Deputies, the Full Time manager of our respective departments. (Commissioner Coll has said on more than one occasion that he would not have been able to hire a qualified deputy had we not improved the pay program). 

What is concerning to me is that you have only been prompted to ask about the women in these positions, not the men. I find it off putting that those “reporting” on this somehow leave them out. 

My department is responsible for a number of aspects of our government including our Special Events, which were relaunched after 2 years of inactivity. We completed 63 events in 2023 and my deputy was on call for every one of them and very often was required to respond on weekends and holidays. 

The amount of money being questioned is less than .01% of our budget and it’s simply revolting to me that the hardest working women in our government are being attacked because they are being paid for the work they do. 

As it is, our deputies qualify for subsidized housing as they barely make an average income for this area. 

Don’t we want to attract and keep the best qualified public servants?

I am more than happy to answer other questions that you may have. 

Kind Regards,

Dillon Moran

Commissioner of Accounts 

City of Saratoga Springs

This is a link to the January 10, 2023, Saratoga Podcast with Robin Dalton, Adam Israel, and Dan DeFedericis.

In a letter dated January 2, 2024, the New York State Department of Transportation advised Saratoga Springs Mayor John Safford that the previous Council superseded its authority when it altered the weight limit for trucks on Van Dam Street. As the letter above documents, Van Dam Street is a designated “access highway” by DOT and, as such, is not subject to local control over its truck use.

This is yet another example of the previous Council’s obliviousness to the need for rigorous due diligence. In their rush to endear themselves to the homeowners on Van Dam Street and grab headlines, the Council did the neighborhood a disservice by spreading false hopes.

Even before this DOT letter, former Public Safety Commissioner Lew Benton knew enough to question the city’s authority in this matter and to contact NYSDOT, which confirmed his skepticism.

Bill McTygue and Mark Pingel Grab Headlines With More False Hopes

Planning Board members Bill McTygue and Mark Pingel issued a report in December suggesting an old proposal to construct a truck bypass route through the southern border of the State Park should be revisited.

The first reference I can find to such a proposal was in a report prepared for the New York State Department of Transportation in 1987. The study concluded that a southern bypass would “impact adjacent parklands…to a degree which will be difficult to successfully mitigate” and “…have significant impacts on recreational, historic, and natural resources.” In addition to requiring cutting through extensive wetlands in the Park, the study also concluded that while “various bypass roadway alternatives have been the subject of considerable discussion in the community and were examined closely in the study…they were found to be partial solutions at best…..None would divert sufficient traffic from Broadway…”

Over the years, other Councils have made similar forays to the state, but all such efforts have proved futile.

Such a bypass would be an enormous construction project involving huge sums of money, and the permits for major disturbances of wetlands would encounter fierce resistance from a variety of parties, assuming that the state was even interested. 

Readers, this is never going to happen.

Three of the city Deputies, facilitated by their respective bosses, used a poorly defined provision adopted by the Saratoga Springs City Council to feed at the public trough.

• Angella Rella, Deputy Mayor: $5,640.75
• Stacy Connors, Deputy Commissioner of Accounts: $4,136.75
• Heather Crocker, Deputy Commissioner of Finance: $1,128.15

A Proposition Cynically Exploited

In February of 2023, the City Council voted for a major increase in their deputies’ salaries. At the same meeting, prompted by Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub, they added a new perk. All deputies could be paid extra to be “on call”.

As a computer consultant who supports software, I thought I was familiar with the term “on call”. This is the way I have always understood it:

if someone such as a doctor or engineer is on call, they are ready to go and help whenever they are needed as part of their job

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/be-on-call

So, as a computer consultant, I might be required to be on call in case, for instance, a client was installing new software and ran into trouble. This would mean that I would have to agree to be available immediately by phone or perhaps required to be able to be on sight within a certain amount of time to assist the client. On-call doctors, likewise, must be sober and able to respond within minutes should a medical emergency occur while they are on call.

At the time of the vote, I had understood that this provision was crafted as a way to compensate Public Works Deputy Joe O’Neil, whose job really requires that he be on call to deal with emergencies such as broken water pipes or snow storms, which his department would be responsible for.

Joe O’Neil is an outstanding city employee whose job really does subject him to the need to be potentially available twenty-four-seven.

