Author: John Kaufmann

In a shocking turn of events, on Friday, February 14, 2025, Christine Gillmett-Brown, Saratoga Springs’ Director of Finance for some twenty-nine years, abruptly gave two weeks notice and will soon be leaving that post.

Christine Gillmett-Brown’s position is one of the most important in the city. In effect, she is the city’s comptroller, with a central role in managing the city’s money. Her responsibilities include, among other things, overseeing all cash accounts, including incoming and outgoing cash, finance accounts receivable and payable, property tax payments, bond matters, debt limit, accounting for fund balance, and audits. In addition, she plays a crucial role in crafting the city’s budget.

As Finance Commissioner Sanghvi does not return my emails, I am not privy to what precipitated Ms. Gillmett-Brown’s departure with so little notice. The position will be vacant on February 28, 2025, and Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi appears to have no plan in place to replace Gillmett-Brown let alone train a replacement. The Department of Finance is a small office. One has to wonder how uninvolved Sanghvi is with her staff that the resignation of the most critical person under her has come as a surprise.

A Troubling Advertisement For Gillmett-Brown’s Replacement

According to this exam announcement, a person currently employed by the city is eligible for the position of Finance Director if they have “Two consecutive permanent full-time paid years as Payroll Administrator with the city of Saratoga Springs.”

Only one employee who works for the city meets this qualification.

This person enjoys a special status with Sanghvi as she has repeatedly promoted him while in office and given him related pay raises.

The individual maintains no presence on social media. In particular, he has no LinkedIn page, so there is no information available regarding his qualifications for this job other than his payroll experience. He began his employment with the city at age twenty-seven as a clerk.

Under the best circumstances, a FOIL request for information on him would require a month. We know Gillmett-Brown has an accounting degree from Clarkson University.

Readers should also know that as Payroll Administrator, he played a key role in the on-call scandal.

I find it shocking that the Civil Service Commission considers a person who has served two years as the manager of the city’s payroll qualified to be the city’s Director of Finance.

Problematic Audits

I have written extensively about the shoddy, poorly crafted city budgets Commissioner Sanghvi has produced. City audits since her election indicate additional problems with how she has carried out her responsibilities as Finance Commissioner.

The city’s audits were consistently favorable before Minita Sanghvi took over as Finance Commissioner. Here is just one example from 2023 of critical audits under her administration. It is important to understand that the term “material” conveys that the item is serious.

This next page contains a statement asserting that the audit has found records that are not reliable.

Here, the auditor declares that the city’s management ( Sanghvi) “does not have processes and controls in place to ensure complete and accurate reporting of capital asset balances.”

The Reviews Of Sanghvi’s Teaching Are Less Than Flattering

Given Sanghvi’s imperious and rude behavior at the Council table, I suspect her behavior toward her staff could be problematic as well and may have contributed to Gillmett-Brown’s abrupt exit with little notice.

I was curious about her interactions outside of City Hall. Below are comments from her students at Skidmore on a website called Rate My Professors. Most are highly critical of the manner by which she dealt with them. Of the 26 reviews of her teaching, eight are positive, and sixteen are negative. Oddly, five of the eight positive reviews were submitted on the same day, which is unusual given the random pattern of the dates of the other reviews.

It is worth noting that surveys like this use the computer’s IP address when doing the review, so it is easy to skew the results by entering reviews using different devices.

Most strikingly, these reviews consistently focus on how she interacts with her students and echo the character traits that are often observable at the City Council table.

Michele Madigan has announced she is seeking the endorsement of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee to run for Mayor of Saratoga Springs. While during the ten years she served as the Commissioner of Finance in the city, she did an excellent job managing the city’s money, she unfortunately, also showed extremely poor judgment on numerous occasions in her social and professional interactions with the public and her colleagues on the Council while in office.

As the readers of this blog are aware, along with the country as a whole, the atmosphere at City Council meetings has suffered from the uncivil and contentious behavior of a number of elected officials in recent years. Many of us have worked hard to elect individuals to the Council who would return civility and restraint to the conduct of pubic meetings. With regret, rather than contributing to the progress that has been made with new faces at the table, Ms. Madigan’s history indicates that, if elected, she would only further exacerbate the problems some have worked so hard to correct.

Intemperate Behavior

The following two videos are examples of Madigan’s repeatedly problematic behavior at the Council table. [JK:The titles were not created by me]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=wcgoq48TbZM%3Ffeature%3Doembed

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CDbvlMDtxdU%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The October 29, 2019 edition of the Daily Gazette reported on another disturbing incident involving Madigan when she was in office:

On Oct. 17, Democratic Committee member Scott Solomon, a downtown business owner, along with city resident Rick Thompson, sent a complaint to the state Board of Elections, saying Madigan “bullied constituents” and engaged in a “clear abuse of power.”

