Watching the Saratoga Springs City Council meeting on July 2,2024, I was struck by how incestuous the world the Faction (Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub/Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran/Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi) lives in is. It is truly impressive how oblivious they are as to how the public views the debacle of Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran running up a $61,000.00 legal bill at $1,250.00 per hour. They appear to believe that no one will notice or disapprove if they ignore the New York statutes on how legal bills are dealt with and instead nod their heads approvingly at each other's clearly inaccurate characterizations of what Moran did and what the obligation of the city is to pay his exorbitant bills.
It must have come as quite a shock to the Faction (Golub/Moran/Sanghvi) when the Times Union, in its July 9, 2024 edition editorial, caustically condemned their approval of Moran's bills to date.
"It would be wise for the city's government, if it is going to continue picking up these costs, to set a reasonable ceiling for this type of service. If Mr. Moran wants legal services that are the equivalent of a fully loaded Cadillac, he can cover the cost difference out of his own pocket."
Times Union Editorial
While all members of The Faction behaved badly, Jason Golub's behavior in this debacle was especially disturbing and is discussed in some detail later in this post.
The Magical World Of Commissioner Minita Sanghvi
Readers will recall that Moran, Golub, and others are seeking to have the City pay their lawyers' bills because of an investigation by the Saratoga County District Attorney related to the on-call pay scandal. The investigation is focused on how City Council documents were altered to include the word "events" in the resolution establishing on-call pay for the Deputies. The addition of that word was used to expand the circumstances when on-call pay could be earned.
While this is an ongoing investigation, Commissioner Sanghvi has not been shy about confidently weighing in on the merits of the case. In the July 2, 2024, edition of the Times Union, reporter Wendy Liberatore wrote:
In an email, Sanghvi said the subpoena (related to on-call scandal) is "hullabaloo about nothing" and that the resolution was approved again on Feb. 21, 2023 — almost two weeks after the initial vote — after a typo regarding vacation days was discovered. The word "event" was not discussed at that meeting (Libertore here undermines Sanghvi's narrative).
Times Union
The first question that I would like to ask Commissioner Sanghvi is simply why when the Saratoga County District Attorney and the state police are conducting an extensive investigation into who and why the minutes of a Council meeting were doctored, she is so confident that no crime occurred.
During the July 2 meeting, Sanghvi bizarrely tried to argue that there was no problem and nothing to investigate since the Council approved a version of the resolution that included the added word "events" when the resolution had to be revisited because of a typo. What she ignores is that, as the TU points out, there was no discussion about adding this word, nor was there a motion to make the change. Council members would have had no idea that word had been added to what they were voting on.
Sanghvi tries to ignore the obvious question that the investigation is focused on: how and why the language was changed and who changed it.
In the following video clip, Commissioner Sanghvi first claims that the doctored language ("events") was part of the original deliberations approving "on-call" payback in February 2023. (A review of the video of that earlier discussion reveals that this is patently false. The word "events" was never mentioned.) She then goes on to make her argument that the Council unknowingly voting for a doctored document somehow erases the culpability of whoever made the change.
This is just one example of the disinformation promoted by the Faction (Golub/Moran/Sanghvi).
Moran's Conflict of Interest?
The two city attorneys advised that Dillon Moran did not have a conflict of interest and could vote to approve the payment for his own attorney's fees.
Saratoga Springs Republican chair Mike Brandi has initiated an Article 78 action in Saratoga County Supreme Court to nullify the Council vote to pay Moran's bills. One of the many elements in his challenge is the issue of Moran's conflict of interest.
I am not a lawyer and have not had the privilege of reading the memorandum issued by our City Attorneys clearing the way for Moran to vote. While there may be a legitimate legal rationale for granting Moran the privilege to vote on his own bill, it seems more than odd.
If Moran had not been allowed to vote on paying his own bill, there would not have been a majority, and the authorization would have failed. If it failed, Moran would be on the hook to pay the $61,000.00 bill himself. On its face, this seems like a conflict of interest to me.
We will find out the answer when Judge Freestone rules on Brandi's action.
A History Of Responsibly Seeking Private Counsel
The Faction (Golub/Moran/Sanghvi) would like the public to believe they had no choice but to pay Moran's exorbitant bill. The assumption they made was that because he had a right to counsel, it was too late to address any of the many troubling questions about the bill's cost or the manner by which Moran ran up the bill.
Moran attempted to defend himself from any questioning by announcing that he had consulted with the City Attorney, who had told him he had a right to counsel. Being told he had a right to counsel is not the same as being told he could go out and hire an expensive lawyer from Manhattan at three times the rate of lawyers available in the capital district. The Council was not helpless. Nothing required them to approve this particular bill as presented even though, as we shall see, this is the repeated argument, Jason Golub, in particular, aggressively put forth.