Unfortunately, the language of the resolution was extremely poorly crafted, making it vulnerable to abuse. The problem was compounded due to the failure of Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi to properly monitor and manage this perk. At the time of the meeting, she told her colleagues that she would come up with additional parameters for the new perk and that she would assess the program and report on it quarterly. 

In my FOIL request, I sought all documents regarding “on-call.” I received a copy of the resolution establishing on-call along with sheets submitted by the Deputies for payment. My FOIL produced no documents related to Sanghvi’s promises to produce parameters clarifying the new policy nor any documents establishing that she reviewed the program quarterly as she had promised at the February meeting.

I emailed her requesting a meeting on the issue.

She responded by directing me to the Human Resources office. I then wrote back to her asking:

• Could she provide me with her quarterly findings?
• Could she provide me with her suggested parameters for “on-call”?
• As the resolution establishing ”on-call” was to go into effect on February 9, 2023, could she explain how Deputy Mayor Angella Rella was paid for being on-call for the month of January and the first week of February?
• As the resolution calls for paying $125.35 a week for being on-call, how was the Finance Department calculating payments if someone was on-call for only a few days?

To date, I have not had a response to these questions from the Commissioner. In our form of government, it is the responsibility of the Commissioner of Finance to establish controls over city spending. These are serious questions that deserve proper answers. To refuse to respond raises grave concerns about what other breakdowns of oversight may be going on in her office.

The Resolution

This is the relevant language from the resolution that included establishing on-call:

Note that this benefit was supposed to only be used by deputies whose department had 24/7 response requirements and involved the necessity of being available to respond to emergency calls. [The final version was amended to remove the phrase “that is not operationally staffed 24/7” thus allowing the Public Safety Deputy to be eligible although Tetu never put in for this pay.]

What Constitutes On Call for a Deputy??

Consider this document from Deputy Mayor Angella Rella seeking payment for being “on-call”:

This is just one of the four pay forms Ms. Rella submitted and that Ron Kim approved to be paid. Three were submitted on November 11, 2023. The fourth was dated December 24. Note the timing of Ms. Rella’s submission of these forms. According to the resolution, this benefit was to be approved and paid on a quarterly basis, but Rella waited until November 11, 2023, to begin to submit her bills. That was just four days following her boss’ defeat in the November 7 election. 

The resolution states that the benefit was to go into effect on February 9, 2023 [JK: The date had to be amended because a revised version had to be adopted with a new date of February 21, 2023]. Yet Rella asked for and was paid for the entire month of January and the first week in February. The Finance Department is responsible for making sure claims are legitimate when they do payroll, yet they approved this.

Most startling is that the four documents she billed for claim that she was on call seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, from January 2, 2023, to December 24, 2023.

As readers will observe, the form for reporting includes a column titled “Reason,” which I assume was meant to explain what was going on that required her availability. She didn’t bother to write anything in this column. Instead, she simply pasted into the head of the form that “…she was available for contact by the Mayor’s Department and was responsible for responding to emergency situations, events, and assigning subordinate employee(s) during these week dates.” If this sounds familiar, it’s because she simply took the language from the resolution.

Who Knows What “On Call” Means?

How could this happen?

Missing from the resolution were the following:

• Any definition as to what is construed as being on-call.
• Whether the employee was required to meet sobriety standards while on-call.
• How quickly an employee was required to respond to an on-call demand (would being on a plane or going anywhere where cell service was problematic, disqualify a deputy from this benefit?). Just how available does a person have to be when on-call?
• What constituted the kind of potential emergencies that merited the person being on-call?
• What kind of potential emergencies constituted the need for someone heading the Accounts Department to be on-call? 
• What kind of potential emergencies constituted the need for someone heading the Finance Department to be on-call?
• What kind of potential emergencies constituted the need for someone heading the Mayor’s office to be on call (in Rella’s case, 24/7, for a year)?

Granted, the Accounts department is charged with managing the election logistics in the city, so there might be staffing issues or problems with equipment that would merit having the Deputy on call on those specific days. Other than that, the Accounts Department is responsible for doing such city business as issuing licenses, keeping city records, and assessing city properties. It’s hard to imagine what emergency could possibly occur in that Department that would require the Deputy to be paid to be on call. Nothing happens in the Accounts Department after office hours that can be construed as an emergency. 

