Tag: elections

Wendy Watch: Moran Court Case Goes to Trial

Over the years, I have posted many “Wendy Watches” – blogs looking at the many inaccuracies and misrepresentations often found in Times Union reporter Wendy Liberatore’s articles, especially those covering Saratoga Springs political issues. One of her more recent articles, this one supposedly about Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran’s most recent appearance in City Court, made me wonder, yet again, whether Ms. Liberatore is incompetent and unable to get her facts straight or malicious and uses her platform at the Albany paper to deliberately try to hurt and anger people.

Ms. Liberatore’s April 10, 2025 article, headlined “Saratoga Springs Commissioner Rejects Deal, Will Head To Trial in FOIA Case” begins as a fairly straightforward account of, as the headline indicates, Democratic Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran rejecting a plea deal and opting for a bench trial on charges he prevented access to public records in violation of the Freedom of Information Act. For the first few paragraphs, Ms. Liberatore’s coverage is pretty similar to the Daily Gazette story about the same events. The Gazette story is a fairly simple, straightforward account of Moran’s hearing.

In contrast, however, Ms. Liberatore’s report soon veers off into a litany of past debunked accusations and mischaracterizations of issues surrounding the case against a different Democratic City Council member -former Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub.

Consider this excerpt from the Liberatore account:

Moran’s case joins other investigations and charges levied against Democrats in the city. Former Commissioner of Public Works Jason Golub was charged with official misconduct, a misdemeanor, by city police at the direction of Commissioner of Public Safety Tim Coll, who is allied with the city’s Republicans. That charge relates to a city plumber’s 10-minute visit to Golub’s home to pour a drain-clearing substance down his kitchen sink.

Let’s start with a basic fact check.

  • Liberatore asserts that Golub was charged for his misuse of employees at the “direction” of Commissioner Coll. Coll has consistently stated that the investigation involved a coordinated process between the police command staff and the Saratoga County District Attorney. Ms. Liberatore has made this allegation about Coll before and has yet to provide supporting evidence.
  • Liberatore asserts that Coll is “allied” with the city’s Republicans. Allied is a very loaded word, as Ms. Liberatore knows well, and it is hard to discern what exactly Ms. Liberatore means by this as, again, she gives no examples. She chooses to ignore the fact that Coll, a registered Democrat, has now been endorsed by the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee as well as the Republican committee and the non-partisan One Saratoga. These endorsements indicate the very opposite of what Liberatore implies. Coll’s record shows a consistent pattern of evaluating and supporting measures based on their merits, not partisanship. Would the Democratic Committee have endorsed Coll if he was simply an “ally” of the Republican Party?
  • In addition to her attacks on Coll, Liberatore mischaracterizes the crime Golub is charged with as “…a city plumber’s 10-minute visit to Golub’s home to pour a drain-clearing substance down his sink.” In fact, two city employees, not one, did work at Golub’s house, and there was not one visit but two.

So, where do these false claims about Coll and the misinformation about the Golub incident she uses in her article come from? Here is an excerpt from a WAMC report where Golub’s attorney, Karl Sleight, is quoted.

“Well, the preliminary disclosures by the District Attorney’s office suggest that Commissioner Coll was intimately involved in this manner. The more we look at this, the real question here is, what was the motivation for charges (emphasis added)? As I’ve said from the beginning, this case involved eight minutes, a jug of Drano, a clogged sink. My question is, what motivated someone to try to charge an attorney of the stature of my client months after the event with this charge? We’ll get to the bottom of it, and it starts today,” said Sleight.

Karl Sleight to WAMC November 26, 2024

It’s understandable that Sleight would play fast and loose with the facts in explaining Golub’s charges to the press. He is being paid to defend his client in any way he can. What is less understandable is why Ms. Liberatore uncritically repeats Sleight’s narrative as if it were fact, never attributing her statements to Golub’s attorney.

Sleight’s narrative is designed to take attention away from the central question of Golub’s use of city employees and materials to work on his private property and to instead focus public attention on a narrative that casts Coll as some kind of boogeyman who, for mysterious reasons (“what was the motivation?”), is driven to persecute Golub (the subtext being racism, ignoring that charges were also brought against Joe O’Neil, a white Republican). What Sleight is hoping is that no one (certainly not Wendy) will realize that even if this false narrative were true, it is irrelevant to the question of whether Golub is guilty of the actions he is charged with.

One has to ask whether Ms. Liberatore’s parroting of Sleight reflects a profound sloppiness or whether she knows better and is simply juicing up the story.

Liberatore’s story then spirals into a recitation of Saratoga Springs Republican Chair Mike Brandi’s lawsuits against Democratic elected officials, furthering a narrative that focuses on partisanship rather than the crimes and improprieties that Brandi’s consistently successful lawsuits have revealed.

Liberatore then ends her story with an attempt to downplay the seriousness of the current accusations against Moran with a misleading characterization of information she got from the Committee on Open Government:

However, Moran’s ticketing for allegedly concealing public records is unique: The deputy counsel at the state Committee on Open Government, Kristin O’Neill, said she has never heard of anyone being ticketed for not fulfilling a Freedom of Information Law request.