What Moran could and should have done was to follow the example set by Council members and employees who sought representation during the Attorney General's investigation of the city's Police Department. As Moran was sitting on the Council when this process was going forward, he would have been aware of the procedure used in securing counsel by Meg Kelly, Robin Dalton, and others.
Below is a series of emails documenting that past process. In this case, it was for former Public Safety Deputy Eileen Finneran and former Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton, who were involved in the NY Attorney General's probe. The role of Tony Izzo, assistant city attorney, is particularly of note.
In this correspondence, Izzo seeks to know the parameters of hourly rates and overall costs for such representation to prepare for Council approval. Note that this information is being sought and obtained before the attorneys have done any work, not after the fact, as in Moran's case.
Ironically, the three Faction members (Moran, Sanghvi, and Golub) who approved Dillon's bills without even noting that how he proceeded was inappropriate had all been on the Council when Dalton, Finneran, and others went through the process of hiring lawyers and submitting their bills. And let's not forget Dillon voting to refuse to pay Meg Kelly's bills, which in two years were only a fraction of what he managed to accrue in only a few weeks. And, of course, then there was Minita's repeated suggestion that the Council should consider capping payments to lawyers hired by city officials to defend themselves. That was then, and this is now.
Dillon Moran's Cynical Abuse
Moran had to know that it was inappropriate for him to start generating bills without the Council's review. He had to know that there was a threat that if it became public that he was hiring an attorney from Manhattan at a rate of $1,250.00 an hour, the public response would be overwhelmingly negative.
So, unlike Eileen Finneran and Robin Dalton, as documented above, Moran exploited the City Attorney's opinion that he should hire a lawyer as his defense for hiring the Manhattan attorney without any public scrutiny and start billing before getting the Council's approval. Harper's opinion that he should hire a lawyer was not a blank check.
The Issue Of Civil Versus Criminal Indemnification
The Attorney General's investigation involving city officials was a civil matter, not a criminal matter. Under section 18 of the New York State Public Officers Law, public employees enjoy broad protection for covering legal costs and penalties in civil matters.
However, the state of New York deals differently with indemnification in criminal matters.
New York State Law does not authorize the upfront payment of legal costs in criminal matters. Only if the subject of the criminal matter is exonerated can the state reimburse them. This makes sense because why should taxpayers bear the burden of paying the legal bills for government officials found guilty of criminal acts.
For instance, Joe Bruno was eligible to have the state pay his lawyer's bills only after he was found innocent because his was a criminal not a civil case. He paid his legal bills upfront from his campaign fund, and only after his conviction was reversed on appeal did the state agree to reimburse him. Even then, that right to reimbursement was not unlimited. When he submitted his bills for payment, the state determined that the fees he had incurred were not reasonable and only partially reimbursed him. This fact exposes the falsity of the vigorous argument Jason Golub made at the Council table that Dillon's bills could not be adjusted retroactively.
Our city attorneys, David Harper, and Tony Izzo, however, have asserted that because our city code fails to distinguish between criminal and civil matters, the city is obliged to pay Moran's and Connors' legal bills even though this is a criminal investigation.
Why should the city of Saratoga Springs be exceptional in this issue? Brandi's challenge argues that state law supersedes our code and the city should not have paid bills up front in a criminal case.. This is at the heart of Brandi's legal challenge. The citizens will have to wait to see who Judge Freestone agrees with.
The determination of Moran's and Connors' eligibility to have the city pay bills in a criminal matter is just one issue among others currently being challenged in court by Mike Brandi.
What Is Reasonable?
Even when the right to legal representation is clear, the law still requires that the bills be reasonable.
According to former Finance Commissioner, now Supervisor Michele Madigan, during her administration, the city routinely considered the issue of reasonableness before paying bills and often successfully negotiated lower fees than attorneys originally charged.
This issue concerned the two Council members who were not part of The Faction. Both Mayor John Safford and Commissioner Tim Coll expressed grave reservations not about whether to pay for a lawyer for Moran and Connors but about whether the bills Moran submitted to the Council for payment were reasonable.
The bills appeared excessive on their faces, averaging a thousand dollars an hour.
As Commissioner Coll rhetorically asked during the meeting if the city received a large bill, "Would the city have to pay if the bill was for sixty million dollars?" According to Jason Golub's argument, it would.