The Finance Department includes the IT department but that department has an internal on-call policy already that was negotiated with the CSEA union. They rotate three IT staff people who are paid not $125.35 like the Deputies, but $75.00 to be on call for the week. They have successfully operated this way for years. So the Finance Department Deputy doesn’t have to manage these people to get them in should there be an IT emergency after office hours. As with the Accounts Department, nothing happens after office hours in Finance that can be construed as an emergency that needs to have anyone ready for a quick response.

Is This Being Confused With Work Outside Of Normal Business Hours?

While Rella and Finance Deputy Heather Crocker simply leave the reason column of the On-Call Pay form blank, consider this document for Deputy Commissioner Of Accounts Stacy Connors which Dillon Moran approved.

It is unclear how to interpret this document. What does being available to respond to an emergency have to do with attending the State of the City event?What does attending a wake have to do with being on-call? What does attending a “special” City Council meeting have to do with being on-call? In her other sheets, she has “CC” in the reason column. Based on the dates, I assume this refers to City Council meetings. What does being on-call have to do with attending a City Council meeting? None of what she lists has anything to do with being “on call,” yet Moran approved this, and the Payroll employee in the Finance Department paid her.

Public Safety Dispatchers Get Nothing For Being On Call

According to past Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino, the Public Safety dispatchers are required to be on call for eight hours before and after their shifts but receive no special compensation for this.

[JK: I have been told that Commissioner Monagnino was misinformed on this.]

Reform?

This mess really needs some sort of action. Commissioner Sanghvi is responsible for monitoring the city’s finances and for ensuring there is no abuse. Her cavalier attitude about this gross waste of city money is most unfortunate. There is no indication she plans to reconsider this, let alone reform it.

The Documents

Stacy Connors (Accounts)

Angela Rella (Mayor)

Heather Crocker (Finance)

Joe O’Neil (Public Works)

At the January 2, 2024, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, newly elected Mayor John Safford introduced a resolution to make a payment required by a court order. This should have been a routine vote to approve the court settlement/but not for Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran.

In 2023, requests by Saratoga Springs Republican Chair Mike Brandi to secure documents from the city under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) were ignored in flagrant violation of the law.

Brandi sued the city, and the court sustained his complaint that the city had violated FOIL and ordered the city to pay his costs ($2,500.00) and to provide him with the documents.

This blog has documented the disintegration of the city’s response to the Freedom of Information Law under the previous City Council. FOIL is at the heart of open government. Months ago, this last Council acknowledged that it was routinely in violation of its obligation to release public documents to citizens in a timely manner but, in spite of this, chose to take no action to address the problem.

The following is a video from the January 2, 2024, Council meeting. As the video documents, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran first pretends he does not know who the litigant was that the city was required to pay. Moran asks Safford, “Who is this check going to?” After Mayor Safford confirms that it is going to Brandi, Moran disingenuously asks whether Brandi is the G.O.P. chair. After Safford confirms that Brandi is the G.O.P. chair, Moran feels “compelled” to ask, “The G.O.P. chair sued the city?” and when Safford confirms, Moran asserts, “It’s not very civil.” The Council then moves to a vote. Moran votes no on complying with the order to pay. He offers no explanation.

Ugly Partisan Behavior by Moran Right Out Of The Gate

As readers may know, all but one of the candidates endorsed by One Saratoga won the seats they ran for in the November election. Their theme was “City before party.” It was hoped by many that that successful message in this last election would result in a Council whose members would avoid cheap partisan attacks and that their votes and actions would reflect a commitment to doing what is best for the city. Apparently, Dillon Moran didn’t get the message.

In this first Council meeting of the New Year, there was nothing even thinly disguised in Moran’s gratuitous, partisan performance. It makes no difference who requests documents from the city. Under New York State Law, all citizens have the right to secure documents under FOIL, and all government bodies in New York State are required to respond in a timely manner or pay the consequences. Dillon Moran does not get to decide any of this.

