Saratoga Springs Politics

Lisa Ribis, who served the city of Saratoga Springs for twenty years and enjoyed the love and respect of her colleagues, passed away on April 4, 2025, shortly after her retirement. Sadly her boss in City Hall, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran, persisted in tormenting and abusing her during her final two years working under him, finally forcing her out of her job pending a hearing on his dubious charges

A Fitting Tribute to Lisa Ribis

At the April 15, 2025, City Council meeting, the room and the hall were packed with Lisa Ribis’ many friends and colleagues. Mayor John Safford offered the following memorial to her. Those gathered applauded.

Former Accounts Commissioner John Franck’s Remembrances Of Lisa Ribis Are a Testimony to What An Asset She Was to the City

Lisa began working for the city in 2005 at the Department of Public Works where she remained until 2008, when she moved to the Accounts Department. As part of her work in the Accounts Department, she took the minutes at City Council meetings.

Lisa began her tenure in the Accounts Department when John Franck was the Commissioner.

I texted him about Lisa, and he wrote back.

“She was extremely smart and knowledgeable. I can’t tell you how many times she would whisper behind, saying they need to redo the motion, it’s not correct, or they need a 4/5ths vote, and she was always spot on.”

“She was everything a civil servant should be. I found her just kind and down to earth.”

John Franck

He also sent me a picture of him and Lisa. She is sitting behind him, taking the minutes.

Drawing Dillon Moran’s Ire

Sadly, the atmosphere within the Accounts Department and at the City Council table changed dramatically when Moran replaced Franck as Accounts Commissioner.

Lisa’s problems with Commissioner Moran began on February 1, 2022, when her husband, Joe Ribis, spoke during the public comment period at a Council meeting. He harshly criticized the Council for its failure to confront the local Black Lives Matter group that had been regularly disrupting City Council meetings.

On February 15, 2022, Moran informed Lisa that she would no longer be taking minutes as the Council’s secretary. In her lawsuit (below), Lisa attributed Moran’s behavior to Joe Ribis’ public remarks.

A Campaign Of Harassment

The following are some of the tactics Moran used to try to harass Lisa into quitting.

On March 15, 2022, Lisa again took minutes for the Council meeting. The following day, Moran told her she would not receive compensatory time or overtime pay for her work the previous night. For the thirteen years before this, Lisa had routinely received this benefit.

This was an act of petty harassment. Moran had to know that his action would not survive a grievance by Lisa, but he did it anyway to create a hostile environment that he hoped would force her to quit. Not surprisingly, in January of 2023, an arbitrator found that Lisa had been improperly denied compensation for her evening work at the Council meeting. She was vindicated as expected.

In April of 2022, Moran falsely accused Lisa of spitting on BLM demonstrators. This gratuitous attack was again meant to humiliate Lisa. On April 6, 2022, Lisa filed a complaint with the city’s Human Resources Department, challenging Moran’s allegation.

Lisa was quiet, soft spoken, and thoughtful. I know that it would have been very painful for her to have such sordid behavior attributed to her. Anyone familiar with Moran knows that he often resorts to boasts and falsehoods like this, which are recklessly meant to hurt or confuse. This accusation was particularly bizarre, not only because it was unimaginable that Lisa would do anything like this, but given the layout of the Music Hall, where the meetings were taking place, it was also physically impossible.

In May, Moran told Lisa that from now on, she was to report to his Deputy, Stacy Connors, every morning and ask her what her work would be for the day. She was the only employee in the department required to do this. Lisa had been in the Accounts Department for many years, whereas Moran and Connors were new to the Department. Nevertheless, Lisa faithfully carried out the directive. As an interesting aside, Lisa told me that Stacy rarely appeared before 10:00 a.m. and frequently arrived after 11:00 a.m. For her own amusement, Lisa kept a log of Connor’s tardy appearances.

On September 13, 2023, at an Accounts Department staff meeting, Moran referred to Italians as “guinea-wops.” Lisa was the only Italian person present. Moran also referred to her as “the queen of grievances” at the meeting.

In February 2024, Moran began falsely telling people in City Hall, including members of the Mayor’s office and the Human Resources Department, that Lisa had altered the city resolution establishing the scandal-plagued on-call status.

In another petty move, Moran also began to arbitrarily delay Lisa’s requests to use her earned compensatory time.

There are many more petty actions taken by Moran and his Deputy, Stacy Connors, to undermine Lisa’s credibility. Her lawsuit, included with this post, documents all of them.