Attorney Harper was called to the mic by Jason Golub and asked whether he thought the bills were reasonable. Harper declined to express an opinion, offering a mild joke that "there is an honor among thieves," referring to lawyers. Following his quip, he declined to discuss whether Moran's lawyer's fees were reasonable. He then read from a section of the law that outlined general criteria for determining fees.
Commissioner Coll, supported by Mayor Safford, urged that approving the bills should be tabled and that the Council should seek guidance from the New York State Attorney General and the New York State Comptroller. Harper had advised the Council to take this action in an email to the Council members which the members of The Faction on the Council chose to ignore.
Golub Goes Into Disinformation Overdrive
Commissioner Golub would have none of this. Clearly, he wanted to support Moran and Sanghvi now and get the city to authorize the full bill that night, no matter what objections might be raised.
Attorney Harper's restrained style helped Golub exploit confusion. Listening to Harper reminded me of an attorney's advice to a witness to limit answers as much as possible. When asked by Golub if the city was required to pay for Moran's representation, he simply answered Yes. When Golub asked whether the city should pay the bill, Harper simply responded that the Council had the authority to approve the bill. He was clearly reticent to expand on the distinction between Moran's right to be represented and any problems with the bill as submitted.
Golub exploited this by asserting that, according to Harper, the city was obliged to pay for Moran's representation and that since the city had no clear criteria for what was reasonable, the city was compelled to pay the bill. It would have been helpful if Harper had been more emphatic that, as I believe, the city was not obliged to pay the bill as presented and enjoyed the right to negotiate further with Moran's attorney. No one questioned Harper on this, and it was not his style to volunteer to discuss the matter and emphasize the difference between paying a bill and paying this bill.
In a particularly cynical stunt, Golub claimed it was too late to delay paying the bill and seek retroactive advice on whether it was reasonable. I believe that Golub knew quite well that the city had every right to challenge the lawyers' fees, and there was plenty of time to seek an outside opinion and negotiate the cost.
When Coll asked Harper to confirm his email recommending seeking advice from the Comptroller, Harper simply answered yes. Declining to explain to the Council why he thought this prudent made it easy for Golub to ignore his response and insist that the bill be paid in full.
In even more disturbing remarks that ignored Harper's monosyllabic answer, Golub raised the temperature by asserting that by not agreeing to pay the bill that night, Safford and Coll were somehow endangering future officials.
The following exchange captures the tone and disturbing tactics of Golub, who misrepresents Harper by falsely asserting that Harper is insisting that the city pay Moran's bill as presented while misrepresenting Coll and Safford as unwilling to pay any bill.
Golub: "Now we have a legal opinion from our lawyer who says we have an obligation to pay this bill [Harper never said this], which is the same obligation we had to pay our former officials bills. And now we are not going to pay it. Let me finish. This gets us to exactly where we don't want to be with indemnification. What is the point of having legal counsel if we're going to ignore it?" [Golub, of course ignored Harper's recommendation that the city seek the advice of the comptroller]
Coll:"So, we all agree we need to be indemnified, I think our obligation is what's reasonable. We don't have a standard, I agree with that, but what if the bill was $60 million, we should just pay that too because we don't have a reasonableness?"
Golub:"You're applying your subjective standard after the fact and that is dangerous."
Golub Hands Moran A Blank Check
It is critical to note that after his impassioned assertion, which is false, that the city could not retroactively challenge the attorney's bill, he never addresses how to handle Moran's bills going forward. Golub is a smart enough lawyer to know that paying the bill and not addressing how to deal with future bills gave his ally, Moran, the green light to generate even more outrageous bills. As Moran failed to consult the other members of the Council before racking up his $60,000.00 bill, there is no reason to believe that he will not continue to abuse his authority.
The readers of this blog should understand that if a grand jury issues an indictment in this criminal matter, the cost of representation by Dillon's lawyer could easily reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Following Videos Tell It All
It Ain't Over
In the end, The Faction—Golub, Sanghvi, and Moran—voted to pay the bill despite questions about the appropriateness of Moran's voting to pay his own bill. Safford and Coll voted no.
Mike Brandi, the city Republican Committee chair, has brought a legal action that has temporarily stopped the payment of the bill pending legal review.
Golub Exits
Jason Golub has taken an executive position with the New York State Department of Corrections. He will begin the new job next month, requiring him to resign from his Commissioner position.
If Sanghvi and Moran continue to take hardline partisan positions, the Council will be divided two against two. Since passing any resolution requires a majority, paying Moran's bills in the future could become problematic.
Unless the four remaining members of the Council can agree on Golub's replacement, which will be challenging, the Public Works Commissioner position could remain vacant until November 2025.
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