Saratoga Springs Politics

The Saratoga Casino Hotel’s proposal to build 192 “workforce” housing units at the corner of Crescent Avenue and Jefferson Street is dead according to Saratoga Today.

The SCH was seeking a change in the city’s comprehensive plan and tax breaks for their project.

The city Planning Board gave the project an unfavorable recommendation.  Four of the City Council members have indicated they will vote no.  Finance Commissioner Madigan was quoted in Saratoga Today as saying that she had reached out to the  company that the Racino was partnering with about concerns expressed by the neighbors and other members of the public and had heard nothing.  “I’ve received nothing back, so my feeling is that they’re really not interested in working with the city of Saratoga Springs, and for me this project is off the table.”

Mayor Kelly, Commissioners Scirocco and Martin expressed concerns about the projects density.

Commissioner Franck is still undecided.

Eddy Miller chairs the Saratoga County Independence Party Committee. He has sent the following to Patty Morrison who is challenging Commissioner of Finance Michele Madigan in a Democratic Primary on June 25.

From: Eddy Miller
To: Patricia Morrison
Sent: Tue, May 14, 2019 11:13 am
Subject: Re: Debate Schedule

Ms.Morrison,

We spoke with the Casino & they are willing to work with us to accommodate your schedule.

Please let me know if you are available on June 17th or June 19th.

Please respond as soon as possible.

Thank you,

Eddy Miller

From Saratoga Immigrant Coalition:

Response to our plans for the Saratoga Immigration Coalition meeting on Wednesday indicates a strong preference for postponing the Pubic Safety conversation until both of the candidates, Robin Dalton and Kendall Hicks, can be present in person.  Therefore, that conversation will not take place on Wednesday, but SIC will still meet as scheduled: 
Wednesday, May 15, 6:30 PM
PNEC Church, 24 Circular St. (Nolan House), Saratoga Springs. 
 

The Independence Party which had previously endorsed Michele Madigan for Finance Commissioner rented a room at the Racino for a debate between Madigan and her opponent in the upcoming Democratic primary, Patty Morrison.  In order to establish fairness the Independence Party enlisted Chad Beatty, the publisher of Saratoga Today, to moderate the debate.

The debate was set to take place on June 13. The invitation to the candidates was issued on May 3

On May 10  Ms. Morrison emailed Eddy Miller, chairman of the Saratoga Chapter of the Independence Party, telling him she was “…unable to fit your invitation into my schedule.”  She went on to say “Perhaps we can reconsider after the primary.”

I contacted Commissioner Madigan who responded with the following:

 “I will always take the opportunity to discuss openly city issues and challenges in a debate format, and if other debates become available I will attend those too.”

——————————————————

Below is the correspondence between Eddy Miller and Patty Morrison

From: Eddy Miller

To: Patricia Marie Morrison

Sent: Fri, May 10, 2019 8:41 pm

Subject: Re: Follow-up

Ms. Morrison,

Please allow me to express my gratitude for responding to our invite.  We honestly regret that you’re unable to adapt your busy schedule to meet our challenge & attend our event.

The meeting room at the Saratoga Casino Hotel has already been paid for!  The press & the moderator  will be present, and Commissioner Madigan has already accepted the challenge.

Therefore, the program will go on as planned.  If by some chance your schedule eases up & allows you to attend the function, it would sure make things a lot more interesting.

Hope to see you there &  if not, the Independence Party of Saratoga County wishes you “All the Best” in your upcoming primary.

Thank you,

Eddy Miller

---

—–Original Message—–

From: Patricia Morrison

To: Eddy Miller

Sent: Fri, May 10, 2019 4:23 pm

Subject: Follow-up

Mr. Miller,

Thank you so much for thinking of me.  I’m not able to fit your invitation into my schedule.  Perhaps we can reconsider after the primary.

Patty Morrison

I received this release from the Saratoga Immigration Coalition:

SARATOGA IMMIGRATION COALITION (SIC) GENERAL MEETING

Wednesday, May 15, 2019 6:30

PNEC Church, 24 Circular St. (Nolan House), Saratoga Springs. 

The first part of this meeting will be devoted to immigration-related issues in the campaign for Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Public Safety.  We will hear from Robin Dalton, the Republican candidate, and from Ellen Egger-Aimone, campaign manager for the Democratic candidate, Kendall Hicks.  Due to a death in the family, Kendall Hicks will not be able to attend this meeting in person.

[JK: This is a guest post by Jane Weihe. Most of you know that I am married to Jane]

There seems to be a lot of misunderstandings about Political Action Committees (PACs) in general and teacher PACs in particular. The term PAC has come to conjure up in many people’s minds big corporate money (think Koch Brothers) used to buy lawmakers to enact legislation that will fill the pockets of so-called “special interests” (another abused term) and  thwart the “public interest”.

