Democratic candidates in Saratoga Springs are lining up ahead of November’s election.
The Democratic ticket is shaping up in the Spa City.
Michele Madigan of the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors is running for mayor, after a failed bid for county treasurer last year and being elected to her current post in 2023.
Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran is seeking reelection, while current Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi has set her sights on one of the two county supervisor seats. Attorney Sarah Burger is also running for a supervisor post.
At a campaign kickoff Wednesday at the Saratoga Casino Hotel, Burger said she’d like to see more resident input on county operations.
“Unlike the city of Saratoga Springs, where we have many different boards and volunteer boards and have a very active community, citizens at the county are kind of shut out, I think, from a lot of those processes and are unknown to the average person. So, I intend to appoint my own citizens advisory committee,” said Burger.
Burger says if elected she’d like to see the county support Saratoga Springs’ recent effort to deploy peer-to-peer counselors with city police to better support unhoused residents and respond to mental health incidents.
Burger also said she supports the renewed effort to change bar closing times. Saratoga County’s last call is at 4 a.m. but city leaders would like it rolled back to 2 or 3 a.m.
Burger tells WAMC she’d also like to see the county invest in green infrastructure.
“In the city of Saratoga Springs, of course, we did put together a solar panel field. I’d like to see the county-owned buildings upgrade their technology and be more energy efficient and perhaps, in a similar fashion, use solar panels or something to provide some energy there because to my knowledge I don’t think that’s been discussed at the county. But those are things we can work on and fuel efficient, energy efficient vehicles for the county,” said Burger.
A public hearing on proposed bar closing time changes is set for April 9th.
Engineer Shafer Gaston is running for Finance Commissioner. He’d like to create a new position in the department dedicated to managing the city’s grants.
“If you have a person in that office, and their job is to find these grants and apply for these grants and maintain the information that we need to get these grants, that’s a position that within a couple of years pays for itself 10 times over. There’s no way we’re going to spend upwards of a million dollars on one person’s salary. But if they can bring in $1 million of grants to fund things, to fund public safety, to fund sidewalk refurbishment, to fund sidewalk refurbishment, the list is endless if you look far enough,” said Gaston.
BK Keramati, who served on the city’s charter review commission in 2015, is running to lead the Public Works Department.
Saratoga Springs uses a commission form of government, where elected commissioners run their respective departments and make up the city council.
First-term Republican Mayor John Safford has begun to establish a new charter review committee, something Keramati fully supports.
“The commission form of government is just not a good way to get things done in a city. One of the things we learned is that many cities in the United States were set up as a commission form of government, almost all of them have moved away, and most of them that have moved away have had big studies and most of them concluded that a city manager form of government is a better form of government. And, you know, what makes us think that we’re so different from anybody else,” said Keramati.
Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll, who won his first term in 2023 with GOP backing, is receiving endorsements from both city Democrats and Republicans.