This Is Dillon Moran

For many months, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran hounded and tried to humiliate Ms. Ribis in an attempt to get rid of her. He finally brought charges that led to her dismissal. He had her pack up her things and go on paid leave.

Lisa had two avenues to fight her termination. Public employees have a right to an administrative hearing to defend themselves in what is referred to as an Article 75. The other was a lawsuit against the city for her treatment, which she had begun. Sadly, as her health declined, she decided that both the Article 75 and the lawsuit were unnecessary distractions and she dropped both. In January 2025, having reached her retirement age, she retired. She died four months later.

This blog has chronicled the corrosive behavior of Dillon Moran. Most of his behavior has involved other elected officials who should be strong enough to shrug off his intemperate attacks.

In the case of Lisa Ribis, his abuse descended to a new low. As a manager, the people who report to you are vulnerable humans who are entrusted to your supervision. There is only one way to describe what he did to Lisa: shameless.

[I received this release from Dr. Prasad, Professor of Management for Liberal Arts Students, regarding an upcoming talk at Skidmore]

THE INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS PROGRAM & THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE PRESENTS:

HOLDING NATIONS ACCOUNTABLE THROUGH INTERNATIONAL LAW? A CONVERSATION ON THE GLOBAL JUSTICE SYSTEM WITH PROFESSOR WILLIAM BURKE-WHITE

APRIL 9 (5PM) DAVIS AUDITORIUM

Criminal Actions by Governments all over the world are policed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) with the intent of keeping the world safe for humanity. Recent high-profile cases involving countries like Russia, Israel, South Africa, Myanmar, Iran and others have drawn attention to the courts’ jurisdiction, legitimacy and overall efficacy. Professor Burke-White will be engaging in a focused conversation with Professor Pushkala Prasad (MB & IA) where he will lay out the foundations of the international legal system and discuss its continuing relevance while alluding to specific recent cases.

William Burke-White has a JD from Harvard Law and a Ph.D. in International Relations from Cambridge University. He is currently a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania Law School where he teaches courses on international law, human rights and global legal governance. His research is at the intersection of international law and international relations and his focus has increasingly been on the international courts and tribunals. He has published widely in various law journals and is currently working on a book “The New Geography of Global Governance”.

Professor Burke-White has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a non-resident Fellow at Brookings Institute. He is also the founder and inaugural director of the Perry World House, an interdisciplinary policy think tank at UPenn. He served under the Obama Administration as a member of the Policy Planning Staff to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. He has also worked in various capacities with the International Criminal Court and was an active participant in the Rwandan Genocide case that was presented to the court.

Please circulate this among students and anyone likely to be interested in this topic. This vent is being sponsored by the President’s Office.

We look forward to seeing you at the event.

Pushkala Prasad

Zankel Chair Professor of Management for Liberal Arts Students

In recent articles in the Daily Gazette, the Saratogian, and the Times Union, attorney Karl Sleight now blames former Public Works Deputy Joe O’Neil, not his client former Saratoga Springs Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub, for directing a DPW employee to unclog a drain in Golub’s private residence. Sleight claims Golub was only present when the work was done. Golub has been charged with the misdemeanor of official misconduct for having city employees work on his private residence.

From the March 11, 2025 edition of the Times Union:

Moreover, he noted that Golub’s deputy commissioner Joseph O’Neill — not Golub — directed the plumber to unclog the sink. For his part, O’Neill pleaded guilty in January in city court to disorderly conduct. He was also suspended from his city job without pay for five days.

Golub, he wrote, simply allowed the plumber to work on his sink.

“ ‘Accepting repairs’ from a DPW employee is not, in and of itself, improper because doing side jobs is allowed,” Sleight wrote.

Times Union

In its March 16 edition of the Saratogian newspaper, reporter Emma Ralls wrote:

“Nothing in this or the other statements from witnesses remotely suggest that the defendant intended to obtain improper benefit through an unauthorized exercise of his official functions,” Sleight wrote. “Defendant did not direct Dooley to come to the Kaydeross Park Residence or otherwise know that Dooley was ‘on the clock’ for the city at the time of Dooley’s appearance at the Kaydeross Park Residence for the Green Gobbler drop off on Dec. 27.

“The absence of that fact is a fatal flaw to the case.”