I think it is unfortunate  that the terms “special interests” and “PACs”  tend to be used only pejoratively when in fact both can denote a wide range of groups and funds that are active in the democratic political arena many representing what a lot of us would term progressive causes and candidates.

Wikipedia defines “PAC” as follows:

“an…..organization  that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation.”

The first PAC in fact was established in 1943 by the CIO, the progressive coalition of unions that broke off from the more conservative AFL.

I suspect many readers actually contribute to a variety of PACs as I do in an effort to support “special interest groups” who are lobbying for legislation and supporting candidates who we hope will support our stands on particular issues.  In my case I regularly write checks to the Planned Parenthood PAC and to the NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC as well as the Sierra Club PAC. Many of you may make very different choices as to which PACs you send your money to, but I bet a good portion of the readers out there regularly support PACs of one sort or another maybe without fully realizing it.  My checks are made out to NARAL for instance.  The word PAC does not appear on my check, but on the back of their donation form is a request for donor information needed to comply with federal laws  for  contributions to the “NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC” [my emphasis].

I’m betting too that most of us don’t think of the groups we support as “special interest groups” but in fact these groups do have a special focus or “interest” whether it is women’s health or the environment or some other area.

This brings us to the hot issue of PAC involvement in this year’s Saratoga Springs School Board election. So far the focus has been on the “PAC” established by Saratoga Parents for Safer Schools. This group is actually not a PAC but has some of those characteristics. The formation of this group, its endorsement of candidates, and the amount of money they have raised has been the subject of much vitriol and concern particularly on the part of my liberal friends who frequently use the word PAC to describe SPSS and automatically labeled this as being  unacceptable in our local political arena even before the more recent controversy over how that money is being spent.

What has been overlooked and seems to be less controversial, so far anyway, is the role of an actual PAC that has just announced its support for a slate of candidates in this unusually contentious School Board race.

On Friday the Saratoga Teachers Association, a New York United Teachers (NYSUT) union local, announced their support for three candidates.  I don’t know how many readers realize that the Saratoga Springs TA has supported candidates for School Board in every race that I can remember here in Saratoga. While Kathryn Gallien in a recent blog comment finds it “a little silly” to characterize the teachers as a “special interest” in a school board race, and argues that “their endorsement is hardly the same as seeking or taking PAC money”, I would beg to differ on both counts.

I spent 34 years teaching in the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake School District and was an active member of the BHBL Teachers Association, also a NYSUT local, during my entire career and am still active in the area NYSUT retiree chapter, RC10.  Some of the responsibilities I took on in my local included  raising PAC money, lobbying state legislators, and working to get out the vote for our endorsed candidates on the national, state and local level. We organized teachers were and are very much I’m proud to say a “special interest group” just as the Sierra Club and, yes, the NRA are.  In our case our “special interest” is and was, of course, education but while we share certain goals with say the PTA and our priority was certainly the well-being of our students, as a professional organization we also were concerned with our working conditions, our relations with our employers, our retirement and more.

I just returned from attending the NYSUT Representative Assembly where delegates from locals across the state convene to adopt resolutions to guide the legislative priorities for our union’s lobbying efforts and also to guide candidate endorsements. The range of topics included the tax cap, arbitration decisions, and temperature standards in classrooms for example. And when I lobbied state legislators with NYSUT’s Committee of 100 in March we talked with state legislators about money for education and a mental health curriculum and teacher evaluation standards and charter schools. And yes, we wanted to know particularly where officeholders we had supported stood on these issues and yes, we were listening to their answers and evaluating their support for our issues and evaluating whether or not to support them in the next election. So yes, I would say like the Sierra Club and many other groups we have our “special interests” and thus we organized teachers are indeed a “special interest group”.

I again would disagree with Kathryn when she says “An endorsement is hardly the same as seeking or taking PAC money.”  If an endorsement is indeed meaningful it comes with resources that will be put into the campaign on behalf of the candidate.   In the case of a NYSUT local’s endorsement there will be quite a bit of resources made available, all of it funded by NYSUT’s PAC, VOTE/COPE.

Union dues cannot be used to support candidates or campaign committees so NYSUT has a PAC called VOTE/COPE which uses voluntary contributions from members to support endorsed candidates. Some of that money can be returned to locals to support local school board candidates. One of the responsibilities I took on as an active teacher was to run our annual VOTE/COPE campaign and to participate in the decisions on local school board endorsements in Burnt Hills.  Once we endorsed we had the PAC resources to be able to mail to every NYSUT member in the district and had access to NYSUT phone banks to make calls to NYSUT members active and retired to urge support for those we had endorsed.

