Saratoga Springs Politics

In the August 18 edition of the Times Union, Wendy Liberatore did a follow-up story  to charges recently brought before the Saratoga Springs Ethics Board. Her story featured Bill McTygue, one of the complainants,  giving him  the opportunity to repeat his accusations against the City Council, Eddy Miller, and Joanne Foresta.

In this story, Bill McTygue informs the Times Union that he and Ann Bullock had sent their complaint to the New York State Attorney General even before the city’s Ethics Board had dismissed their allegations.

In a bizarre twist to the story, Ms. Liberatore included a last paragraph that dealt with a 2014 controversy in which the Attorney General blocked a land swap the city was attempting in order to buy land for a new EMS facility on the east side of the city.

Ms. Liberatore asserted in the story that the Attorney General nixed the deal because the “…city was underselling taxpayer owned property.”

Bill McTygue and his brother Tom as well as then City Attorney Sarah Burger (now the new Saratoga Democratic chair)have been promoting this false narrative for years. Their effort to get the support of the Attorney General for their allegations were unsuccessful. The Attorney General did eventually block the project but for an entirely unrelated reason. The AG’s Charities Bureau determined there had been a conflict of interest between the parties the city had been dealing with. I covered the full story in detail in an earlier post on this blog.

The reader might ask, why would this business from 2014 even be included in this story? It appears that Ms. Liberatore was attempting to assist Bill McTygue by implying a pattern of malfeasance in the city’s operations, part of the city manager faction’s strategy to convince voters to change the city’s form of government.

I wrote to Ms. Liberatore pointing out that her statement concerning the Attorney General’s actions  was false and that the financials of the deal had nothing to do with the Attorney General’s actions. I sent her a link to my story which included all the correspondence from the Attorney General’s office to the city. I copied the news editor, Mike Spain, and Vice President and Editor, Rex Smith.

Ms. Liberatore emailed me back dismissing my concerns with a one line response that her statement was “based on previous reporting in the Times Union.”.

Several hours later she wrote me that her editor was investigating the matter.

Later that same night the story was revised on the Times Union website. It now included an introduction that the story had been corrected. The story now ended with an accurate description of why the land swap had been blocked. Of course this clarification made including the anecdote even more obviously irrelevant to Ms Liberatore’s story.

The emails can be found below. They include Ms. Liberatore referring to the revised story as having been “clarified” rather than corrected. When I asked her why the word “clarified” was used, to her credit she agreed it should have read “corrected”.

To: Wendy Liberatore

From: John Kaufmann

CC: Rex Smith, Mike Spain

Correction Re: Story

Date: Sunday August 18, 2019 12:49 PM

In your article titled “Complaint Dismissed By Saratoga Springs Officials Goes To State Attorney General’s Office” you include the following regarding the attempt by the city to build an EMS station on land owned by Temple Yeshiva Pardes Yosef D’Chasidei Belz :

“The Attorney General’s office ultimately halted the deal in 2017, determining the city was underselling taxpayer owned property.”

This is untrue.  The reason for the Attorney General’s office denial was due to a review by the AG’s office that deals with oversight of religious institutions.  The issue was not over the undervaluing of the property but the conflict of interest between the Aronson family who was seeking to purchase the lot and the Temple who owned the land.

Here is a link to my story.  It includes copies of all the relevant correspondence issued by the Attorney General’s office.

This error in your story is deeply disturbing.  Tom McTygue and his brother Bill along with the new Saratoga Springs City Democratic Committee chairperson, Sarah Burger have for years promoted the false narrative that the city was duped regarding the value of the deal.

A cursory review of the stories in the press at the time about this controversy will show how extensively the McTygues and Ms. Burger used the media to disseminate  their accusations.  It will also show that after initiating an investigation at the behest of the McTygues into the controversy, now some five years later, nothing further has been heard from the Attorney General’s Office of Public Integrity.

It is deeply disturbing that the Times Union would resurrect this trope and provide credibility to something that was long ago debunked.