From the March 14, 2025 edition of the Daily Gazette:

In his police interview, Golub did not dispute Dooley coming to the residence, but said he had left it to O’Neill to make sure the person was off-hours. Golub’s attorney Karl Sleight notes in his dismissal filing that side jobs are allowed off-hours by DPW employees.

“And again, you know how DPW works, people have all different hours,” Golub said in the transcripts. “I’m not keeping track of it.”

Daily Gazette

Parsing Out Sleight’s Defense

Sleight told the Saratogian:

“There is zero evidence that Jason Golub knew that Dooley was on the clock for those eight minutes in December of 2023; therefore, the crime, in my opinion, does not exist.”

and

“The charge stems from an incident in December 2023, when Golub sought the help of his Deputy Commissioner Joe O’Neill in finding someone who could fix a clogged kitchen sink, to which O’Neill identified DPW employee Ken Dooley, who agreed to help, as it wasn’t out of the norm for city employees to do outside work.”

Saratogian

First, consider that, according to Sleight, Golub asked his Deputy to find him a plumber. Golub is not the chief executive of a private company. While he is authorized to direct the employees under him for duties laid out in their official job descriptions, they are employed by the city, not Golub. It was inappropriate for him to ask O’Neill to find him a plumber in the first place. That very request was related to working on his boss’s private residence, which was entirely inappropriate. It helps explain the culture that fostered the abuse Golub is charged with.

More to the point, consider Golub’s supposed surprise when two of his employees, accompanied by O’Neill, arrived at his home to fix his sink. Bear in mind that the issue of paying Dooley and the other city employee somehow never came up. One would have thought that Golub would have raised the issue of paying Dooley and the other city employee if they were not there as city employees. Golub is hardly acquainted with Dooley or his colleague. It’s not like they are friends who have come by as a favor to help out. So inquiring minds (Golub) might have asked Dooley, “On what terms are you here helping me today?” or similarly asked O’Neill. For that matter, what was O’Neill doing at Golub’s home?

It simply begs credibility that Golub assumed that Dooley was being privately employed by him rather than as part of his city job, even if one of the visits was not during the regular DPW working hours. Readers should remember that DPW workers are commonly employed and paid for overtime, so the fact that it was “after hours” is meaningless. Dooley and the other city employee’s second visit to Golub’s home during the working day should have stimulated a question directed to Dooley, the other city employee, or O’Neill, “on what terms are you here today?”.

If this was being left to O’Neill to handle, why didn’t Golub ask O’Neill if he could reimburse him for what he had paid the two city employees (that is, putting aside paying O’Neill to come to his house plus arranging for the plumbing to be done)?

Golub Lawyer Offers Dubious Analysis With Cooperation of Times Union To Confuse Public

The Times Union reported:

“A document in the SSPD file references a complaint by a local political blogger [JK: Presumsbly me] who started this folly with a complaint to the OSC [the NY State Comptroller], which for obvious reasons was not acted upon,” Sleight wrote. “The clear-eyed view of this situation by a dispassionate investigative agency, and quick dismissal of the complaint is relevant to this case.”

Times Union March 11, 2025

Sleight is universally respected for his work as a criminal defense attorney, which makes the above statement all the more odd.

The New York State Comptroller does not have the authority to prosecute criminal activity. When they uncover potentially criminal conduct, they turn to the New York State Attorney General or the New York State Police to pursue the matter. So Sleight had to know that the Comptroller’s response was not a “quick dismissal of the complaint”. The Comptroller’s “clear-eyed view” was to see that the matter was pursued by the proper authorities rather than ignored as implied by Sleight. It is regrettable that Ms. Liberatore, the TU reporter, uncritically simply reported Sleight’s attempt at spin.

More Mud Thrown At Coll

Sleight continues to allege in the articles that Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll acted as a “a man of malicious intent” and that Coll somehow manipulated the police to bring charges against Golub.

One of the central themes offered by Sleight is to somehow blame Public Safety Commissioner Coll for engineering the bringing of charges against Golub and O’Neill out of some kind of animus against Golub. In past statements, Sleight has gone so far as to imply that Coll’s actions are racially motivated. This is to bring the focus away from the established facts that public employees worked on Golub’s private residence.

As part of this campaign, Sleight alleges that Coll is somehow responsible for withholding materials from the defense. Sleight’s unsubstantiated claim is that there exist documents that establish Coll’s supposed vendetta against Golub that he hasn’t been able to get yet.