So I find it unfortunate that Dr. Brueggemann has stated that :

“I’m running the old fashioned way. No PACs. No outside money. No special interests. I’m not beholden to any partisan agenda.”

In spite of the above statement Dr. Brueggemann sought and I assume will accept the endorsement of the Saratoga Teachers Association which I would argue is indeed a “special interest group” and one that will be spending a good deal of PAC money to promote him in the School Board race. I fully support my union’s participation in the democratic process by endorsing and supporting candidates with the money collected from many small donors. “Special interest” and PACs are not for me  automatically pejorative terms.  Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case with Dr. Brueggemann.

Words matter. It would be good if Dr. Brueggemann’s words more closely aligned with his actions.

 

 

The Saratoga Springs Teachers Association, a local of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) union, announced their endorsements today for the Saratoga Springs School Board.  They have selected:

John Brueggemann

Dean Kolligian

Natalya Lakhtakia

This now puts the full force of NYSUT ‘s PAC behind them.  Over the years the teachers have established an impressive organization to support their endorsed candidates.  It includes phone banks and mailings to all NYSUT members living in the school district.

Now I applaud the teachers for organizing themselves to be a force in their community.  I applaud them just as I applaud Saratoga Parents for Safer Schools for similarly banding together to communicate their concerns to our community.  It is called Democracy.  Neither of these groups is gathering money from corporate interests. Both have relied on the contributions of many small donations from private citizens.

When John Brueggemann announced his campaign for the School Board he issued a press release in which he stated the following:

 “I’m running the old fashioned way. No PACs. No outside money. No special interests. I’m not beholden to any partisan agenda.”  

He now finds himself in a difficult position.  As the readers of this blog will recall, I have criticized Dr. Brueggemann for what I considered a cheap and exploitive campaign which criticized the money SPSS raised and accused Shaun Wiggins, Ed Cubanski, and Dean Kolligian of lacking independence because they accepted the SPSS endorsement.  In spite of his criticisms of the three SPSS candidates along with Connie Woytowich, Dr. Brueggemann sought and has now received the support of probably the most powerful PAC in the district.

—————————————————————–

candidates-letter-1.pdf

By many accounts Saratoga Springs School Board candidate  John Brueggemann provided the most polished presentation at the League of Women Voters forum Wednesday night.  In a venue that provided an unthreatening vehicle for presenting oneself, he excelled.  I expect that he drew effectively on his years as a professor at Skidmore.

A closer look at the substance of his public record continues to raise troubling questions, however.

Central to Dr. Brueggemann’s narrative is his repeated assertion that his positions are based upon the sound advice of experts.

In an earlier post I reported that his Facebook page stated that 

“I take comfort in the fact that our protocols are aligned with the recommendations of the New York State Insurance Reciprocals which insures some half the schools in the state.  It is their considered view that Grounds Monitors should not be re-armed.”

This statement is simply false.  There is no other way to fairly characterize it.  At a public forum on safety in the schools, the representative of the insurance company told the audience:

 “Whether they do or don’t, is a question for the community and the school board, and as a risk manager, I’m going (to) lean either way.“ 

It is important to acknowledge that the insurance representative emphasized that the school system would need to carefully assess how to address the need for training the monitors first.

All of this was covered in an earlier post on this blog, but what is extremely disturbing is that as of today (May 10), weeks after this misrepresentation was brought to Dr. Brueggemann’s attention, the erroneous information remains on his Facebook page.

It is not as though this were some minor technicality, it is central to his position that the monitors not be re-armed.  I find it inexplicable that he not only has failed to acknowledge his original error but that he continues to promote it.  After all, Dr. Brueggemann is a professor of sociology who professionally operates in an environment in which fastidious accuracy is a prerequisite.

This is not the only example of his ignoring critical information central to his repeated claim that his position opposing the re-arming of the monitors has the support of experts.

In many ways, just as disturbing has been his omission of the testimony given on behalf of the Saratoga Springs Police Department.

I would ask the reader: who would have greater insight into the resources necessary to provide protection to the schools than the police department that is charged with that responsibility?  Assistant Chief John Catone advised the audience at a School Board meeting where Dr. Brueggemann was present,  that he viewed the support of armed monitors at the schools as essential in order to maximize the ability to respond to a threat at the schools.

Now I am sympathetic to the position that any expert advice should be considered with some skepticism and weighed against other relevant information.  The problem in this case is that Dr. Brueggemann has inexplicably not even acknowledged that this advice was given.

Again, it is hard to understand how a scholar with Dr. Brueggemann’s credentials can assert that all the professional advice supports his position when he is fully aware of the police department’s advice which counters his position.