In the interest of credible journalism, the Times Union needs to print a serious and prominent retraction.

To: John Kaufmann

From: Wendy Liberatore

Subject: Correction Re Story

Date: August 18, 2019 3:27

This is based on previous reporting in the Times Union

To: John Kaufmann

From: Wendy Liberatore

Subject: Correction Re Story

Date: August 18, 2019 4:36

Talked with editor. She is working on it.

To: Wendy Liberatore

From: John Kaufmann

CC: Rex Smith, Mike Spain

Correction Re: Story

Date: Sunday August 18, 2019 9:40 PM

What does this mean?

To: John Kaufmann

From: Wendy Liberatore

Subject: Correction Re Story

Date: August 18, 2019 10:41 PM

Reviewing past stories. I believe a clarification will be printed.

To: Wendy Liberatore

From: John Kaufmann

CC: Rex Smith, Mike Spain

Correction Re: Story

Date: Sunday August 18, 2019 10:52

“Clarification”? I thought it was called a correction?

To: John Kaufmann

From: Wendy Liberatore

Subject: Correction Re Story

Date: August 18, 2019 10:41 PM

Yes, Correction.

To: Wendy Liberatore

From: John Kaufmann

CC: Rex Smith, Mike Spain

Correction Re: Story

Date: Sunday August 18, 2019 10:47

I appreciate the decision of your editors to correct the story.

I would be interested in knowing what “previous stories in the Times Union” you referenced in your email (below). I noticed you did not copy them.

The Saratoga Springs Ethics Board issued a unanimous decision dismissing a complaint made by Patricia Morrison against Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan as without merit. The complete decision is attached below.

Ms. Morrison’s complaint was complicated by the manner by which she made her complaint.

The procedure for making a complaint to the Ethics Board involves utilizing a form available on their site. The form requires that the complainant lay out the facts underlying their complaint and then identify the specific parts of the Ethics Code the  actions allegedly violate.

Instead of using the Ethics Board form Ms. Morrison wrote to Commissioner Madigan, the target of her complaint, and copied the Ethics Board. Her letter, which challenged Madigan directly, was meant to add drama to what she clearly hoped would be a news story.

The letter was dated June 14, 2019, just eleven days prior to the June 25 primary in which Democrats would decide between Morrison and Commissioner Madigan for the Democratic line for Finance Commissioner. Ms. Morrison had to know that any decision by the Ethics Board on her allegations would come after the Primary.

In her letter Ms. Morrison cites a fundraiser for Commissioner Madigan hosted by Matthew Jones who, as an attorney, represents Saratoga Hospital. A pending update of the city’s zoning ordinances to put them in compliance with the city’s Comprehensive Plan contains a change that would enable the hospital to expand. Ms. Morrison also notes that Mr. Jones had contributed to Commissioner Madigan’s campaign. Ms. Morrison asserts that the fact that Madigan allowed Jones to organize a fundraiser on her behalf and that Madigan accepted donations from Jones constituted “… a direct conflict of interest and can be viewed as a clear violation of the City’s Code of Ethics.”

People with even the most modest knowledge of our government will recognize how extreme and even bizarre this allegation is. Ms. Morrison’s letter is linked below for those who wish to confirm that this is what she alleged. However troubled many of us may be about money and politics, someone organizing a fundraiser on a candidate’s behalf or receiving a contribution within the limits of the law is not in violation of the City’s Ethics Code as the decision by the Ethics Board made crystal clear. I would note that Matthew Jones also donated money to Joanne Yepsen when the hospital had matters pending before the Council.

If accepting a campaign donation from someone who might have business before the City Council now or in the future was a violation of the City’s Ethics Code pretty much everyone who has run for office let alone been elected would be a serial ethics violator.

In fact, Ms. Morrison herself has received donations from the neighbors of the hospital who oppose its expansion.

In The Words Of Marshall McCluhan, “The medium is the message.”