The myth that, unfortunately, Liberatore promotes is that Coll is personally responsible for deciding what materials will be provided to the defense. In fact, the responsibility for “discovery” [JK: The providing of evidence to the defense] rests with the District Attorney’s office. This is something that Sleight knows well, and which Liberatore knew. Liberatore pursues this line with Coll, and when he explains to her that she should direct her questions to the District Attorney’s office, she conveniently ignores him. Of course, had she inquired about this to the DA’s office, the story meant to damage Coll would have instead undermined Sleight’s credibility.

Beware Of Fragments

Liberatore reported:

Sleight argues that Coll was involved with the investigation and questions why charges were brought against Golub when transcripts of Golub’s interview with city police Lt. Paul Veitch show that Veitch didn’t believe there was a case.

“This is a big pile of what the f—,” Veitch said in the transcribed interview with Golub.

First, for anyone who watches the many police procedural television programs, interrogators utilize a variety of schemes to ingratiate themselves with potential criminals. As I do not have a copy of the full transcript and do not have the privilege of interviewing Lt. Veitch, it is difficult to effectively evaluate this snippet. Given Sleight’s history of manipulating the story, I remain skeptical. I would note that if this was a sincere remark by Lt. Veitch, not taken out of context, it would not reflect well on Veitch.

Liberatore’s Self-Imposed Blindness

Liberatore’s story focuses on Golub’s allegations that one of the city’s plumbers who performed the work had been fired. Golub goes even further, alleging the circumstances under which this employee was terminated, implying that the charges are under a cloud due to the possibility that the information came from a disgruntled employee.

This blogger would like to point out that, normally, employees dismissed during their probationary period, as was the case with Dooley, are provided some privacy. If Ms. Liberatore had contacted the city’s Human Resources Department as to why Dooley left his city employment she would have been told that privacy precluded any answer. Golub felt no constraint in publicly embarrassing Dooley.

Golub upped the ante against Dolley with this allegation:

Golub said after that Dooley threatened both him and O’Neill, who did the actual firing, and Dooley said he was going to go to Human Resources “to tell them I did this stuff.”

Times Union

The problem is that Ms. Liberatore had to know that two employees, not just Dooley, were sent to address the clogged sink issue. Both men provided the evidence that led to the charges. The other employee has a long and respected career with the city. Unfortunately, Ms. Liberatore omitted this critical information and, in so doing, promoted Golub’s ugly spin.

A Dubious Request

In his effort to create a blizzard of issues meant to obscure the central question of Golub’s culpability, in the Times Union, Sleight added on yet another red herring:

Finally, Sleight is also seeking a court-appointed hearing officer who will “set forth findings of fact and conclusions of law” and deal with pretrial motions.

Times Union

The court will, at times, appoint a special hearing officer when the issues in a trial involve arcane questions that are best handled by an attorney with special knowledge in the field. It verges on the comical that Sleight would make this request. Sleight continually repeats how simple the issues are in this case. It again reflects badly on Ms. Liberatore that she would uncritically report Sleight’s assertion.

In a stunning reversal that shocked many of Michele Madigan’s past supporters, Madigan sought and received the endorsement of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee to run for Mayor. In doing this, she transformed herself from one of the Committee’s staunchest critics into the most ardent supporter of the people she had previously condemned as corrupt and incompetent.

During the Ron Kim administration with an all-Democratic Council, Madigan, a Democrat, correctly had harsh words for that Council and the Democratic Committee for the chaos at Council meetings and the mismanagement of the city. Following the defeat of then-Mayor Ron Kim and then-Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino, she focused her criticism on Democrats Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi for such debacles as the OnCall pay scandal.

In the February 23, 2025, edition of the Daily Gazette, Saratoga Springs Republican chair Mike Brandi documented Madigan’s previously held views by providing screenshots of texts from her.

Regarding the breaking OnCall Pay story Madigan texted Brandi the following:

“It would be great if you could do [a] press release about this as Emma Ralls is on it from the Saratogian,” a text message from Madigan on Jan. 9, 2024, allegedly shows. “This is the only way to get the TU and DG to follow this ridiculous story. I think we may have fraud and theft going on here.”

In other texts she criticized Dillon Moran for hiring a lawyer for $1250 an hour to represent him in the OnCall case.

She described racking up legal fees in the probe as “outrageous and obscene and criminal” and that Moran “refuses to follow his own [department’s] policies.

Gazette February 23, 2025

The texts provided to the Daily Gazette also included unflattering remarks by Madigan about Commissioner Sanghvi and Gordon Boyd, who is active in the current Democratic Committee.

