At the January 7, 2025, Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran subjected his fellow Council members and the public to an eight minute tirade during which, among other things he claimed Mayor Safford had sent the city attorneys out to “essentially implement the wishes of an on-line bogger” whom he later identifies as me. In a continuous, sometimes stream of consciousness diatribe, he frequently interrupted and talked over Mayor Safford, pronounced vaguely that “you guys don’t know what you are talking about”, and with all seriousness and some pomposity gave the Mayor and City Attorneys “Fs”.
The trigger that set Moran off on this performance was the City Attorneys’ opinion that the Council could not legally extend a contract that expired in December of 2024. The contract was for a consulting firm, Ives-Fenton Consulting and Training Services. These consultants were to assist the Restorative Justice Panel (RJP) established by the city in 2023.
In an earlier post, I documented that the Restorative Justice Panel appeared to have collapsed in December 2023 and that the contract for their services that ended on December 5, 2024, could not be extended. Should the city desire to continue to fund consulting services for RJP, they will have to put it out for bid again.
The following are some excerpts from Moran’s jeremiad. To allow readers to determine whether I have taken these excerpts out of context, I am including the full eight-minute video of the event at the end of this blog. This blogger finds it odd that Moran indulges in this kind of behavior. He must know that the videos will appear on this blog. Does he really think this behavior will endear him to the public?
Moran Berates Mayor Safford As A Puppet Of The Blogger
Mayor Safford is the kindest and most patient of men. In this excerpt, he shows his usual self-control and refuses to respond to Moran in kind.
Moran berates the Mayor for supposedly enlisting the city attorneys in a plot to block the contract at this blogger’s (Moran refers to me by name) direction. Moran likes to wave papers around and, addressing attorney David Harper by name, waves what could be the City Attorneys’ memorandum in the air, announcing that his staff has given the City Attorney’s opinion an F. As Moran does not have any attorneys on his staff, it seems odd that Moran uses their alleged condemnation of the legal opinion as proof that he is right. When the Mayor gently offers that NYCOM, the New York State Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials, confirmed the City Attorneys’ legal opinion, Moran talks over the Mayor, challenging the Mayor’s motives.
Moran Conveniently Ignores The Language In The Contract That Undermines His Assertions
The language in the contract reads that it will continue “until the work is satisfactorily completed or until December 5, 2024.” In this excerpt he asserts that the contract will continue until the work is complete conveniently ignoring “or until December 5, 2024.” When the Mayor politely interjects the ending date language, Moran ignores him and talks over him.
Moran Resorts To Straight Gibberish
Here, Moran refers to some unexplained uncivil thing that he claims Mayor Safford did a year ago when the Mayor first took office. He accuses the Mayor of putting “him,” which may or may not be a reference to David Harper,
“on some mindless task that this guy (the blogger?) told you to do and now there is some investigation into a bunch of nonsense that you (the mayor) know is not true that he (Harper?) actually admitted that you guys investigated the wrong friggin date. It’s so disgusting what you people are doing. That little foray (?) is going to cost us a quarter million dollars. What are you doing?”
Dillon Moran
This blogger follows politics closely, and I have no idea what he is talking about.
Moran goes on to bully the Mayor, who tries to explain that he just wants to make sure the contract is handled properly.
After asserting that Commissioner Kuczynski supports him in his criticism of the City Attorneys, he finishes with a flourish: “Civility my, ass.” and then pulls the contract from the agenda.
In a disturbing comment to the press, Hank Kuczynski, Democratic candidate for Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Public Works, seemed to imply that Judge James E. Walsh acted improperly in his decision to allow the special election scheduled for January 28, 2025, to proceed. Referring to Walsh, Kuczynski told the Saratogian:
“I believe people should have a choice, that judges shouldn’t pick who can be elected officials,” Kuczynski said.
The judge, of course, did not “pick who can be elected officials.” He simply ruled that once the date for an election has been set, it cannot be changed. This decision is not complicated and clearly supported by statute and legal precedent. Even the Democrats’ previous candidate for Public Works Commissioner, Sarah Burger, told the Gazette that “…as an attorney, I don’t see any good-faith basis…to try to appeal.”
The political parties controlled who would be on the ballot in the election, not the judge. Quite simply, the Republicans filed the correct papers at the proper time, and the Democrats did not.
So did Mr. Kuczynski truly not understand the judge’s decision or did he deliberately misrepresent it falling into line with what appears to be a major Democratic strategy in this campaign.
The Spin Machine In Overdrive To Misinform Voters
With no line on the ballot, the local Democratic Committee has launched a write-in campaign to elect Hank Kuczynski.
They have launched a media campaign that attempts to portray themselves as victims and the city Republican Party as somehow manipulating the system to freeze them out.
This line of attack does not stand up under the most casual scrutiny. There are a set of procedures for getting on the ballot. They are not complicated. The Republicans adhered to these. The Democrats did not.
Here is a sample of the Democrats’ conspiracy theory.
“There’s been a process which is basically marked by underhanded maneuvering on the part of Saratoga County Republicans including the Saratoga County Committee chair who is also an election commissioner and a judge who is a Republican, to create a ballot with only one candidate on it. And that is—basically we have a Democratic majority in Saratoga and the Republicans are trying to get something done with a power grab they can’t do in a straight-up election. So, I think Hank’s feeling is that this was just not fair, not democratic and he decided to do something,” said [Otis] Maxwell [Chair of the city Democratic Committee].
WAMC
“They continue to obstruct our ability,” Moran said on Thursday. “I filed the documents with the Board of Elections. We have not gotten approvals. We are well past any sort of dates. I’m done fighting with these people. They only want an election that is rigged for their candidate.”