The “beauty” of writing a letter to Commissioner Madigan and adding a tag to make it also a complaint to the Ethics Board instead of just submitting a complaint to the Ethics Board, is that it freed Ms. Morrison from the severe limits of having to keep the focus on specific alleged violations of the city’s ethics code and facts supporting the allegations. The medium of the letter to Madigan allowed Ms. Morrison to throw in all kinds of hot button charges.

In one example of how Ms. Morrison’s use of a letter as a vehicle for her ethics complaint allows her wander into other territory, she calls upon the City Council to “censure the Commissioner of Finance from any further deliberations relating to the hospital rezoning and project proposal.”  “Censure” means “to express severe disapproval of”. Aside from the fact there is no hospital project before the Council for them to deliberate on Ms. Morrison’s use of this malapropism does not give one confidence  in her linguistic abilities . Likewise after finally ending her letter by asking for the Ethics Board to make a “determination of fact” she “strongly recommends that advice and legal counsel pertaining to this issue should be sought from the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics.” This advice is presumably directed to the Ethics Board, but Ms. Morrison never explains why she believes the Board should seek this advice. Throwing this out there, though,  presumably adds a bit of gravitas to her complaint.

One has to acknowledge the cunning of this strategy, though, along with its effectiveness.

The Decision

In their response to Ms.Morrison the Ethics Board addressed the issue of gifts to city officials. It pointed to the very clear language in the ethics code that elected officials, employees, and members of boards should not accept gifts. The one exception noted in section 13-2 of the code was campaign donations. As long as the amount of these donations are within the limits set by law they are not violations.

The Board wrote in their decision “that receipt of a campaign donation by a city elected official under the circumstances you describe does not constitute a violation of the gift provision in the Code.”

This is a link to the Ethics Board’s decision: ethicsresponse.20190808

I have been advised by Ellen Egger-Aimone that she is not and has never been Patty Morrison’s campaign manager.

In a press release sent out last week (she did not send me one), Ellen Egger-Aimone announced that she has resumed her role as Kendall Hicks’ campaign manager. Kendall Hicks is the Democratic candidate for Commissioner of Public Safety although he has not yet been endorsed by the City Democratic Committee. (It remains to be seen if he will be endorsed when the Committee meets under new leadership later this month.) Ellen Egger-Aimone had previously been Kendall Hicks’ campaign manager but withdrew a while ago and Robert Millis had taken over as “coordinator” (his description).

There was a fundraiser at the Lodge at Saratoga Casino on Wednesday, August 14, for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. As we all know she is currently seeking the Democratic nomination for President. One of Ms. Gillibrand’s priorities in her Senate career has been to expose and correct  the failure of the United States military command structure to effectively address violence against and harassment of women in the military.

Kendall Hicks attended the event accompanied by Ms. Egger-Aimone and Sarah Burger, the new city Democratic Chair. As the picture confirms, Ms. Egger-Aimone and Kendall Hicks arranged to be photographed with Senator Gillibrand.

This blog has published the police record which alleges that Mr. Hicks, while in the military, used a military vehicle to force his then girlfriend off a highway and in the course of their altercation assaulted her. In the same document, the arresting officer observed injuries to the victim and cited her fear of Mr. Hicks as the reason for her unwillingness to press charges.

Most people would consider it improper to arrange for a picture of Mr. Hicks with  Senator Gillibrand without informing her first about the potential problems of being photographed with Mr. Hicks.

One would also have expected Sarah Burger, as city Democratic Chair, to intercede and warn the Senator that this might be potentially embarrassing for her. This did not happen.

It is also worth noting that the screen shot below documents that Joanne Yepsen “liked” the photograph of Senator Gillibrand, Ellen Egger-Aimone, and Kendall Hicks that now appears on Mr. Hicks Facebook Page.

There seems to be no limit to what the group I call the White Walkers is willing to do.