Less than two years ago, the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee refused to endorse Madigan for one of two Supervisor positions and refused to allow her and two other Democrats seeking endorsement to address the full committee.

That was then. Madigan has now once again become a member of the Democratic Committee she had left, reversed her position on those she criticized, and without explanation issued an apology.

Madigan said that she’s reached out to Boyd, Sanghvi, Moran and SSDC Chair Otis Maxwell to address her past remarks.

“I’ve offered my sincere apologies for my past comments and disagreements and we acknowledge that we have not been united in the past, but we are united now and will move forward together,” she said.

Gazette, February 23, 2025

The new Michele Madigan has now been chosen to head the Democratic ticket in November. There is no evidence that any of the Democrats Madigan criticized have apologized for their behavior.

Moran’s Endorsement Came With Speed Bumps, and Madigan’s Support

Madigan not only apologized to Dillon Moran for her past criticisms of his behavior, but she also joined the majority of the Democratic Committee in voting to endorse him for a third term as Accounts Commissioner.

Moran was challenged for the endorsement by Jessica Troisa. I am told that the turnout for the endorsement meeting was low, with a number of committee members not even represented by their proxies. Of those present, a significant number apparently voted for no endorsement for Accounts, which would have led to a primary between Moran and Troisa. While that vote failed, it is still unclear if those dissident committee members will rally to circulate petitions for Troisa to force a primary. It is clear that Madigan has become a Democratic Committee loyalist who will not join any effort to oppose Moran.

Democrats Endorse Coll

In contrast to the last election cycle, when the Democratic Committee would not allow Tim Coll to address them, he spoke to them at their Saturday endorsement meeting. He received an overwhelming vote, endorsing him for the position of Commissioner of Public Safety. Commissioner Coll, a registered Democrat, has also received the endorsement of the Saratoga Springs Republican Committee and will appear on both lines on the November ballot.

While it is true that no one came forward to run against him, it still seems like a small step forward that the Democrats were willing to hear from him this year.

Sources tell me that Dillon Moran was silent for nearly one hour at the meeting, during which Coll took questions from the audience and engaged with them. Following Coll’s exit, Moran raised his oft-repeated complaint that Coll had an animus toward former Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub and somehow was responsible for the charges brought against him for using public employees to do work on his private home. Moran continues to ignore the facts of the case against Golub and the gravity of the charges brought by the police after DPW whistleblowers produced evidence of Golub’s behavior.

Shafer Gaston for Finance Commissioner

Shafer Gaston has a troubled past with inappropriate and intemperate remarks on social media. Back in 2019, I published a post regarding an ugly, profane, and misogynistic remark that was put up on his Facebook page. Even though numerous people complained to him about this. He did not take it down.

Shafer Gaston is a retired Submarine Training Instructor at the U.S. Navy facility in West Milton and has been a member of the Saratoga Springs Zoning Board of Appeals since 2023. He holds an MBA and a certification in project management.

Bahram “BK” Kermati for Public Works Commissioner

According to the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee:

The SSDC endorsed Bahram “BK” Keramati for Commissioner of Public Works. Keramati is a retired GE mechanical engineer and has been active in Saratoga Springs politics for quite a while. He has also been on a previous City Charter Review Commission and ran for a state assembly seat in 2010, though was unsuccessful. According to the Committee, Keramati is “passionate about alternative energy and climate change mitigation.”

I know very little about Mr. Kermati. He is a quiet-spoken gentleman who occasionally appears before the City Council to praise its Democratic members.

Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran is notorious for whimsically making up accusations on the fly. At a recent City Council meeting, I decided to call him out and publicly ask him to produce evidence of his most recent oft repeated falsehood about me- namely, that I had somehow invaded his privacy. Moran passed up this opportunity to come up with some facts and was simply silent.

Later in the same meeting Moran gets called out by Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll for an accusation of “financial fraud” Moran made. It is classic Moran. The man thinks he can throw out serious slurs without consequences. Coll teaches him there are consequences and announces he is referring this to the Comptroller’s office. Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi panics. Given her role in the on-call pay scandal and the many critical audits of her books, she does not want the New York State Comptroller involved.

[A reader, far more observant than this blogger, pointed out significant items in the documents related to the Sanghvi debacles that the blogger overlooked in an earlier post. This reader posted the text below as a comment, but the observations deserved a wider audience, so I have included them here. I also have included the documents referred to in the piece.]