Times Union November 9, 2024
“I can’t emphasize more how deviant the Republicans have been through this whole process,” [Otis] Maxwell [Chair of Democratic Committee] said.
Times Union January 6, 2025
These sentiments have been amplified by Democratic Committee members commenting on this blog and at City Council meetings. James Thompson addressed the Council last night (1/7/25) describing the City Republicans as engaging in “shenanigans” and trying to “cook the books” and stating that Judge Walsh had “suspect credentials.” Likewise committee member David Morency commented on this blog that the Republicans had decided to “bull through the election” and that the Republican committee is “attempting to hijack this election”.
Kuczynski Campaign Echos Misinformation
It is unfortunate that the Democrats, including their candidate Hank Kuczynski, are now resorting to falsely accusing the Republicans of some kind of misconduct rather than admitting that they themselves intentionally or unintentionally are the ones who failed to follow legal election procedures.
Some will say that this Democratic campaign is “just politics.” This blogger thinks that Kuczynski, Moran, and Maxwell badly underestimate the voters in our city. Many earnest and informed voters are looking for candidates who will be straight with them. If Kuczynski wants to win, he needs to concede his party’s failure in the ballot fiasco and run a campaign that focuses on his credentials and ideas rather than taint himself by making unfounded accusations.
This blogger doesn’t know where to begin describing the history of the city’s attempt at “restorative justice” as mismanaged by Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran.
On May 4, 2023, the City Council established a panel that was charged with seeking “…to define via community input and dialogue a ‘Saratoga Springs’ Restorative Justice Program.” The panel ended up being called the Restorative Justice Panel (RJP).
This panel met six times from October 11, 2023, to December 13, 2023. The meetings were chaotic and confusing. The RJP appears to have disintegrated because there is no record of them meeting after December, 2023. According to this blogger’s calculation, as of this writing, the committee has not met in thirteen months.
The Council resolution required the RJP to issue a report to the Council by December 19, 2023. There is no record that this report was ever submitted.
Coincidentally, on the date their report was due, the City Council decided to hire a consulting firm to assist the RJP, which was struggling with even defining what restorative justice meant, let alone what a restorative justice program for Saratoga Springs would look like. The Council approved a contract with the consulting firm Ives-Fenton Consulting and Training Services which, confusingly, is sometimes referred to also as Ives-Fenton Counseling Services. The contract was put forward by Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and he became responsible for overseeing its execution.
In their contract, Ives-Fenton committed to, among other things, forming a “Reinvention Plan Implementation Team” to do some kind of ongoing analysis of the fifty-point plan adopted by the Saratoga Springs Police Reform Task Force in 2021:
…we will work collaboratively with the Reinvention Implemntation Team to design and publish a public and frequently updated “Report Card” detailing actual numerical and qualatiative progress in implementing with fidelity, each of the fifty points.
This blogger can find no record of a Team being formed or of this “report card” ever being published.
According to the consultants’ billing, their last contact with the purported RJP was with its co-chair, Camille Daniels, on August 15, 2024. By this blogger’s calculations, that was approximately five months ago.
Here is a complete list of the activities they have billed the city for. Their last submission was for a September 4 two hour email, text, and phone discussion.
Record Of Billing By Ives-Fenton
A Gross Violation of City Procurement Requirements
Ives-Fenton has only spent $3,851.25 of the $29,340 agreed to in their contract. Their contract expired on December 5, 2024.
Moran has placed on his agenda for Tuesday, January 7, 2025, Council meeting a resolution to “extend” their contract until the end of 2025.
The problem is that you cannot “extend” a contract that has expired. Moran could have done so before the expiration date, but he did not.
In addition, Moran cannot even get his dates right.
There was no contract entered into with Ives-Fenton on December 19, 2024. The agreement was approved on December 19, 2023.
Readers might accuse the blogger of nit-picking, but this is a formal contract with the city and should be accurate.
There is also the question of why the consulting firm signed the document on December 22, 2024.
STOP!!!!!!!
Given the legal issues and troubling record of the RJP, there is no way that the city should approve the extension of this contract at their meeting on January 7, 2025.
The gross failure on Moran’s part to manage this project properly is troubling in and of itself. More scary is what this says about the management of the Accounts Department. This blogger just happened to have this negligence called to his attention. It is reasonable to assume this is just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what other more serious failures are hidden in Moran’s office that may cost the city in the future?
“I would look at it this way, I am a temporary appointee for the Commissioner of Public Works. I am not a candidate to run in a special election. So, I have no political agenda, I don’t have to do any political posturing and think about getting elected.”
Hank Kuczynski to WAMC October 30, 2024
Hank Kuczynski assured the members of the Saratoga Springs City Council and the public that he would only serve as the city’s Public Works Commissioner on an interim basis until there was an election when the Council was considering him for an appointment to fill the vacancy created when former Commissioner Jason Golub resigned. It now turns out that Kuczynski has accepted the Democratic Committee’s endorsement to be their write-in candidate for the Commissioner of Public Works position in the upcoming special election to fill the post.
Earlier this year, I had a telephone conversation with Kuczynski. I had learned that Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran planned to put his name forward to serve as the temporary appointment. He assured me, as he had others, that he was offering his name with the understanding that he would only be a placeholder to fill in. He emphasized this with a grandiloquent statement that he simply wanted to serve the city, but only briefly.
The October 29, 2024, a Times Union subheading read, “Democrat and former deputy mayor joined City Council on Tuesday, but said he won’t run in the special election Jan. 28.”
Mayor Safford offered this in the October 29, 2024, edition of the Saratogian.