Their complaint is based on two emails Madigan sent to Solomon in early October, after learning that Solomon was hosting a fundraiser for Morrison [JK: Her opponent at the time] at the restaurant Siro’s, which he co-owns. The emails were sent from Madigan’s personal account, not her city account. In the second message, Madigan said she would no longer offer Solomon any assistance as she had in the past. As recently as July, emails show Solomon sought and received Madigan’s help with a State Liquor Authority issue, as he sought to open a new restaurant.

“You can get in line like everyone else,” Madigan wrote him on Oct. 11. “I’m sorry I considered you a friend. I hear you have a lot of code violations by the way. Enjoy.”

Daily Gazette

Madigan subsequently apologized to Solomon. As reported in the Times Union, Solomon was later convicted of fraud over COVID payments and sentenced to thirteen months in jail.

Saratoga National and the Greenbelt

Ms. Madigan’s history regarding the city’s greenbelt is similarly troubling.

Saratoga National campaigned for years to build a major hotel and a condo complex on its land in the city’s greenbelt.

When the founders of Saratoga National first proposed their project, they made numerous promises to the city.

One of their promises was to incorporate two nature trails for the community. This is a link to a post this blogger wrote about their brazen disregard for this promise. It is worth the read because, for this blogger, it established why I became hostile to and more than suspicious of anything Saratoga National had to propose.

In 2015, Saratoga National proposed a major expansion that required amending the city’s zoning to accommodate a “golfing resort.” Sustainable Saratoga wrote an excellent paper documenting the problematic implications of the change.

The proposed zoning amendment that is now before the City Council would create a new allowed use — golf resorts — in the entire outlying Rural Residential zoning district. It is our view that a “golf resort” that allows up to 148 lodging rooms, unspecified-sized banquet hall, unspecified number of retail establishments, unspecified-sized health spa, and unspecified business meeting space is completely contrary to the “low density” requirement of this district. These uses are not compatible with the newly adopted Comprehensive Plan.

Sustainable Saratoga

As documented in this past blog, Madigan took it upon herself in 2021 to urge the city Planning Board to once again consider the ambitious expansion of Saratoga National that had been unsuccessful in 2015. Madigan advocated for the expansion, claiming it would result in millions of dollars in tax revenues and create some 260 jobs, but was never able to produce any documentation that supported those numbers. She also never explained what prompted her to suddenly write the Planning Board on behalf of Saratoga National’s ambitious plans to develop in the greenbelt.

The Marion Ave. Maple Dell PUD

Most recently, Madigan was the MC for Hank Kuczynski’s press conference where he announced his candidacy for Commissioner of Public Works. Kuczynski used this platform to attack Chuck Marshall for his unsuccessful work on behalf of Stewarts to designate an area of Maple Avenue for a PUD. Kuczynski noted that the neighbors of this proposed PUD strongly objected to it. He characterized Marshall’s effort as an indication that Marshall threatened the city’s greenbelt. Ironically Madigan had voted in favor of that PUD when it came before the City Council.

Promoting A False Narrative

Madigan’s eagerness to promote Kuczynski’s effort to remain Public Works Commissioner has also led her to bizarrely falsely claim that Kuczynski was somehow one of the founders of One Saratoga.

Hank Kuczynski has never done anything to support or engage with One Saratoga. He has never contributed any money to the organization, attended a meeting or press conference, circulated a petition for the group, or written a letter to the editor on behalf of the group or anyone they have ever endorsed.

It is worth remembering that when Patty Morrison defeated Madigan in the Democratic primary for Commissioner of Finance in 2019, the group of Democrats who left the committee in support of Madigan became the founders of One Saratoga.

It is yet another irony that now Madigan, in her ambition to be Mayor, has re-embraced the Committee that rejected her and caused her supporters to leave. Yes, there are some new members, but the core group whose behavior drove her and her supporters to leave remains in control of the committee whose support Madigan now wants to run for Mayor.

Credit Where Credit Is Due But…..

There is no question that Madigan served the city well managing the city’s finances as Commissioner of Finance. Unfortunately, among other concerns, her indulgences in acrimonious exchanges at the Council table and on social media outweigh the credit she enjoyed in her earlier role and make her an undesirable candidate for Mayor.

The fact that our police were able to subdue without harm to anyone a disturbed man who fired rounds at city hall and at an unmanned police car speaks to the professionalism and sense of service of our men and women in the SSPD. The members of our Police Department and their leadership, chief Tyler McIntosh and Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll, deserve our deep appreciation.

Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi posted a disturbing statement on her Facebook page calling for a demonstration at the New York State Supreme Court where a judge will hear arguments about contested ballots from the recent special election to fill the Commissioner of Public Works vacancy on the City Council. It’s not clear what such a demonstration is meant to achieve. It is, however, emblematic of the tactics used by the Democratic Committee which seem to be an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the election.