It is most disturbing that he would vote to ignore the court’s order. Moran now oversees Risk and Safety. Rather than set a standard for rigorously adhering to all city, state, and federal requirements as he had just taken an oath to do when he was sworn into office the day before, he openly flaunted the court’s authority in order to indulge in partisan grandstanding.

Moran’s behavior signals that he, for his part, is not about to leave the acrimony that plagued the last Council behind.

At the special end-of-year Saratoga Springs City Council meeting on December 28, the Council’s deliberations were marked as usual with improper proposals, confusion over resolutions, and, of course, acrimony.

Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s agenda included a proposal to fix what she referred to as the “human error” in the 2024 city budget that resulted in her budget improperly exceeding the New York State Property Tax Cap. Apparently, a miscalculation having to do with a program called “payment in lieu of taxes” (PILOT) was the cause of the problem. The Commissioner did not explain how the error occurred or why she had just noticed that her budget violated the state’s tax cap (this blog indicated the tax cap was an issue weeks ago) and how she planned to avoid such events in the future.

The remedy Sanghvi proposed involved the Council approving changes in the 2024 budget. Kim repeatedly and forcefully stated that amending the 2024 budget in 2023 was in violation of the city charter and that he was “aghast” that she was proposing this.

In the end, no action was taken, and the problem was kicked over to the incoming Council.

At the same meeting, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran offered a resolution to award a bid to a company for, as far as I can tell, setting up a registry for short-term rentals in the city.

Moran acknowledged that his resolution did not include an actual contract with the firm as was usually the case. He told his colleagues that changes in the insurance market had become a barrier to the city’s standard contract. He assured his colleagues he would work things out and that a contract would be ready for action at the next Council meeting. He told his colleagues that rather than use the city’s contract, he would use one from the vendor. This vendor had, apparently, already gotten the city to sign a non-city contract with the firm previously.

The city purchasing policy restricts the use of non-city contracts. Such contracts are only to be used in unusual circumstances and, most importantly, must include all the city’s requirements.

The normal procedure would have been for Moran to present all the items related to an award bundled together for action. These would have included the contract. 

Why Moran could not wait until he had all the documents ready to present this to the Council is unclear, but this is part of an unfortunate pattern. There is, of course, the possibility that the successful bidder could not comply with the city’s policies, so prudence would have had Moran wait on the matter.

This is especially odd because he was introducing his resolution at a special meeting of the Council on December 28, and the new Council would be meeting in only five days. He never explained why there was a rush on the matter nor why he felt the need to bifurcate the process over two meetings.

In fact, the agenda for January 2, 2024, is on the city’s website, and there is no item on his agenda for this proposed agreement.

Pardon the play on words of the title of this post, but hopefully, this new council will combine the fact that it is a new order (group) and hopefully will bring a new discipline (order) in how this city does business.

As far back as I can remember, previous Councils have utilized their City Attorneys to review resolutions to be brought before the Council first to ensure that they met all the legal requirements both of our own charter and of all related other institutions.

Hopefully, on January 2, 2023, when the new Council convenes, Moran’s proposed contract will be tabled if it appears on his agenda and, along with the documents he presented on the 28th, they will be reviewed by the new City Attorney before any further action is taken.

In fact, I am optimistic that the free-for-all of chaotic resolutions submitted, withdrawn, resubmitted, etc., will be history, and the new Council will move forward with a more disciplined and deliberative approach to legislation, and it will indeed be a Happy New Year for the city.

Some years ago, New York State adopted a tax cap for municipalities and school districts. It required that these institutions limit their tax levy increase to 2% or inflation, whichever is lower. In the case of municipalities, they can override the tax cap, but there are strict rules on how this is to be done. Saratoga Springs Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s 2024 budget adopted by the Council, Sanghvi now admits, exceeded the state’s tax cap without adhering to state requirements.

On December 7, 2023, I published a post on the chaos of the proposed city 2024 budget. At the time, I wrote:

This budget, however, which raises taxes for the second year in a row, appears to have a tax levy that exceeds the New York State limit. 

December 7, 2023 blog post

Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi has proudly announced on several occasions that she does not read this blog. It appears that in this case she might have benefited from doing so. It seems that she has just discovered at the last possible moment that, in fact, the city has exceeded the tax cap and did so without first passing a required local law that would allow for this.