“I’m not here for politics, I’m here for the city. We have been discussing Mr. Kaczynski (sic) status as someone who can come in do that job until we can get the election done, which is something that we have finally agreed on, and I’m hoping that we can solidify the that election is going to be on January 28 so that Mr. Kaczynski (sic) knows how much time he’s going to have to commit to this.”[JK: emphasis added]
Granted, people have a right to change their minds, but in Kuczynski’s case, when he sought the appointment, he assured people he would not be “political” and use the appointment as a jumping off base for a run for office. It’s fair to assume that this promise was instrumental in getting support for his appointment.
Having known Mr. Kuczynski for many years, none of this was a surprise. Kuczynski prides himself as being a skilled poker player, and, regrettably, he brings this same attitude and ethics to politics.
From the beginning, the entire process of his appointment was tainted with intrigue.
Moran and Kuczynski’s Tainted Appointment
On August 4, 2024, Sarah Burger was officially endorsed by the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee to be appointed to fill the DPW Commissioner vacancy and to be their candidate in the special election. Due to technical issues, the endorsement was reaffirmed at a later meeting. It was assumed that there would be a special election, and with the enrollment advantages enjoyed by the Democrats, she would have an easy path to victory.
Unfortunately, for Burger, loyalty, fairness, and transparency are rare commodities in the ugly world that constitutes the inner workings of those who lead the committee.
It was necessary to fill the DPW vacancy until a special election could be held. Reliable sources have informed this blogger that Moran and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi, working with Democratic Chair Otis Maxwell, decided to jettison Burger and get Kuczynski appointed instead. In a classic example of closed-door dealing, the three shut out the other city committee members. In fact, reflecting the cynicism of this whole business, they did not even have the courtesy to inform Sarah Burger of their decision to make this move. Remember, the committee had officially endorsed her to be appointed.
Moran’s desire to sideline Burger is not surprising. As well documented by this blog, Moran relies on aggression and bullying. Sarah Burger, who is on the New York State Democratic Committee’s executive board and who had previously served as chair of the city’s Democratic Committee, was not one to be intimidated. I expect that Moran viewed Burger as a rival who needed to be eliminated.
Having engineered Kuczynski’s appointment, neither Moran nor Maxwell submitted Burger’s nomination papers to the Saratoga County Board of Elections to get her on the ballot for the special election.
When Burger discovered that her nominating papers had not been delivered to the Board of Elections, she sent urgent messages to Maxwell and Moran that the papers needed to be delivered. Unfortunately for Burger, her messages were ignored. So, in the end, only Burger’s Republican opponent, Chuck Marshall, would have his name on the ballot.
In a bizarre twist that ignored reality, Moran, who had not bothered to do any legal research, announced at a December Council meeting that the special election would not be happening and that his friend, Kuczynski, would now serve out the vacancy through the end of 2025.
When a judge ruled that there would be an election and that only one candidate would appear, Moran’s fantasies were exposed and the embarrassing truth was revealed.
Kuczynski now cloaks himself as the defender of Democracy. Kuczynski, having assured everyone that he earnestly was not interested in anything but a brief interlude as Commissioner, is now willing to “sacrifice” by running for DPW Commissioner as a write-in because he claims “this is not Russia” and voters should have choices. Aside from the unfortunate fact that many elections in the US are uncontested, I believe if a Democrat were the only candidate on the ballot, Kuczynski, who sees himself as a seasoned political operative, would not be going out to recruit a Republican to be a write-in candidate.
For those of us familiar with both Moran and Kuczynski, none of this is a surprise. The ordeal of this city continues.
There is simply no gentle way of putting it. Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi has grossly mismanaged the city’s Finance Department for the past three years that she has been in office. Most people are unaware of it because Sanghvi has managed so far to avoid serious scrutiny.
In many ways, the Commissioner of Finance is the most demanding elected office in city government. The difficult truth is that the current Commissioner, Minita Sanghvi, has been unwilling to devote the time required to fulfill her responsibility as the city’s chief financial officer and the head of a department that includes IT. As we shall see, her inability to keep the IT Department properly staffed and supervised has had a problematic ripple effect on the ability of other departments in city hall to carry out their responsibilities and on the ability of the public to have the required access to government information. Those who closely observe her actions have found that she is drawn to the drama and celebrity of public office while she appears to be uninterested in the tough challenges of managing the city’s finances and her department.
In addition Commissioner Sanghvi’s rude and arrogant behavior at the Council table (routinely in support of her ally, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran) contributes to the poisonous atmosphere that continues to invade city deliberations.
The Issues
The most unambiguous expression of her mismanagement was seen in her handling of the on-call fiasco of 2023. As the city’s chief fiscal officer, it is her job to scrutinize all payment requests. In the case of on-call pay, she not only allowed inappropriate payments for deputies, but worse, she indulged her own deputy with a payment. The details of this oversight failure were published in an earlier post. Her refusal to take responsibility for her role in that mess has been most galling. When pressed by the media, she has dismissed the blatant corruption by either belittling it or denying that anything untoward occurred. At the time of this post, the New York State Police are investigating these payments.
It has come as no surprise then that there is an extensive history of this maladministration which this post will explore in depth.
Issues include:
A budget that fails to provide the resources for essential city needs
An intemperate attack in the media on her colleagues on the Council
An inability to adequately staff the city’s IT department with problematic ripple effects on other key city operations and expenditures
Her role in the city’s crisis in dealing with FOIL requests
Expensive and essential software allowed to languish unused while the city continues to pay for this
A cynical and cruel abuse of a city employee to hide her own failures
A flawed city website that compromises the ability of citizens to navigate it
Audits that revealed failures in the city’s fiscal management (This will be explored in more depth in a coming post)
An Imperious Sanghvi Simply Ignores The Problems With Her Budget For 2025
In a previous post, I documented that her proposed 2025 budget was thrown together with very little in the way of research and analysis of the city departments. Cuts in spending she proposed had to be restored because they would have violated existing contracts and state laws. Her final budget denies funding to critical needs that will hamper the ability of the city to effectively carry out essential responsibilities. Rather than seriously engage in defending her cuts, she routinely imperiously dismissed concerns raised to her, reminiscent of the Queen of Hearts from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Sanghvi’s final 2025 budget is notable for the money she obstinately cut for critical needs in the Public Safety and Mayor’s Department (coincidentally headed by the two people on the Council endorsed by the Republican party).
