Tensions flared again at Tuesday’s Saratoga Springs City Council meeting during an ongoing debate over the payment of legal bills for city hall employees.
Last July, the Saratoga Springs city council approved the payment of a more than $60,000 legal bill incurred by Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran and his deputy. They racked up the bill in connection with a Saratoga County DA’s investigation into an on-call pay dispute where deputies were set to receive additional payment for attending city events.
The investigation ended in may without a decision concerning how deputies are paid when they take on additional work and attend ‘events.’
But while the DA’s investigations didn’t result in any meaningful findings, the resulting legal bills funded by city taxpayers remain.
While the legal bills remain, the city is prohibited from making the payments according to a decision last month by Saratoga Count State Supreme Court Judge James Walsh.
Last month, however, Saratoga County State Supreme Court Judge James Walsh ruled that those legal payments can’t be made by the city.
City GOP Committee Chair Mike Brandi, who sued to halt the payments, celebrated the July 11th decision.
“Saratoga Springs has adopted Article 18 of the Public Officers Law through Section 9-1 of the city code. And what that section does is if you are sued in a civil context arising out of your scope of employment, for the city of Saratoga Springs, you are entitled to indemnity and a defense. Now, what that doesn’t provide is if you are charged in a crime or you just want to go get an attorney. So, that’s what happened here,” said Brandi.
Walsh found the payments constituted gifts from the city to Moran, and former deputy public works Commissioner Jason Golub, and their deputy commissioners – the state constitution prohibits gifts from municipalities to individuals.
Walsh’s decision has also cascaded into blocking the approved payments for Golub’s official misconduct case that accused the former commissioner of having city employees work on his private property while on the city clock and using city resources. Those charges were dismissed by a city judge and city Democrats maintain it was a politically motivated attack.
Now, city Democrats want to appeal Walsh’s decision which effectively erased the city’s ability to indemnify officials and city employees.
Chair of the city’s Democratic Committee Otis Maxwell spoke at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
“Setting aside the current specifics, this action could have a chilling effect on recruiting employees or volunteers for any office knowing if they have a claim brough against them the city will say, ‘sorry you’re on your own.’ It’s not fair and it’s not wise if we want to have a functioning city government. For that matter, what about cases of former officials who were involved in defending themselves against the Attorney General’s report,” said Maxwell. “Can I assume these officials will now be forced to repay these expenses?”
In May of 2024 the city council approved the payment of legal bills for former Mayor Meg Kelly totaling upwards of $60,000 related to a New York State Attorney General probe into the city’s treatment of Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
The attorney general found Kelly and other former city officials and city police violated the constitutional rights of demonstrators in 2020 and 2021.
Moran and Public Works Commissioner Chuck Marshall had a tense exchanged on the issue.
“Our charter indemnifies [Golub] for being not guilty. He was found not guilty,” said Moran.
“Yeah our charter does not indemnify him because we did not adopt public officers law section 19 which the mayor is proactively trying to do to protect people in the future and I think that that’s going to be—,” said Marshall.
“Are you a lawyer?” said Moran.
“No, but you’ve indicated earlier that you’ve read the decision and opined that you disagree with the decision. So—,” said Marshall.
“I have been told by multiple lawyers that—,” said Moran.
“But you’re still not a lawyer,” said Marshall.
“No, but I’m not talking about my opinion, I’m talking about what I was told,” said Moran.
WAMC obtained communications from the New York Conference of Mayors’ general counsel saying NYCOM staff would support the city if it were to file an appeal of Walsh’s decision.
Republican Mayor John Safford tells WAMC he’s looking to align the city’s procedures with state laws when it comes to paying the legal bills of officials and city employees.
But for now, the mayor says, with Walsh’s decision, their hands are tied.
“The most important thing for everybody, including NYCOM by the way is that officials are covered for liability and acts that they do in the performance of their duty, make sure if somebody doesn’t like that and sues that there’s coverage for them. But there is a clear distinction that this rendering from Judge Walsh has made very clear to us is that our current provision, I think it’s 9L, is not adequate for the types of things that happen today,” said Safford.
A public hearing on potential updates to the city’s codes is set to be held ahead of the August 19th meeting.