Here is an excerpt from her resolution:

“WHEREAS, since then, it has come to the attention of the Department of Finance that the amount stated in the 2024 Adopted Budget as $17,640,999, which is listed as line # A012-41001 was based on erroneous calculations. Upon investigation, it was found that the calculations were caused entirely by human error. A
summary of the erroneous calculation and the correct calculation are included with this resolution and made a
part hereof”

Resolution From Commissioner Sanghvi

As Sanghvi routinely touts her transparency, it will be interesting to see if the public will learn exactly what the error was, who was responsible for it, and what actions will be taken to avoid such errors in the future.

Cap Guidelines from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance and the New York State Department of State gives these directions:

“If the levy exceeds the tax levy limit due to technical or clerical errors, the excess amount shall be placed in reserve in accordance with Office of the State Comptroller requirements.”

For some reason Commissioner Sanghvi, having now admitted her budget exceeded the tax cap is now ignoring the state’s direction on what the next step needs to be.

Instead she has on her agenda a resolution that takes a convoluted path to amend the 2024 budget and amend the tax rate based on section 4.4.8 of the city charter.

My reading of the state requirements for overriding a tax cap lead me to believe that Sanghvi’s resolution fails to adhere to the state’s requirements. It is unclear if Sanghvi has communicated with the Comptroller’s office as to whether her resolution is acceptable.

As the current people on the Council routinely introduce new resolutions at the Council table, I am going to wait until the final version is adopted to comment further on whether they are handling the override properly.

A Meeting From Hell

The December 19, 2023, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting was another five-hour meeting where the requirements for legislation were ignored and where misinformation was shamelessly spread.

Here is an account of some of the actions, or inactions, that evening.

Promises, What Promises?

At the previous Council meeting, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran tried to pass a resolution placing himself in charge of overseeing a contract to audit the the city’s 50 point plan put together by the Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force. It was an obvious stretch to have him, rather than the Public Safety Commissioner, supervise the audit. Moran withdrew the resolution, telling his colleagues it would be more appropriate to have incoming Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll and Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub, who had co-chaired the Task Force, in charge.

Apparently, he either changed his mind or forgot about his promise. The resolution that was actually adopted by the Council on December 19th was the same one Moran had withdrawn at the previous meeting. None of his colleagues on the Council acknowledged his decision to renege, let alone offered any challenge, including Commissioner Golub, who was present at the Council table. Did no one else on the Council bother to read the resolution, or did no one on the Council care? Who knows?

Making A Mockery Of Transparency

Mayor Ron Kim issued a memo at the meeting on the pending release of the New York State Attorney General’s investigation into allegations against the city for its treatment of Black Lives Matter activists. Kim had already taken his memo to every media outlet in the capital district and gotten plenty of coverage.

Congratulating himself on his alleged transparency, he claimed he was issuing his statement out of a commitment to transparency even though he admitted he had not actually seen the Attorney General’s report which has not yet been released. His document was full of hearsay conjectures based on discussions he had had with the AG office during the investigation.

Apparently, the Attorney General was not pleased that Kim did this. In a tersely worded release, the Attorney General’s office wrote:

 “We are disappointed that details from private and preliminary settlement conversations were shared without our knowledge or approval.”

Office of the New York State Attorney General

Kim’s $13,250.00 Error

Every opportunity Mayor Kim finds to remind Saratoga Springs citizens of the cost of providing legal assistance for officials and employees swept up in the Attorney General’s investigation, he recites the names and amounts.

In the same release that speculated on the Attorney General’s impending report, he again listed the officials and their bills.

In the case of former Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton, he stated that the city had paid $29,000.00.

How Kim arrived at that figure is unknown. The actual bill was for $15, 775.00.

At the meeting, Robin Dalton advised the Mayor of his error during the public comment period. Did he apologize? No. He sat grim-faced.

The following is an email from Ms. Dalton’s attorney that indicates he has never spoken to Mayor Kim and had only one brief contact with City Attorney Tony Izzo, during which he indicated the initial estimated cost, which was not $29,000.00. The following is an email documenting this.