The following are a few of the budget requests from Safford and Coll that she refused to fund.
ASECOND RECORDS CLERK FOR THE POLICE DEPARTMENT
“Discovery” is a term that describes the responsibility of the city’s police department to provide persons charged with crimes with all relevant documents associated with their cases. Failure to do so can be grounds for dismissing the charges. After the state passed bail reform, the number of days to provide the documents was reduced to fifteen.
The Public Safety Department has had two “records clerks” responsible for this critical activity. One of the employees retired. Given the small window for discovery, only having one employee threatens the city’s ability to prosecute criminals effectively.
CERTIFICATION FOR CODE ENFORCERS
Code enforcement staff must attend training sessions to maintain their required certification. Sanghvi zeroed out the money for this and refused to restore it.
FIRE TRUCK MAINTENANCE
Sanghvi cut maintenance for the city’s fire engines from $160,000.00 to $60,000.00. According to the acting Fire Chief, this will not cover anticipated repairs.
POLICE CAR
The Police Department staggers the replacements for its twenty-five cars. Public Safety did not receive money to replace any vehicles this year; there is no money for next year. Sanghvi told Coll to take the money needed out of overtime. When she originally approved the overtime budget for 2025, she acknowledged the amount as appropriate given the plans to host the Belmont again, along with other special events in the city. To tell Coll to take money out of overtime now makes no sense.
A FULL-TIME CITY ATTORNEY
The city used to have a full-time and a part-time city attorney. In this litigious age, our legal department must be able to scrutinize contracts, respond to the many legal questions generated by the departments, and oversee the defense of the city when it is sued. Currently, the city has two part-time attorneys. Sanghvi has arrogantly refused to engage in serious discussion about why a full-time attorney is needed. “No” is not an analysis.
REPLACEMENT CAR FOR THE BUILDING INSPECTOR
The building department has a 2007 Impala. It is eighteen years old and, not surprisingly, has many miles on it. Sanghvi refuses to provide funds to replace it.
A MODEST RAISE FOR A LONG-TIME CITY EMPLOYEE
One of the mayor’s office positions is that of a part-time employee who has not had a raise in years. The mayor requested that the employee receive a $1.25 per hour raise, which was denied.
Sanghvi’s New Found Austerity
At a City Council budget discussion, Commissioner Sanghvi imperiously lectured Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll and Mayor John Safford, telling them the money was not there to help them and that they should do a better job managing their departments’ budgets. When Coll took the politically difficult position of suggesting she should consider increasing the city’s taxes if necessary to fund these needs, she summarily dismissed the idea.
This was a curious position for her to take as she has raised taxes every year she has been in office. In fact, her 2024 budget illegally exceeded the New York State tax cap due to an error in her calculations. She was required to work with the Comptroller’s Office to resolve the violation.
As Sanghvi has never resisted raising taxes until this most recent budget, I don’t think it is a coincidence that her sudden unexplained turn to austerity occurred while she was engaged in a failed run for the New York State Senate.
Sanghvi Competes With Moran For Toxicity
Commissioner Sanghvi has noted repeatedly that budgets are about priorities and values. This was never more evident than in the conflicts over this year’s budget.
When Sanghvi came into office in 2022, one of the first things she focused on was creating a program called “participatory budgeting.” Citizens submit ideas for community projects to a panel. The city then maintains a web option for people to vote on which ones to fund. After the public votes, the Council approves the funding for the winners. This year, Sanghvi budgeted $100,000 to be spent on these projects.
The many proposals under this program were all laudable, so voting against funding them was politically problematic. The easy way would have been to just vote yes to fund them all.
Both Coll and Safford, though, acting on principle, voted against funding the items in the “participatory budget.”
Commissioner Coll explained his no vote, stating, “In my view, the Department of Public Safety should be the No.1 priority of the city. I believe it was underfunded, so I’m not going to vote for the participatory budget because I think it’s a much, much, much lower priority.” Sanghvi, as stated earlier, spent $100,000 on participatory budgeting. Interestingly, this was the same amount she cut from a request for funds to maintain the city’s fire engines.
Likewise, Mayor Safford explained that he was in the midst of negotiating contracts with the city’s unions. He told his colleagues that it was problematic to say to employees there was not enough money for raises or healthcare benefits they were asking for while spending $100,000.00 for proposals that, while laudable, were not critical to the operation of the city. “One of the first things that (the union) brings up in my meetings is things like the participatory budgeting,” he told the Times Union. Likewise, Safford pointed out that requests from his department for more funding for the legal department, including money for a full-time attorney, had been denied by Sanghvi.
So, for Safford and Coll, it was not a matter of not funding projects such as community composting, a pollinator garden, or an outdoor learning center. The problem was, as Sanghvi herself so imperiously told them, everything can’t be funded, and while Coll had taken the politically risky position of supporting a 2% tax increase that would have gone a long way towards covering many of these competing needs, Sanghvi oddly for the first time since she took office refused to consider this.
Instead, Sanghvi’s response was to go to the media and personally attack her two colleagues. She made the following attacks in an article in the December 19, 2024, Times Union.
“A few days before Christmas, (Commissioner of Public Safety Tim) Coll and (Mayor John) Safford have shown us their true values,” Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi said. “Adults who were upset that we had to have a level-funded budget and couldn’t fund every single thing on their wish list, decided to take that out on our children. … It’s cruelty for cruelty’s sake.”