The Ethics Board has issued a decision on the complaint submitted by Bill McTygue and Ann Bullock.  The Board dismissed all of their allegations as groundless.  I will go into the substance of their claims and the decision in more detail but it is important to note that the subversion of the city’s vehicle for addressing possible ethics violations (our city’s ethics code) in order to try to score political points is a new low, even for these people.

The complaint by McTygue and Bullock was heard by the Ethics Board on June 24 which was only one day before the June 25 primary between Michele Madigan and Patricia Morrison for the Democratic line for Commissioner of Finance.  Bullock and McTygue, both Morrison supporters, knew that they would get extensive news coverage of their allegations and that there was no possibility of the Ethics Board making a determination on their charges before the primary.

A Review of the Complaint

First McTygue and Bullock did not bother to use the appropriate form to file their ethics charges that might have given some structure to their complaint. Instead they submitted  their complaint as a rambling  and confusing letter addressed to Justin Hogan, the Chair of the Board of Ethics, Commissioner of Accounts John Franck, and City Attorney Vince DeLeonardis. [Their entire letter is linked to below.]

Their letter makes a number of charges against the incumbent City Council members running for office this year; Eddy Miller, the chair of the Saratoga County Independence Party; and Joanne Foresta, an energy broker and treasurer of the Independence Party.

The Bullock/McTygue complaints all revolve around a City Council vote  in May to sign energy supply contracts procured through EnergyNow, a company that searches out the best prices for electric and gas that was formed by Eddie Miller and Joanne Foresta. Eddy and Joanne are officers in the Independence Party that endorsed the City  Council incumbents running for office this November.  The Bullock/McTygue letter sometimes doesn’t actually makes an accusation but rather asks provocative questions such as “…did City Council members agree to use the services of EnergyNow…resulting in significant taxpayer-funded payments to EnergyNow…..in exchange for endorsements and campaign support by the Independence Party of those City Council members?”

This is a link to the Bullock/McTygue Complaint bullock-mctygue-letter-6.11.19.pdf

This is a link to Vince DeLeonardis response bullock-mctygue-letter-legal-response.pdf

This is a link to the opinion 2019.08ethicresponse.energy.pdf

The City Ethics Board issued a decision in response to a complaint made by
Ann Bullock and Bill McTygue against Mayor Meg Kelly, Commissioner John
Franck, Commissioner Michele Madigan, Commissioner Skip Scirocco, Eddy
Miller (Saratoga County Independence Chair), and Joanne Foresta.

I am writing an extensive piece on the decision that will appear shortly.

In a note to me, Eddy Miller, who is a horse trainer, apologized that the
demands during this time of year do not allow him time to properly respond
to the decision.  He did observe, however, in classic Eddy Miller style that
there is a commandment in the Bible against bearing false witness.

At a special meeting on August 7, 2019, the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee elected Sarah Burger as its new chair.

The initial field for the position of chair included Eddy Abraham and Ellen Egger-Aimone. Apparently Ms. Egger-Aimone decided to withdraw from the race. Ms. Burger defeated Mr. Abraham.

Mr. Abraham was chosen to be first vice-chair.

The committe elected Cassandra Bagramian as treasurer.

It was odd that the committee selected a vice-chair. The notice for the meeting sent out by Ruth Fein stated quite specifically that the purpose of the meeting was only to elect a new chair and treasurer and that “no other business will be conducted.” As I was not there I do not know the details but clearly the committee deviated from the meeting notice.

Sarah Burger

Ms. Burger is an attorney. She served as Mayor Joanne Yepsen’s first City Attorney from January to September, 2014. Her short tenure was marked by ongoing conflict with all the members of the City Council.

I have spoken off the record to persons who were on the City Council during her tenure.  Each confirmed that at an executive session of the Council all five members (including Mayor Yepsen) agreed that Burger should no longer serve as City Attorney. Rather than fire her they agreed to allow her to resign.

