A Saratoga Springs City Council meeting was disrupted by members of the public, including a local Conservative Party official, who uttered racial slurs Tuesday night.
In a meeting where Black Lives Matter activists gathered to respond to a withdrawn proposal to allow an exemption for the hiring of a former Troy police officer who shot an unarmed Black man, tensions flared after a local pastor complained of being insulted on racial grounds.
Earl Wallace is the pastor at the Liberty Christian Fellowship Church in Saratoga Springs, and has rallied around conservative issues in the Capital Region.
“Some of you may recognize me from a video where I am being cursed out, being called all kinds of ‘n-words’ by a particular member of the community. And I was going to wait to see if the city was going to do something so that I could get some sort of justice or acknowledgement out of that situation. Instead, I hear people boasting about their bad behavior and saying things like, ‘you’re about to contribute to my children’s college fund,’” said Wallace.
Wallace was referring to interactions he had with local Saratoga BLM organizer Lex Figuereo at a July 2020 pro-police rally in Saratoga Springs. Figuereo publicly apologized for using racial slurs against Wallace after the video was shared on Facebook.
Saratoga County Conservative Party leader David Buchyn recorded the 2020 video. Speaking to the council after Wallace, Buchyn, who worked on Mayor John Safford’s 2023 campaign, quoted the racial epithets.
“He called Pastor Wallace, he said, ‘coon, coon, coon. Go back to your side coon. Go back to the other side house n*****,’ he then—
“Quiet down,” pleaded Safford.
“He then said,” continued Buchyn.
“That’s hate speech!” said Figuereo.
“He said, ‘go back to your side house negro,” said Buchyn.
Speaking with WAMC Wednesday, Buchyn acknowledged using racist language.
“The word’s that I said are disgusting, despicable, racist words. And they all came from the mouth of Lex Figuereo. Ok? So, I’m quoting him. Maybe his words are so vile and disgusting that they shouldn’t be repeated. But I’m not going to sit there and let Black people be called those words,” said Buchyn.
Figuereo tells WAMC Buchyn misrepresented what he had said to Wallace, and claimed the four-year-old issue was being brought up to get a rise out of activists.
“So, the hard ‘er’ that David Buchyn kept on saying over and over again is a misrepresentation of actually what I said. And you know, coming out of an old white man’s mouth who was named in the AG’s report as somebody who was actually trying to entice and promote Robin Dalton to make arrests when there was no arrests to be made. So, he was behind a lot of this stuff is insane to me,” said Figuereo.
Democratic Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran called Buchyn’s comment inflammatory.
“After he’s named in the Attorney General’s report for calling for the illegal arrest of members of my community, he’s got a lot of balls. He should be contrite, he should apologize for his actions. He should not walk into one of our meetings, inflate it, and then smile about it,” said Moran.
The New York State Attorney General’s office recently released a long-anticipated report on its probe into past city officials’ interactions with Black Lives Matter demonstrators, finding demonstrators were unconstitutionally targeted.
Speaking after the meeting, Mayor Safford did not directly comment on Buchyn’s remarks, but said he was proud council members were able to maintain their civility during the tense exchange.
“And we were able to, I don’t know if you noticed, but we got through some very difficult points between us. Not just the public comment area which got a little interesting tonight. But the one thing we’re bending over backwards is to let people speak,” said Safford.