Times Union December 19, 2024
“We can’t fund everything,” Sanghvi said. “In an ideal world, everyone would get a car. … But I wonder what kind of angry adult takes out their frustration with the budget on children a week before Christmas.”
What an incredible set of character attacks! How cavalierly Sanghvi accused Safford and Coll of being guilty of “…cruelty for cruelty’s sake” or that these two men had taken “out their frustration with the budget on children a week before Christmas.” Unfortunately, this kind of intemperate attack by her is all too common.
Sanghvi had a choice. She could have raised taxes to the 2% limit and funded most of the needs. She decided not to, which is her prerogative. It is sad for the city that she chose to attack fellow Council members in the media rather than simply acknowledge that they indeed had different priorities.
Sanghvi is fortunate that Safford and Coll demonstrated their professionalism and character by putting the need for tempered behavior to serve the city before responding to her in kind and descending themselves into this kind of shrill attack.
Sanghvi appears uninterested or oblivious to the problems her poorly crafted budgets have created. She would prefer to focus on her “participatory budgeting.” This is understandable. Its attraction is its simplicity. The proposals for this program are appealing and non-controversial. It is easy to give away money to worthy causes and to associate yourself with this kind of beneficence.
Crafting the city budget is highly complex and challenging. It requires many, many hours of meetings and analysis and involves conflicting demands for finite resources. When it is done right, a well-run city is achieved, but such success does not lend itself to dramatic headlines.
Sanghvi Has Utterly Failed To Properly Manage and Support The City’s IT Department
Besides crafting the city’s budgets, the Finance Commissioner is also responsible for running the Finance Department, which includes IT. Needless to say, how well the IT department is staffed and runs has a massive impact on the rest of city hall. This city has outstanding staff in our IT department. Jeff Cornick, the director of the IT department, is widely respected, and so are his people.
The problem is that the IT department has been badly understaffed for most of 2024. I understand that there are seven staff members in the department and that there are currently five vacancies.
This is a video of Mr. Cornick from July of this year. Only three positions were filled then, and one had just been hired. Mr. Cornick shares with the Public Service Commission the stress of being understaffed.
With so many vacancies, the city has depended on expensive outside consultants to support Mr. Cornick.
This situation should have been addressed long ago. The responsibility for addressing this crisis lies squarely with Commissioner Sanghvi. A chronic staff shortage in IT is inexcusable and has a profound impact on the ability of employees in other departments to properly do their work.
Sanghvi’s Responsibility for the Chronic Problems with FOIL
The Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requires municipalities to provide citizens with the requested documents. Beginning with the Kim administration, the city’s inability to meet this obligation has been chronic. In their defense, the demand for documents has risen exponentially. This has been no secret, yet the problems have been allowed to mushroom for the three years that Sanghvi has been the city’s Finance Director.
Under Sanghvi’s budgets, the city has had only one staff member, Robin McFee, buried beneath a blizzard of FOIL requests.
A number of the FOIL requests are for emails and texts.
The city has functioning software for searching its emails. It does not have a way of effectively capturing and archiving cell phone texts. This means that Ms. McFee has been reduced to requesting city officials and staff to take screenshots of texts on their phones relevant to FOIL requests. McFee cannot digitally search the city’s cell phones’ texts. She has no way of independently confirming that what, if anything, that they give her is accurate.
McFee has had to deal with two significant problems. First, officials and city employees are often slow to respond to her requests. This has necessitated her spending precious time chasing recalcitrant people. Worse, it is an honor system. There is no way to be sure that her requests are honestly handled.
This problem became acutely apparent when the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Department charged Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran with falsely signing certifications, claiming there were no texts relevant to a request from McFee.
Under Sanghvi, not only has the need for more staff to deal with FOIL requests not been addressed, but the understaffing in her IT department has made the situation even more acute.
SMARSH to the RESCUE?
For a while, the city appeared to have taken action to facilitate FOIL requests for texts.
On October 18, 2023, Mayor Ron Kim issued a press release announcing that the city had purchased a software service called SMARSH. In cooperation with Verizon, the city’s cell service provider, the software would capture all texts from city cell phones and index them to make them easy to search.
This software service would significantly improve the city’s ability to respond to FOIL requests and address one of the concerns raised in the New York State Attorney General’s report.
The cost to the city for SMARSH for the first year was $12,942.21.
At a City Council meeting on September 3, 2024, Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran told the Council that Sanghvi had implemented SMARSH. Sanghvi was sitting next to him and said nothing to contradict him.
As of the date of this blog, December 28, 2024, over a year later, I have confirmed that SMARSH has never been implemented. That is over a year after the city purchased SMARSH. Sanghvi and Moran’s cavalier lying is stunning. They assume that no one will fact-check them, I guess.
The city paid $12,942.21 for the first of the software’s annual costs. SMARSH has virtually sat on the shelf unused, which is $12,942.21, thrown away uselessly. We are now into the second year during which the city is paying for SMARSH, which is still not operational.
In the meantime, the number of FOIL requests has continued to escalate.
When Guilty, Go On The Offensive
So, how has Sanghvi addressed the ongoing FOIL problem? By joining Dillon Moran in attacking Robin McFee, the person struggling to deal with the mess and provide the public with documents as best she can.
In the City Council video below, Mayor Safford attempts to get Sanghvi to come to his office to discuss her concerns about FOIL handling rather than carry on at the public meeting. He is trying to protect Ms. McFee from Sanghvi’s public attacks. Sanghvi will have none of it. Instead, to add to the theatrics, she warns the Mayor that she will audit the FOIL office if he refuses to discuss the issue publicly at the meeting. I find her behavior particularly disingenuous when Sanghvi goes on about the public importance of FOIL when she bears much of the responsibility for the problems.
