The Saratoga Springs City Council voted Tuesday to file a notice of appeal that would allow them to contest a judge’s ruling that has to do with repaying a former council member’s legal fees.
Former Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub was charged with official misconduct in November 2024 in connection to an alleged incident in which a DPW employee unclogged a drain at Golub’s home while on city time.
When the charge was issued, Golub’s attorney Karl Sleight called it “unserious.”
“There’s no evidence in the police file that Jason knew that the city DPW worker was ‘on the clock’ as they say and Jason Golub did not direct him to come to his house knowing he was on the clock. It’s a requirement under the law that Jason have an intent and a knowledge to do those things. He simply did not and every stitch of evidence in the police file corroborates that,” said Sleight.
In June 2025, City Court Judge Jeffrey Wait dismissed the case, saying it was “fundamentally flawed” because it failed to show Golub knew the DPW employee was on the clock.
Then Golub formally requested the city reimburse his roughly $50,000 in legal fees. But in August the council rejected that payment in a 3-1 vote.
Golub, a Democrat, petitioned to overturn that vote, and last month, Saratoga County Supreme Court Judge Richard Kupferman ruled in Golub’s favor, giving the City Council 60 days to redo the indemnification vote. Kupferman called the council’s reasoning behind their August vote “erroneous.”
That was some of the backstory leading to Tuesday’s meeting, when the five-member City Council unanimously voted to file a notice of appeal. The move gives the council 30 days to make their next move.
Republican Mayor John Safford spoke with reporters following the meeting, emphasizing this was a preliminary step, and the council still had to decide how to proceed.
“Well, I mean there’s a number of options. We can refuse it again, to pay it. We can come up with some compromise to pay it. Or we can pay it. These are all options. Or we can appeal the judge’s decision. We leave all those options open,” said Safford.
The controversy over the legal fees follows a long-running dispute between Golub and current Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll, who was elected with GOP backing in 2023.
During a 2022 discussion on an aggressive panhandling resolution, Golub, then a council member, suggested city police might take the word of a “rich white lady” over that of an unhoused person. Coll, who was participating in the meeting as a citizen, filed a number of complaints against Golub, including one with the New York State Bar Association.
A fter the dismissal of the official misconduct charge against Golub in 2024, Karen Heggen, who was the Saratoga County district attorney at the time, did not pursue an appeal of the decision, nor did she refile similar charges.
Coll spoke last spring with WAMC about his 2022 run-in with Golub.
“I was very troubled a few years ago [by] what Jason said about referring to a ‘rich white lady’ referring to someone’s status as being rich or white or black or poor or yellow or whatever their status is, or sexual orientation, versus their activity. And I made that known at the time. About a week or two after that I sat down with Jason and we’ve had a fine relationship ever since that even when I was in office,” said Coll.
In a statement, Golub and his attorney questioned the motive behind the council’s continued refusal to indemnify the former official, saying “at some point, this starts looking like a vendetta funded by public money, or worse, a vendetta against a Black man by Mr. Coll and the SSPD.”
During Tuesday’s meeting city resident Mary Beth Delarm raised similar concerns.
“Citizens are not paying for your fraudulent accusations and your misuse of taxpayer funds. I, at least, refuse to. Be accountable and do whats right as two courts alluded to. So, you decide, plain and simple, do you want to keep on personal, biased vendettas, or protect the citizens as you were sworn to,” said Delarm.
For his part, Mayor Safford rejects Golub’s framing.
“We certainly do not think that’s valid at all. I don’t. But that’s not, that’s part of the argument we just don’t think that’s valid at all,” said Safford.
Coll decline to comment following Tuesday’s meeting.