Ms. Burger exploited this gesture by distributing a letter to the press claiming that she had voluntarily resigned over her differences with the city over its handling of legal matters including a proposed land swap meant to facilitate building an emergency services building on the east side of the city. The controversy included a lawsuit brought against the city by Tom McTygue, Ray Watkin, and Remigia Foy which was later dismissed by the state supreme court.

Ms. Burger subsequently challenged Chris Mathiesen in a primary for Commissioner of Public Safety which she lost.

Cassandra Bagramian

Ms. Bagramian is the Saratoga County Democratic Deputy Commissioner of Elections under Bill Fruci. She previously worked in the New York State Assembly and for Assembly member Carrie Woerner.

Eddie Abraham

Eddie Abraham has a consulting firm that focuses on assisting businesses with computer technology. The company is called True North BA.

In a hat with considerable feathers in it, Mayor Kelly now adds another. It was announced that the City Centre will break ground on the new parking facility. In the August 8 edition of the Daily Gazette Newspaper it is reported that the construction may begin in October.

Here is a link to the full story.

It seems that the Saratoga Springs  Democratic Committee is doomed to eternal cycles of conflict and disintegration.

The last cycle involved a bitter battle between Valerie Keehn and Tom McTygue (This is a link to an amusing history of the debacle. It includes Gordon Boyd’s involvement). Ms. Keehn, a Democrat who took office as Mayor of Saratoga  Springs in 2006, appeared to have one goal in mind which was to rid the City Council of Public Works Commissioner Tom McTygue (Bill McTygue’s brother) who for many years had been the only Democrat on the City Council. She publicly endorsed Skip Scirocco, McTygue’s Republican opponent  in the 2007 city election. Scirocco won that election and still serves today as Public Works Commissioner.

A bizarre coda to her mayoralty came on election night 2007 when both she and McTygue were defeated. She showed up at the Holiday Inn where the Republicans were having their gathering. On her entrance she received a standing ovation from the Republicans. She actually gave a speech to applause offering that losing the election was worth it because she credited herself with McTygue’s defeat, something the Republicans had tried unsuccessfully to do for some 30 years.

The dystopia did not end with that election.  Democratic Committee meetings were studies in madness marked by yelling and recriminations between the two factions. Eventually the Keehn vs McTygue camps burned themselves out.

Unfortunately during the last few years the level of madness has been slowly but inevitably growing yet again in spite of the efforts of Charlie Brown to hold the party together. Former Mayor Joanne Yepsen, who has always been close with the McTygues, has a faction that overlaps with the current charter change zealots. By zealots I do not mean people who simply support the city manager form of government. I mean people who view opponents of the city manager form with suspicion and hostility. High on their list of “enemies” is Mayor Kelly. Mayor Kelly’s decision to impanel a charter commission last year was considered a betrayal by the city manager faction and those of us who follow politics closely know that Ms. Yepsen is no fan of Mayor Kelly in spite of originally pushing her candidacy for mayor (these alliances have no shelf life).

All of this division was exposed at the February 23 Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee endorsement meeting this year. As some may recall the event was an eight hour ordeal. Bill McTygue (who was not even a member of the committee) had circulated a white paper to the “insurgents” titled “Help Us Take A Stand…”  (These are the same people who now control the committee following the mass resignations.) His paper urged his group to block endorsements for Michele Madigan, Meg Kelly, and John Franck. The paper began “Currently there exists a major split on the Democratic Committee when it comes to supporting Madigan, Kelly, and Franck for re-election.”

Bob Turner briefly put himself forward as a candidate to challenge Meg Kelly  for mayor but dropped out before the committee did their endorsement interviews. The “insurgents” tried to block John Franck’s endorsement by having enough members leave the meeting room to deny the meeting a  quorum, but they were unable to successfully orchestrate this. Then the “insurgents” put forth Patty Morrison to challenge Michele Madigan for Commissioner of Finance, but she failed to get enough votes to win the committee’s endorsement.

When their attempt to block the endorsements of the incumbents failed,  the “insurgents” became even more bitter and aggressive  and circulated petitions that allowed Morrison to challenge Madigan in the bitterly fought June primary.