The Loss Of Robin McFee
I cannot express enough my respect for Robin McFee. She is the city’s only employee who screens and responds to FOIL requests. She has soldiered through a challenging situation. The number of FOIL requests has been overwhelming. Each document must be reviewed to determine if it contains text exempt from the requirements of FOIL, and if so, it must be redacted. Some requests she has received were extensive and involved hundreds of documents.
This problem has been no secret. Past Mayor Ron Kim acknowledged the issue on numerous occasions. Despite Ms. McFee’s best efforts, it has been impossible to comply with the required response dates. I can speak from experience about delays. I always did my best to limit my requests as much as possible, and I always knew that Ms. McFee was doing her best.
As demonstrated by Dillon Moran in the following video of the Council meeting, some frustrated people seeking FOILs have not been as patient. Mayor Safford references Moran’s abusive behavior in the video clip. There was an incident in a corridor in city hall where Moran accosted Ms. McFee over a late FOIL.
I will admit to the readers of this blog the fury I have felt listening to Sanghvi and Moran publicly attack McFee’s work. The lack of respect and courtesy is terrible, but knowing that Sanghvi has failed to get SMARSH up or provide additional help for Ms. McFee makes Sanghvi’s attacks incredibly cynical and cruel.
When viewing this video, remember Sanghvi’s failure to implement SMARSH and her indifference to the staff shortage to meet the city’s FOIL obligations.
The stress on Ms. McFee was exacerbated by the cruel behavior of both Dillon Moran and Minita Sanghvi. Moran used the platform of City Council meetings to accuse Ms. McFee of incompetence and even implied political interference. Sanghvi piled on to support Moran and his narrative. When Mayor Safford intervened, suggesting that Moran and Sanghvi should not be attacking a city employee during the City Council meeting and that this discussion would best be carried out in his office, Sanghvi upped the ante. She told the Mayor that if he refused to discuss the issue at the Council table, she would use her authority to audit McFee’s work. It should be no surprise to readers then that Sanghvi did not bring this resolution forward at the next meeting. It’s all about theater.
Given the long history of the lack of resources in that department, this call for an audit has more to do with public relations than a genuine interest in the problem. This cynicism is best revealed by the fact that Sanghvi has never spoken to McFee in the three years she has been Commissioner. If she had, she would have known that Ms. McFee had kept extensive detailed documentation of the FOIL requests received and when and how they were answered. But Commissioner Sanghvi preferred to engage in public theatrics at Ms. McFee’s expense.
This feels like the lynching Marilyn Rivers, the previous director of Risk and Safety, was subjected to. It then came as no surprise to learn last week that Ms. McFee has resigned, effective December 31, 2024. This city will again have lost an extraordinarily valuable employee, leaving it with no dedicated staff to handle FOILs.
Now, another vital employee has joined Marilyn Rivers, Tina Carton, Vince DeLeonardis, and Lisa Ribis, among others, in the exodus from our city that began with the Ron Kim administration, two of whom from that unfortunate period still remain on the Council-Moran and Sanghvi.
More Mismanagement by Sanghvi
The city’s website is supposed to provide the public with easy access to records. Readers following this blog will be aware that I write software and that during the previous administration, I repeatedly wrote to Commissioner Sanghvi that there were significant flaws in the design of the city’s website. These problems have continued into her second term in office.
For the last three years, I have received emails and calls from people asking for help, for instance, in finding past Council meeting records. Four places on the site supposedly have links to the city’s Council meeting archives.
The following is just one of the four pages on the city’s website that are all supposed to take you to the archive. In this case, here is the page where the link is supposed to be.
Here is the page it brings you to. Notice that this page has no links to city council meetings after June 2024.
This is symptomatic of her “management.” She is simply uninterested in the unsexy aspects of being the Commissioner of Finance. How else can one explain how this fault has been allowed to exist during her tenure without correction?
The Future for Sanghvi
Sources tell us that, fortunately, Sanghvi may not run again for Finance Commissioner but instead turn her attention to a run for County Supervisor. If that proves to be the case, there will be one of two outcomes: she loses and no longer holds a public office, or she wins and becomes the county’s problem. In the meantime, the city must endure another year of her mismanagement.
Cassie Bagramian, the Democratic Commissioner of the Saratoga County Board of Elections, and Joe Suhrada, the Republican Commissioner, have both signed off on the ballot for a special election to be held on January 28, 2025, to fill the Saratoga Springs Department of Public Works Commissioner vacancy created when Jason Golub resigned. The ballot will only have Republican Charles “Chuck” Marshall on it.
If they were capable of it, Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee chair Otis Maxwell and Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran should feel embarrassed.
Maxwell has accused Judge Walsh, who issued the decision that the special election must go forward, of ignoring the facts and of partisanship.
We are disappointed but not surprised by Judge Walsh’s ruling. The statement that a calendar for a DPW special election had been “published” is factually incorrect and should be basis for appeal. In the meantime, Saratogians can be confident this important city department is in good hands with the incumbent commissioner, Hank Kuczynski.
Saratoga Springs Facebook Page Edited By Maxwell
In an earlier post, I documented Moran’s claims that there had never been a calendar published and that this meant there would be no special election.
They Never Stop
It is worth noting that 1, state municipal law does not require a calendar because all the dates are set based on the date the election was “proclaimed,” and 2, the city charter placed the responsibility to publish the calendar in the hands of the Commissioner of Accounts. So, if it had been required and had not been drafted, it would have been Moran who failed in his duties.
The following is taken from the city’s charter.