Some Issues On The Special Election Results

I have previously written about the unfortunate decision by the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee and their candidate Hank Kuczynski to focus their campaign for Public Works Commissioner in the recent special election not on substance but on a false narrative. They repeatedly alleged that only the name of the endorsed Republican candidate appeared on the ballot due to some unexplained subterfuge by the Republican Party rather than because the Democratic Committee failed to submit the required documents to the Board of Elections for a Democrat.

It should be noted that the Democrats ran a very effective campaign to try to overcome the enormous problems associated with write-in campaigns. Mailing out pens with Hank Kuczynski’s name on it was very shrewd.

Despite this, Hank Kuczynski appears at this point to have received only seven more votes than his opponent, Chuck Marshall.

It is worth observing that there are 8,384 registered Democrats compared to 5,749 registered Republicans in Saratoga Springs. Considering the disproportionate dominance in registration, it is likely that in addition to independent voters registered to no party, Marshall received support from many Democrats. If this blogger were the chair of the Democratic Committee, this would have been extremely troubling to me and would have resulted in asking some serious questions about why my party underperformed so severely.

The Challenged Ballots

The court case to be heard Friday involves a number of ballots that have been challenged for various reasons. In one case, a voter wrote in “Chuck Kuczynski,” for example.

The vast majority of the one hundred and six ballots challenged were for ballots where voters, in addition to writing in Hank Kuczynski’s name, wrote or drew other things on the ballot.

This is an image of the special election ballot. I have highlighted some key text from the ballot that warns that making marks on the ballot outside the box designated for writing in a candidate could invalidate the ballot.

To make it more readable, the following is an enlargement of the text circled above.

The courts have shown extraordinary tolerance regarding write-in ballots where the candidate’s name was misspelled. As long as a convincing argument could be made that the voters intended to vote for a candidate, the fact that they misspelled the candidate’s name does not invalidate the ballot.

The courts have been far more rigid about writing anything other than the candidate’s name on the ballot. This is because such writing historically has been exploited by political machines. There is a history of using markings on ballots for improper reasons. Consider the following scenario:

John Doe agrees, for whatever reason, to assure candidate David X that he will vote for him. David X tells John Doe that to verify that he voted correctly, he must make an agreed-upon mark on the ballot so that when David X inspects the ballot, he can confirm that John has followed through on his commitment.

The only writing on the ballot must be the name of the candidate.

Challenges to ballots because of writing anything on the ballot other than the candidate’s name or putting marks on the ballot outside of the signature box are common and perfectly legitimate. They are not as Gordon Boyd has depicted them “[Republicans] latest attempt to win an election by blocking the will of the voters.”

The Chuck Marshall I know

The Democratic Committee has also tried to play on the fear and anger many people feel about President Trump. They have tried to suggest to people that voting for Chuck Marshall on the Republican Party line somehow showed support for Trump.

Interestingly Chuck Marshall was a write-in voter in the Presidential election. He wrote in his daughter’s name. When I asked him why he wrote in her name rather than his son’s he answered that it was time to have a woman president.

Hypocrisy And Cynicism

There is an argument to be made that the violation of the law regarding ballots should be ignored because voters took the time and effort to show up and try to do a write in. Ignorance and failure to adhere to the requirements stated on the ballot for write ins should be forgiven.

I sympathize with this position, and having talked to Chuck Marshall, I know he does as well.

The problem with this argument is that the people asserting this and shrilly attacking Marshall have a documented history of the most ruthless politics. This blogger has written about this behavior extensively. Anyone who has observed the leadership of the Democratic Committee’s campaigning surely realizes that if the situation were reversed, they would not hesitate to challenge the Republican ballots. For them to self-righteously carry on about the Republicans’ challenging ballots is hypocritical to the point of being embarrassing.

There is a sad irony that while claiming that they are trying to protect democracy by behaving in such a toxic manner, they are undermining people’s faith in our institutions. They are mirroring the very behavior of the 2020 election deniers in undermining the faith in our elections. You may disagree with the law that allows some of the write in ballots to be challenged. You may believe that Marshall should not have exercised his right regarding the law to challenge these ballots, but to urge people to show up at a court of law claiming that their rights were violated as Minita Sanghvi, Gordon Boyd, and Otis Maxwell have done is to imitate the very people they claim to be the enemies of democracy.

I am tired of all this toxic partisanship, as I am sure many of this blog’s readers are. I firmly believe that Chuck Marshall’s campaign never stooped to invective. His credentials are impeccable, and he campaigned on those credentials. I hope he prevails, but if the judge hearing the case on the ballots rules that Hank Kuczynski won, I will accept that verdict and simply prepare myself to work hard in November to elect the best people. Our city deserves the best, and I hope people will not allow this ugly business to discourage them from participating in local politics.

Saratoga Podcast invited Hank Kuczynski and Chuck Marshall to appear in the latest podcast. Kuczynski never responded.

The blogger was invited as the second guest. The interview with Marshall is well worth the time. Marshall is thoughtful and articulate.