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From: Michael P. McDermott, Esq.
Date: Thu, Dec 21, 2023 at 1:17?PM
Subject: Dalton legal expenses
To: jcatkids@gmail.com
CC: Meghan E. Hebert

Dear Ms. Dalton,

I am writing in response to your request for a breakdown of the legal fees paid to date on your behalf by the City of Saratoga Springs.

Initially, I note that the only person I discussed potential fees with was Mr. Tony Izzo. I enclose our letter to Mr. Izzo dated February 1, 2023 wherein I gave an initial estimate of $10,000.00 as the cost to respond to the Attorney General’s subpoena. I have never discussed your case, nor offered an estimate
of future legal expenses, with Mayor Kim.

To date, the city has been billed, and paid our firm, the sum of $15,755.00 for your defense. That sum represents $6,990.00 in attorney time and $8,765.00 in disbursements associated with the data harvesting of your phone, which we paid on your behalf to Capital Investigations Group. Copies of the relevant documents are attached for your reference.

If you have any other questions regarding this matter, please feel free to contact me.

Best regards,
Mike

Michael P. McDermott, Esq.
President and Shareholder

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Dillon Moran and His Colleagues on the Council: City Procedures and Policies? Who Cares?

The city has a rigorous set of procedures that were established by Marilyn Rivers during her tenure as the Director of Risk and Safety to ensure that in awarding contracts, the city is protected from any mishandling that might create problems in the future. They can be cumbersome, but their rigorous enforcement is part of the reason the city has enjoyed one of the highest bond ratings in New York State.

At the pre-agenda meeting on Friday, December 15,2023, Dillon Moran offered the following:

“We are transitioning the Risk and Safety approvals. We uncovered a spot where I wasn’t seeing certain documents [JK: What ever that means.] I’m working through all those approvals today for the outstanding contracts. What we had is them essentially move forward contingent on my approval. Those will all be resolved before the end of the day [JK: That day being Friday, December 15. Even if he did not meet his goal of properly updating the information that day, he still had four days to complete his work.]  

Dillon Moran December 15, 2023

On Moran’s agenda for the December 19th Council meeting was an item to approve a contract with Beacon Risk Group to audit the city’s progress in implementing the Police Reform Task Force’s fifty-point “Reinvention Plan” that had been adopted by the previous Council in 2021.

Beacon Risk had been selected last June to do the audit. The problem was that as of the Tuesday evening Council meeting, the insurance certification document posted with the Beacon Risk Group (BRG) resolution still did not include all the coverage required by the city, including the mandated umbrella policy, the auto insurance policy, and workman’s comp insurance or a state waiver that would relieve BRG of this requirement.

I attended the Council meeting to point out that the insurance document on the city’s agenda for BRG, which Moran was asking the Council to adopt, did not meet the city’s requirements.

There was no reason why Moran could not wait to ask for Council approval until he could present to them and to the public a properly documented award. After all, BRG had been selected some six months earlier, so no one seemed in a hurry to get this done. 

Why Moran was suddenly in a feverish rush to get this contract approved when the Council had a special meeting scheduled for December 28, 2023, is anyone’s guess. This was not the only resolution he was insisting be adopted in violation of the city’s purchasing policies. 

This is a video of your blogger making these points to an indifferent Council.

During his agenda, Moran assured his colleagues that he had in his possession a proper insurance certification form from BRG. Moran did not bother to disclose why he did not properly post this alleged correct document with the resolution. Nor did Moran explain why he could not wait until the proper documents could be posted to ask for a vote. It is, of course, possible that Moran does not have the actual proper insurance certification.

None of this seemed to bother a pliant Council, which unanimously approved the BRG resolution.

This is a clip from later on in the meeting on a different subject, but it really says it all. Moran publically proclaims that the Council routinely violates city policies and procedures. Be assured this is not taken out of context. 

Duplicative Contracts, Who Cares

Last May, the Council approved a resolution to establish a Restorative Justice Panel. Their mission was to “seek to define via community input and dialogue a ‘Saratoga Springs’ Restorative Justice Program.” While I appreciate the dedication of the members of the Restorative Justice Panel, their meetings have been unfocused and marked by confusion. 

I will leave it to the readers to decide whether my characterization of them is ungenerous. Here is a link to one of their meetings: https://saratogaspringsny.new.swagit.com/videos/274333

Due to their inability to come up with a concrete strategy, they resorted to recommending two actions. Hire a consultant and do a survey. This is the common outcome committees resort to when they are lost.