12.3.1 Publication of election timetable. The Commissioner of Accounts shall cause to be published a timetable indicating times when each step shall be taken to designate, nominate, and submit petitions for partisan and independent candidates under the New York State Election Law. Such timetable shall be published first in the City’s official newspaper or newspapers no later than two weeks after the issuance of the official political calendar of the New York State Board of Elections, and a copy shall be placed on file at the City Clerk’s office. There shall be a second publication of the timetable no later than the first day for circulation of partisan petitions.
Even more bizarre, notwithstanding Maxwell and Moran’s claim that it was not crafted and submitted, here it is:
As if all this were not enough, the fact that Commissioner Bagramian has declined to appeal the judge’s decision and has certified the ballot should prove that Moran and Maxwell were putting out a blizzard of disinformation.
How much longer will the Democratic Committee put up with these two being the face of the party?
Judege gavel with rules or laws paper – vector illustration
Today, December 13, 2024, New York State Supreme Court Justice James Walsh ruled that the Saratoga County Board of Elections must proceed with the special election to fill the Commissioner of Public Works position in Saratoga Springs. The position became vacant last August when Jason Golub resigned. The position has been temporarily filled by the City Council appointment of Hank Kuczynski. Since the Democrats failed to file appropriate papers for their candidate, only one candidate will be on the ballot for the January 28, 2025, special election. That candidate will be Republican Chuck Marshall.
In an earlier post (see below), I documented the maneuvering by Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran to block the special election and extend Kuczynski’s temporary appointment until the end of 2025. The earlier post has a more extended clip during which Moran excoriated those whom he falsely claimed had previously blocked his attempts for an election. Here is a brief clip from the November 6, 2024, City Council meeting that provides a flavor of Moran’s performance.
Press Release On Court Ruling From Saratoga Springs Republican Chair Mike Brandi
The Saratoga Springs Republican Committee celebrates the Supreme Court’s ruling today, which ensures the special election for Commissioner of Public Works will proceed as scheduled on January 28, 2025. The decision comes after SSGOP Chairman Mike Brandi and candidate Chuck Marshall filed suit to compel the Saratoga County Board of Elections to approve the ballot in accordance with election law. The lawsuit was prompted by opposition from the Democrat commissioner of the board who opposed the lawsuit.
Candidate Chuck Marshall: “This court ruling is a victory for all the voters of Saratoga Springs. It reaffirms that if everyone plays by the rules, there are legitimate outcomes.”
“This ruling protects the integrity of the electoral process” said Mike Brandi, SSGOP Chairman. “The people of Saratoga Springs deserve fair elections in accordance with the law free from partisan obstruction.”
Chris Obstarczyk, attorney for Brandi and Marshall, added: “The Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for democracy and a strong message that election law must be upheld.”
democrat political party animal vector illustration design
The Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee is a profoundly troubled organization that produces truly problematic candidates and, worse, engages in corrosive campaigns that offend rather than educate.
Why Should Saratogians Care about This?
As of the last count, there were 9523 (41%) registered Democrats compared to 6578 (28%) registered Republicans in Saratoga Springs. There are also 7164 (31%) who are not registered with any party. There are 237 registered Conservatives and 82 registered in the Working Families Party.
This gives the Democrats a decisive edge in local elections. Regrettably, and this is true for the Republicans as well, many voters are too busy with family and work to follow politics very closely, and they simply vote for all the candidates of their party’s line on the ballot.
In the last local election in 2023, the appearance of One Saratoga as a political option shook this process up. Many people, unhappy with partisan politics, took refuge in One Saratoga. This was the first time One Saratoga had a line on the ballot and three of their four candidates won-two registered Democrats, and one registered Republican . Democrat Chris Mathiesen ran on the One Saratoga line after the Democratic Committee refused to endorse him or even allow him to address the full committee. While he did not win, he drew enough votes on the line so that Republican candidate John Safford defeated Democrat Ron Kim.
In spite of the inroads One Saratoga has made, the bottom line is still that whoever gets the Democratic line has a distinct advantage to win city elections.
This means having a functional and thoughtful Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee is essential because they select the candidates (unless there is a primary) who will have the strongest chance of governing Saratoga Springs
This city needs a thoughtful Democratic Committee if we, the voters, are to be provided with credible candidates. We also need a thoughtful Democratic Committee if issues are to be addressed in campaigns in a way that serves the public.
Problematic Party Leadership
The Leader of an organization is a statement by the organization as to who they are.
Otis Maxwell is the chair of the city Democratic Committee. He recently sent an email to his committee (reprinted below). The email explicitly warned against sharing it with the blogger. There was good reason for this caution because the email demonstrates the need for the committee to reform itself.
Unfortunately for Mr. Maxwell, it found its way to me. The following are highlights from it.
Chairman Maxwell’s Email
A Potluck dinner?
Maxwell has been trying to organize a potluck dinner for the committee. Apparently, his invitation to the event has drawn very little interest. Maxwell wrote: “…we need a critical mass of folks to respond, and so far we have very few.” This would suggest that the rumors of a disaffected and divided committee may be true.
Baseless Attacks?
Maxwell asserts in his email that “…baseless attacks by our MAGA opponents on our current elected officials are having the desired effect of discouraging people from coming forward.”
It is true that City Council members endorsed by his committee have been the subject of frequent criticisms. It is extraordinary that Maxwell simply dismisses these criticisms wholesale as though they are meritless. He does so by throwing red meat at the committee members by simply attributing the criticisms to”MAGA opponents.” He conveniently conflates being a Republican with being an adherent to MAGA. While some of the critics may very well support MAGA, most of his critics (myself among them) are not supporters of MAGA, and many of them, like myself, are Democrats.
I have emailed him asking which “attacks” are baseless. I don’t expect a response, which again demonstrates what is wrong with Maxwell and the committee that selected him as their chair.