This was more than a simple instance of a FOIL request not being fulfilled. Moran filed three notarized statements stating falsely that he did not have the documents being sought.

Liberatore’s spin on a story about a FOIL violation is particularly curious as FOIL is the lifeblood of proper reporting. It allows responsible reporters to check on what our government is doing and inform the public. Delays, if not absolute falsifications like Moran’s, routinely undermine this.

Liberatore was happy to write a story full of partisan spin and misinformation. Her time would have been better spent researching what and why Moran was charged.

Dem Committee Tries to Address Golub/O’Neill Cases

In the days before their Saturday, November 16, 2024, meeting, the members of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee received the following email: a proposal for a resolution addressing the criminal charges being brought against former Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub, a Democrat, and current Public Works Deputy Joe O’Neill, a Republican.

Upon hearing that this resolution was passed by the Committee, my first reaction was that this was a temperate and thoughtful resolution and a welcome change from the toxic comments from Democratic Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran, which were repeated on the Democratic Committee Facebook page. Moran had repeatedly wrongly accused Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll and the Saratoga Springs Police Department of engaging in a racially motivated vendetta against Golub.

Unfortunately, not everyone on the Democratic Committee, including Dillon Moran and members of the leadership, supports this resolution.

The History

As described in an earlier post, the city Democratic Committee posted a shrill attack on Tim Coll and the police on their Facebook page, prompted by the misdemeanor charges against Jason Golub and Joe O’Neill for allegedly using city employees and resources to do work on private property—in the case of Golub, it was his home. The Democrat’s Facebook page claimed the accusations against Golub and O’Neill were motivated by “revenge and racism,” ignoring, among other things, that the case had originated in the New York State Comptroller’s Office and that O’Neill is white. One Committee member commented that she thought the charges were “petty.”

That prompted Republican chair Mike Brandi to write, “To be clear here, it’s the official position of the Saratoga Springs Democrats that you are ok with city officials having city employees do work on their private homes on city time with city property?“

Otis Maxwell, who chairs the city Democratic Committee and manages its Facebook page, never answered Brandi’s question but blocked further comments instead.

The Resolution

Upon learning that the committee had adopted the resolution, my first response was hopeful. As I read it, rather than make harsh speculative accusations that implied that the charges were driven by racism and some kind of alleged grudge, they appropriately urged that the public consider the two men innocent pending actions by the court and affirmed in the strongest terms that any use by public officials of city resources for personal use is illegal and wrong.

I welcomed what I hoped would be the committee’s long-needed shift toward a disciplined and civil approach to future political engagement.

Hopes Dashed

Unfortunately, as reflected by their Facebook page, the committee’s leadership subverted this welcome development.

Otis Maxwell, the committee’s chair and the moderator of the Facebook page, simply added a “note” to the toxic post stating that the committee does not condone the use of public resources for private gain by elected officials. He left the reckless attacks untouched.

I wrote to Maxwell to ask if he would post the resolution in its entirety, but he has not responded.

Likewise, Commissioner Moran ignored his party’s sentiments expressed in the resolution when he once again, this time at the Council table, belittled the charges against Golub and O’Neill for using city workers and materials to resolve a plumbing issue in Golub’s private home. In this video from the November 19, 2024, council meeting, Moran describes the case as being about “criminalizing Draino.”

The Good And The Bad

The resolution is a modest statement that simply asserts what is traditionally accepted as the core of our justice system: that people accused of a crime should be considered innocent until proven guilty and that it is improper for public officials to utilize government resources for personal use.

While I applaud the authors of this resolution and the committee members who voted for it, I am struck by the fact that a significant number of committee members either abstained or voted against it. Among them was Dillon Moran.

I only wish I had been present to have heard the arguments against this resolution.

Digging Down

While I was surprised by this resolution, considering the committee’s recent history offers some insight into its possible roots.

The committee wanted the special election to fill Golub’s vacancy, which would occur on November 5 to coincide with the national election. Given the dominance of Democrats in the city enrollment, it was assumed that any Democrat would have been elected on the coattails of Kamala Harris.

Unfortunately for them, Jason Golub refused to resign in time for a replacement to appear on the ballot despite numerous attempts to convince him to do so. I am told that he stopped taking telephone calls from the committee’s leadership and ignored their texts and emails.

My sources tell me there is considerable bitterness toward Golub among many committee members.

I am also told that many of the committee members dislike Dillon Moran despite Chairman Otis Maxwell being very close to Moran. As the readers of this blog will know, Moran has been both outspoken and toxic in his defense of Golub, who has been a loyal ally of Moran. Readers may recall Golub was a key vote in paying Moran’s $1,250.00 an hour lawyer. Moran also has a bitter history of conflict with Ron Kim, one of the resolution’s drafters, when they served together on the previous City Council.

These internal dynamics in the committee may have contributed to the resolution’s success.

It is unclear whether the resolution will impact Maxwell, which means that the committee’s Facebook page and weekly newsletter will continue what has become a regrettable tradition of hyper-partisanship and ugly attacks.