It is important to view this conflict as psychological in nature rather than take seriously any policy differences. It is hard to overstate the animosity these people feel toward the Democratic incumbents Kelly, Franck, and Madigan and Republican Public Works Commissioner Skip Scirocco. On some level the division is over the proposal to change the city government to a city manager form, but it simply makes no sense that the form of the city’s government should engender this level of animosity. My assessment is that one of the reasons the “insurgents” are pressing for the city manager form of government is as a vehicle for getting rid of the incumbents on the City Council.

Curiously charter change played a role also in the 2007 split amongst the Democrats with Keehn pushing for a change and McTygue and his supporters on the Democratic Committee opposing the change. At the time there was some suspicion that Keehn saw charter change as a way of getting rid of McTygue if he couldn’t be defeated at the polls. Now after two failed attempts by Billy McTygue to defeat Skip Scirocco for Commissioner of Public Works, the McTygues have  become enthusiastic supporters of the charter changes they once opposed.

Courtney DeLeonardis, who has chaired the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee for the last couple of years, has  been a regular target for the “insurgents”.  Ms. DeLeonardis is an elementary school teacher. She is just a lovely and kind and thoughtful person. Her modest and principled public statement when she recently resigned as chair of the Committee was an expression of her generous spirit. During her term Ms. DeLeonardis routinely received angry emails and texts from this faction either making demands on her or charging her with some sort of abuse. She had to try to maintain order and civility at meetings that hovered on the edge of disorder.

Patty Morrison, who is a very good friend of Bill McTygue, was a significant player in all of this.

It is regrettable that Ms. Morrison was able to avoid appearing at any event where the public could critically assess her prior to the primary.

The fact is, though,  that Ms. Morrison won the Democratic primary even though the Democratic Committee and all the Democrats sitting on the City Council had endorsed the incumbent, Michele Madigan.

So with Ms. Morrison’s victory the current crisis of the Democratic Committee and party came to a head. It was one thing to endure the on-going conflict if in doing so people like Ms. DeLeonardis felt good about the Democratic candidates who were running. Ms. DeLeonardis and her allies now had to face the problem, though, of having to support Ms. Morrison. The Commissioner of Finance is a critically important position. This commissioner must oversee the city’s finances and must craft a budget to support the city’s on-going needs while balancing this with a tax rate that is not a burden to the city’s residents . Ms. DeLeonardis et al were all too aware that not only did Ms. Morrison lack the skills to  accomplish this task but they also feared she might bring to the council table the belligerence and animosity they had seen her demonstrate as a member of the Committee.

The people who resigned from the Democratic Committee hoped that such a radical action would alert the public to how gravely concerned they were about the potential harm Ms. Morrison might do to the city’s finances and to the ability of the Council to operate in a civil manner. It remains to be seen whether their gesture will have its hoped for impact.

On August 3 Common Sense, Saratoga posted a notice that their proposal to change the Saratoga Springs city government to a city manager form would not appear on this year’s ballot. Rather than graciously admit that they had not researched the deadlines properly they claimed that new state laws made it impossible for them to fulfill the requirements to get their charter change proposal on the ballot in time. This is from their statement:

While the group’s initial intention was to place the proposition on the November 2019 ballot, changes in the Election Law enacted by the legislature this year made it impossible to provide enough time for all the legal milestones and intervals to occur within the time available.

But changes to the NY State Election law were made in January allowing them plenty of time to gather petition signatures and follow all the necessary procedures. Instead Bob Turner announced in the July 24th edition of the Gazette, that they needed to collect 2,000 signatures by August 1.This did allow enough time to complete the steps necessary to get their proposition on the ballot.

The simple fact is that they failed to properly research the deadlines and to allow sufficient time for the process before they initiated their petition drive.  The root of their problem was their failure to be rigorous. Not taking responsibility for their error only serves to further damage their credibly.