The process, engineered by Deputy Mayor Angella Rella, was to exploit the poorly worded city policy regarding the purchasing of professional services in order to rush funding through to hire a consultant using a Request for Quotes (RFQ) instead of the more appropriate Request for Proposal (RFP) procedure.

There are two vehicles for contracting professional and other services and goods.

1. Request For Quotes (RFQ)
2. Request For Proposals (RFP)

Request for quotes are supposed to be used when the item(s) being sought are defined clearly enough that all the bidders have to do, as the word “quote” signifies, is to submit an amount. RFQs are most often used by the Department of Public Works. So DPW might put out an RFQ for one hundred shovels or for a Ford 150 two-door pickup truck.

An RFP is used when the city has a problem they want solved. They might put out an RFP for a homeless shelter. Here, the competitors would have to come up with proposed designs and their costs. 

The award process for RFPs is highly structured. The city must establish a set of criteria by which to compare the proposals. Contacts between the bidders and the city are supposed to be rigorously enforced. The answer to any question asked by a bidder must be shared with all the other competitors.

In the case of this RFQ put together by Rella, the words informal and unstructured come to mind. There is a catch in the purchasing procedures. RFQs are allowed for any purchase under $30,000.00. So this group, supported by the City Attorney, claims that even though the Restorative Justice Committee was soliciting proposals rather than just quotes, they could do so. In so doing, they were able to ignore all the requirements for establishing a transparent and structured process by which to compare the proposals.

If this all seems confusing, it is, but it reflects an indifference to the need to use a professional method to compare the proposals in a manner that is fair to the bidders and that will result in an effective use of city money.

The winning “quote” included the following statement:

“In light of the questions and concerns regarding the fidelity of the implementation plan to-date, we will work collaboratively with the Reinvention Plan Implementation Team to design and publish a public and frequently updated ‘Report Card’ detailing actual numerical and qualitative progress in implementing with fidelity, each of the fifty points”

Fenton-Ives successful proposal for restorative justice

As Jane Weihe pointed out to the Council, this is a clear duplication of the audit that Beacon Risk Group is being contracted to do.

Again, there was no need to rush through the approval of the resolution to contract with this firm on Restorative Justice. Under Marilyn Rivers’s hawk eyes, she would have stopped this cold and insisted that the apparent conflict be resolved. Unfortunately, Dillon Moran, who now oversees Risk and Safety, in his usual rush, saw no need to correct this deliverable. Unfortunately, neither did any of his colleagues at the Council table. So, both Ives-Fenton (for around $30,000) and BRG(for somewhere between $75,000 and $100,000) will be paid by the city to duplicate some of each other’s work.

Minita Sanghvi : “You Can’t Do That”

Dillon Moran: “Oh, Yes I Can”

Before the city can authorize a contract, it must first authorize the money to be spent on it. This involves determining what pot of money the funding will come from.

Moran’s agenda included a resolution to transfer money to RISE for its homeless shelter as an extension of their contract. Finance Commissioner Sanghvi offered that she supported the idea and she was sure she could find the money to pay for it out of unexpended money in the Mayor’s department. She vigorously opposed adopting the resolution, though, until the money to pay for it could be identified and a transfer authorized.

In spite of the fact that there was still a December 28,2023, meeting scheduled at which time this could be done properly, Moran and Kim would have none of it.

Things got heated as Moran hectored Sanghvi as he pressed to override her opposition. Kim and Moran claimed that the executive director of RISE was “in a panic” over the idea of any delay. This proved to be false.

This is typical of Moran’s behavior. Kim tried to shut down Sanghvi earlier by shouting, “Call the question.” This is just another example of the Mayor’s routinely demonstrated ignorance of Roberts Rules Of Order. The question can only be called when the person calling for it has the floor. It is an abuse to interrupt a person who is speaking by invoking “call the question.”

In a further abuse of Robert’s Rules, the Mayor routinely incorrectly seeks seconds, discussions, and votes on “friendly amendments”. It is one of the reasons Council meetings run for hours. The proper use of a friendly amendment is to request the person who has a resolution before the body to allow for a “friendly amendment.” This is to say, can I amend your resolution to add this language. If the person accepts the language and there is no objection, the chair may simply declare that the amendment is adopted.