Here is a sample of some of the “attacks” he dismisses.
The On-Call Scandal
The bullying of former Director of Risk and Safety Marilyn Rivers, whose resignation resulted in the city’s insurance carrier dropping the city. The replacement carrier now costs the city an additional million dollars a year.
The belligerent and crude behavior of past Mayor Ron Kim was documented to the entire region in an epithet-laden rant that appeared on the TV nightly news.
The continuing toxic behavior of the endorsed Democrats on the City Council.
The wrongful denial of FOIL requests and the allegedly false certifications submitted by Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran.
The poorly crafted and arbitrary budget that was crafted by Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi.
The alleged use of city employees to perform work at the private home of former Public Safety Commissioner Jason Golub.
The Committee Chair’s inability to acknowledge any culpability for elected officials endorsed by his Committee dooms the city to continual scandal. The Democratic endorsed Candidates have made Saratoga Springs the laughingstock of the capital district.
The Very Worst
In his email, Maxwell writes, “I feel somewhat muzzled by the resolution that was passed at our last meeting but among friends (and please don’t leak this to our pals at Moving Saratoga Forward and Saratoga Springs Politics)…”
In a previous post, I discussed a resolution adopted by the Democratic Committee. Simply put, it disavowed public officials’ use of public employees for their personal benefit and asserted that people charged with a crime should be considered innocent until proven guilty. My understanding was this resolution was prompted by the attempts of Maxwell and Dillon Moran to dismiss the validity of the charges against Jason Golub and Joe O’Neill by attributing them to an array of conspirators.
While Maxwell claims he feels muzzled by the bland, apple pie, resolution passed by his committee, he nevertheless is fearless in continuing to diminish the seriousness of charges made by law enforcement against Democratic endorsed Council members. Here, he dismisses the abuse of FOIL and the signing of false certifications by Dillon Moran by attacking the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Department for charging Dillon Moran with subverting the city’s FOIL process. I assume that he is not concerned about any pushback from his committee.
It is hard to believe that in this day and age, the chair of a Democratic Committee would defend the blatant abuse of FOIL. One would think that the blistering criticism in the Daily Gazette editorial on this issue might have penetrated Maxwell’s consciousness. More centrally, you would think that there was some vestige of integrity in his committee to take him to task.
[JK: Correction. I spoke to Cassie Bagamian, the Saratoga County Democratic Election Commissioner. Cassie asked me to correct the blog. She indicated that she opposed certifying the ballot for the commissioner of public works election not because there was no Democrat on the ballot but because “there needs to be equal access opportunities for all parties.”]
On Friday, December 6, 2024, the Saratoga County Board of Elections (SCBOE) failed to certify the ballot for the January 28, 2025, special election established by the Saratoga Springs City Council to fill the vacancy created when then Commissioner of Public Works Jason Golub resigned last August. Today, Monday, December 9, Chris Obstarczyk, representing Saratoga Springs Republican Chair Mike Brandi, has brought an Article 78 action in Saratoga County Supreme Court to compel the County to proceed with certifying the ballot and to proceed with the election.
New York State Election law requires the Board of Elections to finalize the candidates and prepare the ballot 53 days before an election. That deadline was December 6.
“The Board of Elections cannot simply ignore deadlines set by the legislature,” Obstarczyk said in a press release.
Unfortunately, for Commissioner Bagramian, there is no statute requiring that a Democrat be on the ballot, and the Democratic City Committee failed to submit the required documents to get a candidate on the ballot.
Lest there be any confusion, the City Council unanimously adopted a resolution requiring a special election be held on January 28, 2025. Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran, a Democrat, sponsored the resolution. Here is the resolution.
What Happens Next
Because the legal action concerns an election, the court is required to rule expeditiously. We will know the results soon.
We know Saratoga Springs is world famous for its water. But we’re starting to wonder what’s in it, at least at City Hall, given the latest rash of unethical, criminal and outright baffling behavior of some city officials.
Last month, it was two city officials charged with misdemeanors in connection with allegations they had city employees come to their homes or the homes of a relative to do some plumbing work. Drano was apparently involved.
Rather than just admit they did wrong, one of the officials’ lawyers is trying to shift the blame for the alleged theft of public services to those who had the temerity to bring the matter to the attention of the public and authorities.
Now we’re reporting that Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran has been charged with three non-criminal counts of unlawful prevention of public access to records for allegedly lying about the existence of public records in response to a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request from a private citizen.
He apparently didn’t want the records to be made public, so in response to the FOIL request, he said he conducted a diligent search but couldn’t produce the records the person was seeking.
Keeping secrets is, effectively, lying by omission. But if this allegation is true, this was outright deliberate lying to deny a member of the public records to which they are — by law — legally entitled to have.
That’s why we have a Freedom of Information Law – because public officials like to keep things from the public in order to avoid embarrassment or public disclosure of nefarious or incompetent conduct.
The public in many ways might never learn of this conduct without the laws that are in place.
This latest case highlights a couple of things — one of which is that something is clearly making public officials in Saratoga Springs act screwy, in defiance of the law and in direct opposition to their oath to serve the public. Maybe it’s the city water. Somebody in that city voted for these guys.
The other point this highlights is that the state’s toothless Freedom of Information Law needs to be strengthened. Moran is charged essentially as an individual with falsifying a document.
The Freedom of Information Law itself needs to give judges more legal authority and discretion to punish public officials and their governments with fines and awarding of legal fees whenever they fail to honor legitimate requests for information or when they impose unnecessary delays on the release of information.
Whatever the reason(s) for what’s going on in Saratoga Springs, it has to stop.
Public officials owe their constituents honesty and integrity. Those are traits that seem to be seriously lacking these days.
Saratoga Springs Politics 