Which brings me to what I find in many ways the most disturbing aspect of how Dr. Brueggemann has performed in this campaign.  Dr. Brueggemann not only ignores these kinds of troubling facts, but he refuses to respond to legitimate inquiries about these omissions.

One of the most important aspects of being on the School Board is the willingness to engage with citizens who may be critical of decisions that a board member may make.  Citizens do not have license to be rude or offensive in questioning the members of the School Board, and Dr. Brueggemann has every right to dismiss someone who behaves offensively to him.  What he should not do, as a member of the School Board, though, is refuse to address valid questions put to him that are of significant importance to the community.

I have written several times to Dr. Brueggemann with concerns.  While Dr. Brueggemann cannot be compelled to answer such questions, one would have expected at least a courteous acknowledgement.  One might expect this, but in Dr. Brueggemann’s case one would be disappointed.

So I am using this blog to make a courteous request of Dr. Brueggemann.

I am offering him the opportunity to publish his unedited answers to the following questions on this website.  My three questions are:

1. Why have you not corrected your Facebook page to accurately present the position of the representative of the district’s insurance company regarding the re-arming of the monitors?

2.      In asserting that your position that the monitors should not be re-armed is based on the advice of professionals, why have you not acknowledged that the police department does not support this?

3.      Assistant Police Chief Catone was quite specific in laying out the reasons he believes the monitors should be re-armed.  Would you please address the points he has made. 

As indicated by the title of this blog, I find it deeply troubling that Dr. Brueggemann appears to be unwilling or unable to address critical issues regarding his platform.  I am hoping that he will show me and the public that my criticisms are unfounded by taking up my offer and responding to the above questions.  I hope that he will respond in the constructive spirit that has prompted my questions.

The opponents of the Saratoga Hospital expansion have created a website with background information and coming events.  Readers interested in their campaign can find the site here   

Shafer Gaston is a member of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee and is married to Saratoga Springs County Supervisor Tara Gaston.  

Mr. Gaston maintains a Facebook page.  On May third in a thread regarding announced Republican candidate for Commissioner of Public Safety Robin Dalton, someone named Abe Viveros posted a comment in which he referred to her as “That c..t” . 

Normally, as the readers of this blog know, I would have put up a screen shot documenting this but in this case I prefer not to.  If anyone wants to confirm my accuracy they can visit Mr. Gaston’s Facebook page.  The thread was on May 3rd beginning at 9:16 PM.

For those unfamiliar with Facebook, Mr. Gaston controls what goes up on his page and can remove any comments at his discretion.

In courtesy to Mr. Gaston, I emailed him giving him an opportunity to reconsider allowing this remark on his “page.”

He responded by expressing surprise that I was concerned because he could not understand why I would expect him to “prevent someone from saying what they want on a public Facebook page.”  He went on to defend Mr. Viveros’ right to say anything he wanted “…as are you and all the other conservatives that come over to whine about being ‘bullied’ when they are being quoted.”

For all my criticisms of Mr. Gaston, I find it hard to believe that there is not some limit to his tolerance for what he allows to appear on his page.  For example, I do not think that he would allow someone to publish a comment on his page that referred to Kendall Hicks, who is the Democratic candidate for Commissioner of Public Safety and who is black, using the  “N” word.

I looked up the definition of mysogyny using Google and found the following:

“dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.”

It is regrettable that Mr. Gaston does not seem to understand that what he allows on his Facebook page contributes to the debasing of women which is all too common in our society.  

—————————————————————————————-

To: Shafer Gaston

Date: May 5

Subject: Crude Epithet

Shafer,

On your Facebook page on Friday (May 3) night you allowed someone on your page to refer to Robin Dalton using the C word.  People took you to task for allowing this kind of truly odious comment.  In the thread you acknowledged the comment and rather than take it down you offered the following response:

“All I have done is posted the words that someone else said, and there are now a tone of people coming out of the woodwork to tell me to be more civil.  Maybe I am in fact not cut out for this city.”

As of tonight (Sunday, May. 5th) the comment is still up there.

As the moderator, you control what appears on your page.  Can you offer some kind of explanation for why you have allowed this?

—————————————————————————————-

To: John Kaufmann

Date: May 5

Subject: Re Crude Epithet

I am uncertain why I am supposed to prevent someone from saying what they want on a public facebook post.  Mr. Viveros is free to write what he wants, as are you and all the other conservatives that come over to whine about being ‘bullied’ when they are being quoted.  Apparently, someone has somehow bullied a fifteen year old girl as well, and I am somehow a party to that.  The Fox News-style theatrics are truly over the top.

I will add you to the growing tally of people who are upset that Robin Dalton said something publicly and I noticed it.

I look forward to seeing you misquote me in your blog.