On The Audit

1. [A source has told me that she had another job lined up and gave two weeks’ notice. This only furthers the narrative of how Sanghvi has alienated her employees] Why would an employee retire after 29 years and a couple months?  There are extra longevity benefits to retiring at 30 years, which increases the pension amount. Why not wait another 10 months? It’s common to retire at 20, 25, or 30 years because each milestone has an extra benefit. This alone raises doubts about an immediate resignation or earlier retirement than planned. The Director of Finance would understand better than anyone the benefit of reaching the 30-year milestone. It must have been so bad that forgoing personal financial gain was less important than the value of escaping the working environment in the Finance department under Sanghvi.
2. The independent annual finance audit documents in this post [JK: my earlier post] are only the tip of the iceberg. In looking further into this report, it’s Sanghvi’s worst yet. Each year, her leadership has proven a decline in competence and increase in violations to the degree that Sanghvi was required to create three corrective action plans for three violations as a result of the most recent audit. Each year, she had to create at least one corrective action plan per audit.
3. These corrective action plans require Sanghvi to explain why the violations occurred, how she plans to correct them, and a timeline for correction. She also signs as the responsible party for these violations. She failed to satisfy her plan from the 2022 year-end audit, hence the repeat offense you posted from the 2023 year-end audit. 
4. She consistently cites vacancies and increased training and supervision as the reason. This is another red flag. Why can’t she keep employees? There seems to be a pattern suggesting a lack of planning and effort to fill or prevent vacancies. When audits find an adverse opinion of her ability to run the department, you would think she would work very hard to do a better job. The most recent audit proves that she didn’t get the message that she needed to improve significantly. 
5. Anyone who cannot responsibly handle taxpayer money should not be the Commissioner of Finance. 
6. This blog post highlights the areas in which the public needs to demand further scrutiny. Keep investigating. 
7. Maybe it’s time for Sanghvi to leave politics. It seems she could benefit from self-reflection. Maybe reading self-help books to support growth in her ability to take accountability for her failures and acceptance of her need to improve would be helpful. She might consider hiring a life coach to work on learning interpersonal communication and interaction skills and help her develop empathy for others. 
8. Mr. Kaufmann, please further investigate and post the corrective action plans or provide a link to the audit so that the public can see just how badly she is handling taxpayers’ money.

The Documents

The following documents were part of the audit published in the earlier post.

This document requires the city to submit an action plan to address the problems uncovered by the audits. It is alarming that this 2023 audit includes the fact that Sanghvi’s action plan, committed to responding to problems with the 2022 audit, was never carried out and is included again with this 2023 audit, with a due date of December 31, 2025, for its completion.

Section III states:

• “The City did not obtain an independent audit with[in] the required period for submission.”
• “…purported inaccuracies of capital asset balances.”
• “The city should develop a course of action to ensure that future single audit reports are completed and submitted…”

I received a press release from Saratoga Springs Republican Chair Mike Brandi that, if true, would mean that former Public Works Commissioner Hank Kuczynski’s executive assistant participated in partisan events while being paid by the city.

The employee, Michele Hill-Davis, who is also a Democratic committee person, attended Kuczynski’s press conference at the offices of John Franck on January 15 and the full-day reviews of the special election ballots at the Saratoga County Board of Elections on January 31 and February 4. She failed to advise the city’s Human Resources Office of these activities and was apparently paid for her time by the city.

I don’t believe there was any malicious intent to defraud the city. I view this as another inept act where Kuczynski, who should have known better, jeopardized his employee.

The Press Release

The Saratoga Springs Republican Committee is raising concerns regarding the possible misuse of taxpayer dollars by a city employee for political purposes.

Recently defeated Department of Public Works (DPW) Commissioner Hank Kuczynski’s executive assistant, Michele Hill-Davis, was apparently on the clock while attending political events, including Kuczynski’s campaign launch press conference at John Franck’s office on January 15. Additionally, records indicate she may have been on city time while participating in full-day ballot review sessions at the Saratoga County Board of Elections on January 31 and February 3.

This potentially amounts to 24 hours of time during which Ms. Hill-Davis may have been paid by the City while engaging in political activities. The matter has been referred to the New York State Comptroller’s Office for investigation.

This is yet another instance in a disturbing trend of local Democratic officials taking advantage of public employment for personal benefit. The people of Saratoga Springs expect and deserve ethical governance, and misuse of taxpayer funds must cease.