Moran attempts to bully Sanghvi into adopting his resolution in spite of the fact it is in violation of the city’s policies and procedures.

Here, Kim characterized the rules and procedures for properly adhering to the city’s purchasing policies as “obstacles that aren’t real.”

Scary!

Is it any wonder that the city has a problem securing liability insurance? Given the flagrant disregard for scrupulously adhering to the city’s purchasing practices, it is surprising we have a carrier at all. The next shoe to drop will be the city’s bond rating. 

Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim’s behavior at his last regularly scheduled City Council meeting (the voters resoundingly defeated him in November) was the perfect ugly coda to his term in office. Unhappy with the message that former Public Safety Commissioner and County Planner Lew Benton was delivering during the public comment period, he interrupted Lew, and when Lew attempted to finish his remarks, Kim banged the gavel and temporarily shut the meeting down to silence Lew.

This was especially disturbing because Kim routinely has allowed speakers who are friendly to him to go on with no limit. In fact, earlier this year, he had announced that the four-minute limit was simply a suggestion. Since then, he has routinely opened the public comment period by stating that people should just try to limit their remarks to four minutes as a courtesy to others who might wish to speak. Apparently, Kim’s generosity did not include extending this flexibility to Lew Benton.

Violating State Authority-Who Cares?

Lew Benton braved the cold and took the time to come to a City Council meeting to advise the Council that they had lacked the authority to limit truck traffic on Van Dam Street as they voted to do at a previous Council meeting. He explained to the Council that he had contacted the New York State Department of Transportation, and they had confirmed his understanding. Lew was attempting to explain the law and what the city’s options were when Kim cut him off.

Now a naive reader might have expected someone from the Council to have insisted not only that Lew be allowed to finish but also that the Council should follow up on what Lew was telling them and reconsider their action. Surely, the homeowners on Van Dam Street deserve a full review. After all, the Council had led them to believe that their truck traffic problems were over. Instead, Kim’s colleagues, like him, cruised along as though unaware of the very large gorilla present in the room-the inconvenient truth that they had overreached their authority.

[More on all the other mischief at the December 19, 2023 Council meeting in a later post]

The December 5, 2023, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting was yet another marathon event.

Resolutions to be considered at this meeting were a moving target, with multiple resolutions added and others removed following the pre-agenda and before the actual meeting. These changes then continued to be made on the fly during the actual meeting.

Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran pulled at least four items from his agenda at the table. This is an ongoing problem that raises issues of both transparency and accountability.

Unless you continually go to the city website and continually check the agenda page, you do not know what resolutions will be acted on at the Council table.

In addition, if a citizen was concerned about the adoption of a particular resolution, they might venture out to a Council meeting and address the resolution during public comment, only to discover later in the meeting that it had been withdrawn later. If this were a rare and exceptional event, this would be tolerable, but Commissioner Moran routinely pulls items from his agenda at the last moment as he did (4 times) at the December 5 meeting.

More Violations Of The Open Meetings Lw

Commissioner Moran had sought approval for an action by the Council using email. They, in turn, approved his request through email.

This was a blatant violation of the New York State Open Meetings Law. I contacted the New York State Committee on Open Government regarding this matter, and they confirmed this.

Mike Brandi, the chair of the city Republican Party, has a lawsuit pending against the city for multiple violations of the Open Meetings Law, including this violation.

As a result, one of the items on Moran’s agenda was a resolution to be formally passed by the Council that he said was crafted to address the violation. 

The Contest

This blogger is offering to purchase a Mrs. London’s croissant (chocolate, almond, or plain-your choice) for the contest winner for the best answer to my questions about Moran’s resolution.

Here is the text of the resolution: 

So my questions are:

1. What documents “involving City projects and processes, and other related actions” do readers believe he is referring to here?
2. Who was supposed to be the beneficiaries of these documents? The public? Other Council members? City employees?
3. How does this resolution address the Council’s violation of the Open Meetings Law?

Entries are not required to make any more sense than this resolution. All responses are due by April 1, 2024, December 24, 2023. I will publish the winning interpretation!