In a shocking turn of events, on Friday, February 14, 2025, Christine Gillmett-Brown, Saratoga Springs’ Director of Finance for some twenty-nine years, abruptly gave two weeks notice and will soon be leaving that post.

Christine Gillmett-Brown’s position is one of the most important in the city. In effect, she is the city’s comptroller, with a central role in managing the city’s money. Her responsibilities include, among other things, overseeing all cash accounts, including incoming and outgoing cash, finance accounts receivable and payable, property tax payments, bond matters, debt limit, accounting for fund balance, and audits. In addition, she plays a crucial role in crafting the city’s budget.

As Finance Commissioner Sanghvi does not return my emails, I am not privy to what precipitated Ms. Gillmett-Brown’s departure with so little notice. The position will be vacant on February 28, 2025, and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi appears to have no plan in place to replace Gillmett-Brown let alone train a replacement. The Department of Finance is a small office. One has to wonder how uninvolved Sanghvi is with her staff that the resignation of the most critical person under her has come as a surprise.

A Troubling Advertisement For Gillmett-Brown’s Replacement

According to this exam announcement, a person currently employed by the city is eligible for the position of Finance Director if they have “Two consecutive permanent full-time paid years as Payroll Administrator with the city of Saratoga Springs.”

Only one employee who works for the city meets this qualification.

This person enjoys a special status with Sanghvi as she has repeatedly promoted him while in office and given him related pay raises.

The individual maintains no presence on social media. In particular, he has no LinkedIn page, so there is no information available regarding his qualifications for this job other than his payroll experience. He began his employment with the city at age twenty-seven as a clerk.

Under the best circumstances, a FOIL request for information on him would require a month. We know Gillmett-Brown has an accounting degree from Clarkson University.

Readers should also know that as Payroll Administrator, he played a key role in the on-call scandal.

I find it shocking that the Civil Service Commission considers a person who has served two years as the manager of the city’s payroll qualified to be the city’s Director of Finance.

Problematic Audits

I have written extensively about the shoddy, poorly crafted city budgets Commissioner Sanghvi has produced. City audits since her election indicate additional problems with how she has carried out her responsibilities as Finance Commissioner.

The city’s audits were consistently favorable before Minita Sanghvi took over as Finance Commissioner. Here is just one example from 2023 of critical audits under her administration. It is important to understand that the term “material” conveys that the item is serious.

This next page contains a statement asserting that the audit has found records that are not reliable.

Here, the auditor declares that the city’s management ( Sanghvi) “does not have processes and controls in place to ensure complete and accurate reporting of capital asset balances.”

The Reviews Of Sanghvi’s Teaching Are Less Than Flattering

Given Sanghvi’s imperious and rude behavior at the Council table, I suspect her behavior toward her staff could be problematic as well and may have contributed to Gillmett-Brown’s abrupt exit with little notice.

I was curious about her interactions outside of City Hall. Below are comments from her students at Skidmore on a website called Rate My Professors. Most are highly critical of the manner by which she dealt with them. Of the 26 reviews of her teaching, eight are positive, and sixteen are negative. Oddly, five of the eight positive reviews were submitted on the same day, which is unusual given the random pattern of the dates of the other reviews.

It is worth noting that surveys like this use the computer’s IP address when doing the review, so it is easy to skew the results by entering reviews using different devices.

Most strikingly, these reviews consistently focus on how she interacts with her students and echo the character traits that are often observable at the City Council table.

Michele Madigan has announced she is seeking the endorsement of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee to run for Mayor of Saratoga Springs. While during the ten years she served as the Commissioner of Finance in the city, she did an excellent job managing the city’s money, she unfortunately, also showed extremely poor judgment on numerous occasions in her social and professional interactions with the public and her colleagues on the Council while in office.

As the readers of this blog are aware, along with the country as a whole, the atmosphere at City Council meetings has suffered from the uncivil and contentious behavior of a number of elected officials in recent years. Many of us have worked hard to elect individuals to the Council who would return civility and restraint to the conduct of pubic meetings. With regret, rather than contributing to the progress that has been made with new faces at the table, Ms. Madigan’s history indicates that, if elected, she would only further exacerbate the problems some have worked so hard to correct.

Intemperate Behavior

The following two videos are examples of Madigan’s repeatedly problematic behavior at the Council table. [JK:The titles were not created by me]

The October 29, 2019 edition of the Daily Gazette reported on another disturbing incident involving Madigan when she was in office:

On Oct. 17, Democratic Committee member Scott Solomon, a downtown business owner, along with city resident Rick Thompson, sent a complaint to the state Board of Elections, saying Madigan “bullied constituents” and engaged in a “clear abuse of power.”

Their complaint is based on two emails Madigan sent to Solomon in early October, after learning that Solomon was hosting a fundraiser for Morrison [JK: Her opponent at the time] at the restaurant Siro’s, which he co-owns. The emails were sent from Madigan’s personal account, not her city account. In the second message, Madigan said she would no longer offer Solomon any assistance as she had in the past. As recently as July, emails show Solomon sought and received Madigan’s help with a State Liquor Authority issue, as he sought to open a new restaurant.

“You can get in line like everyone else,” Madigan wrote him on Oct. 11. “I’m sorry I considered you a friend. I hear you have a lot of code violations by the way. Enjoy.”

Daily Gazette

Madigan subsequently apologized to Solomon. As reported in the Times Union, Solomon was later convicted of fraud over COVID payments and sentenced to thirteen months in jail.

Saratoga National and the Greenbelt

Ms. Madigan’s history regarding the city’s greenbelt is similarly troubling.

Saratoga National campaigned for years to build a major hotel and a condo complex on its land in the city’s greenbelt.

When the founders of Saratoga National first proposed their project, they made numerous promises to the city.

One of their promises was to incorporate two nature trails for the community. This is a link to a post this blogger wrote about their brazen disregard for this promise. It is worth the read because, for this blogger, it established why I became hostile to and more than suspicious of anything Saratoga National had to propose.

In 2015, Saratoga National proposed a major expansion that required amending the city’s zoning to accommodate a “golfing resort.” Sustainable Saratoga wrote an excellent paper documenting the problematic implications of the change.

The proposed zoning amendment that is now before the City Council would create a new allowed use — golf resorts — in the entire outlying Rural Residential zoning district. It is our view that a “golf resort” that allows up to 148 lodging rooms, unspecified-sized banquet hall, unspecified number of retail establishments, unspecified-sized health spa, and unspecified business meeting space is completely contrary to the “low density” requirement of this district. These uses are not compatible with the newly adopted Comprehensive Plan.

Sustainable Saratoga

As documented in this past blog, Madigan took it upon herself in 2021 to urge the city Planning Board to once again consider the ambitious expansion of Saratoga National that had been unsuccessful in 2015. Madigan advocated for the expansion, claiming it would result in millions of dollars in tax revenues and create some 260 jobs, but was never able to produce any documentation that supported those numbers. She also never explained what prompted her to suddenly write the Planning Board on behalf of Saratoga National’s ambitious plans to develop in the greenbelt.

The Marion Ave. Maple Dell PUD

Most recently, Madigan was the MC for Hank Kuczynski’s press conference where he announced his candidacy for Commissioner of Public Works. Kuczynski used this platform to attack Chuck Marshall for his unsuccessful work on behalf of Stewarts to designate an area of Maple Avenue for a PUD. Kuczynski noted that the neighbors of this proposed PUD strongly objected to it. He characterized Marshall’s effort as an indication that Marshall threatened the city’s greenbelt. Ironically Madigan had voted in favor of that PUD when it came before the City Council.

Promoting A False Narrative

Madigan’s eagerness to promote Kuczynski’s effort to remain Public Works Commissioner has also led her to bizarrely falsely claim that Kuczynski was somehow one of the founders of One Saratoga.

Hank Kuczynski has never done anything to support or engage with One Saratoga. He has never contributed any money to the organization, attended a meeting or press conference, circulated a petition for the group, or written a letter to the editor on behalf of the group or anyone they have ever endorsed.

It is worth remembering that when Patty Morrison defeated Madigan in the Democratic primary for Commissioner of Finance in 2019, the group of Democrats who left the committee in support of Madigan became the founders of One Saratoga.

It is yet another irony that now Madigan, in her ambition to be Mayor, has re-embraced the Committee that rejected her and caused her supporters to leave. Yes, there are some new members, but the core group whose behavior drove her and her supporters to leave remains in control of the committee whose support Madigan now wants to run for Mayor.

Credit Where Credit Is Due But…..

There is no question that Madigan served the city well managing the city’s finances as Commissioner of Finance. Unfortunately, among other concerns, her indulgences in acrimonious exchanges at the Council table and on social media outweigh the credit she enjoyed in her earlier role and make her an undesirable candidate for Mayor.