Author: Thomas Dimopoulos

SARATOGA SPRINGS —The City of Saratoga Springs will host a 9/11 Commemoration and Remembrance Ceremony at High Rock Park on Wednesday, Sept. 11 at the Tempered by Memory Sculpture. Attendees are asked to arrive at 8:15 a.m., with the ceremony slated to promptly begin at 8:30. 

On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others in what the U.S. Department of State refers to as “the worst attack against the homeland in our nation’s history.”

The ceremony in Saratoga Springs will take place at High Rock Park, which since 2012 has been host site to a 25-foot-tall sculpture created from 9/11 steel.  

The sculpture was commissioned by Saratoga Arts and created by artists Noah Savett and John Van Alstine from five twisted pieces of Trade Center steel. Four pieces came from the North Tower, one came from the South Tower. 

The High Rock site was selected after a lengthy public and political discourse regarding the location placement of the “Tempered By Memory” sculpture.   

Initially slated to stand in front of the Saratoga Springs City Center and to be unveiled on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, that location was nixed shortly before the ceremony was to take place when some officials said it would interfere with the view from out front of the center. 

Instead, the sculpture remained in a parking lot in Northumberland at artist Noah Savett’s metal company yard, awaiting a permanent home. It was there that a ceremony was held to mark the 10th anniversary of the attacks in 2011.  

“We took the broken pieces of that day, we raised them up, we let them soar – we gave them a place to rest,” Yaddo poet Joan Murray read during the 10th anniversary ceremony attended by more than 100 steelworkers and celebrating the healing power of art to transcend grief and sorrow.

Then-city Mayor Scott Johnson appointed a committee that same month and charged it with recommending a location for the sculpture. Sites next to the state military museum, the city firehouse and near the city school campus had been considered, as well as alongside the Saratoga Springs Heritage Area Visitor Center on Broadway and in Congress Park. 

High Rock Park was eventually selected which has since September 2012 served as the city’s annual remembrance ceremony location.   

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The “Pay To Park” signs have been removed and the standing meters soon to follow with the conclusion of the Spa City’s first seasonal paid parking program. 

The $2 per hour to park plan involved several city-owned garages and surface lots and offered city residents and downtown businesses free parking permits. Those residing outside Saratoga Springs were required to pay for parking in the garages and atop the lots.         

The pay stations were unanimously approved by the City Council in April, and installed and implemented into service in mid-June, with a post-Labor Day Weekend conclusion date. 

An initial plan – titled the “tourism parking” program – proposed converting more than 1,300 on-street and nearly 800 garage parking spaces into either “permit” or “paid” spots for a five-month run annually between May and September. That proposal was scaled back to involve city-owned garages and surface lots only, with all on-street parking remaining unchanged. 

When it approved the plan in April, the city reported it anticipated nearly $1.6 million as first-year estimated revenue, with about $450,000 in expenses.

In mid-July, roughly one month into operation, the city announced it had to that point generated approximately $82,000 in new revenue, and issued just over 11,250 “free” parking permits. Updated revenue amounts have yet to be announced.  

The city’s Public Works and Public Safety departments collaborated to get the plan up and running. Its initial year concluded, it is expected the program will be evaluated regarding its effectiveness and for any potential changes deemed need to be made prior to 2025.    

SARATOGA SPRINGS – The city of Saratoga Springs is exploring building a new police station to replace its current home in the basement of City Hall which has served as its headquarters for nearly 150 years.  

“The discussions are preliminary but it’s clear that eventually we need to plan for a new police station, and that’s what the Capital Budget (Plan) is for,” said city Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll. “We’re looking at two possible locations at this time –one is right behind City Hall where the city employees park, and the other would be the old Senior Center.” 

The city owns the land at both locations. 

The 7,800 square-foot former Senior Center site at 5 Williams St. is currently in use on a short-term lease by RISE Housing and Support Services as the human services agency’s administration offices, while their own offices are under construction.  

A plan eyeing 5 Williams St. would seek to demolish the building on site and construct a new three-story facility and relocating all police services and the communications center from City Hall to Williams Street.  The general cost estimate – which includes demolition, construction, and the furnishing of a new 30,000-plus square foot facility lists $14 million as a Base Budget Estimate, with contingencies and allowances at a total cost of $23 million to $25 million. 

The lot behind City Hall meanwhile has seen many designs that had previously proposed it as a location for a new public safety facility. At various times those plans have included a multi-parcel public-private collaboration to include a cinema, a 500-car parking garage, and other amenities. A City Center Parking garage and pocket park have since been developed along a good segment of the location, and a cinema sited a few blocks away. 

The Public Safety Department’s long-range proposal specifically details $21.8 million in a Capital Plan over a five-year period beginning in 2025 to fund a police department facility, according to documents submitted by the 2025 Capital Program Committee to address priority city needs from 2025-2030. 

Historically

On April 26 1887, the State Legislature approved an act that created the Saratoga Springs Police Department. The department employed 8 men to serve and protect a population of 11,500 in the days prior to fingerprinting systems, computer databases, radio communications and DNA technology, when  police technology largely consisted of the gun and the nightstick. The annual salary of the men started at $500, with higher-ranking officials earning as much as $1,300 per year.  

More than a century later, the department in 2024 staffs 98 men and women to serve and protect a city of about 30,000 residents year-round, with a visitors’ capacity that grows in multitudes when the temperature grows warmer and the sun hangs longer in the sky. In 2023 SSPD officers handled 27,643 calls for service, 3,606 cases, and made 851 arrests.  

The growth of the department has resulted in significant operational challenges inhibiting organizational efficiency and effectiveness in the current station location, according to officials. The lack of workspace forces the sharing of desks and the usage of single spaces for multiple public safety purposes not always conducive or in concert with one another. As well, it places SSPD’s Command Staff Offices in the century-old basement of City Hall in windowless rooms. 

Feasibility studies related to the development of a new public safety facility in the city date to the mid-1970s, and more than a half-dozen reports were conducted during the decades that have followed. In 2006, a committee was formed to help develop a new station and the City Council seated at the time explored multiple proposals for a new facility, but no majority approval could be secured for any of the plans. Subsequently no action was taken.   

Renovations and upgrades have been made to City Hall in the time since, but the restrictive space of the current police department is less than ideal, officials say.   

“It’s not a modern-functioning police station,” Commissioner Coll said. 

“I take insurance company recommendations to heart, and their recommendation was that we need to have a new facility. We can’t have prisoners walking up and down Broadway – you look at modern policing, they have a sally-port,” said Coll, referring to a secure area used to load and unload prisoners. “The police department is in the basement of City Hall (and) It’s really not conducive to modern policing.”

Every year, the city prepares a six-year Capital Budget plan that includes a prioritized list of capital projects the city wishes to get done and costs associated with those projects. Even as the plan stretches over a six-year period, the council votes on the Capital Budget one year at a time and may be altered year-to-year. 

Overall, the construction cost for the new police headquarters facility is estimated to range from $23 million to $25.5 million. About $1.5 million in sitework and demolition costs are anticipated to be required at the department’s existing space at City Hall.   

The preliminary long-range plan for a new police station looks to set aside funds in this proposed timeline: $1.5 million (in 2025), $5 million (in 2026 and again in 2027), $10 million (in 2028), and $300,000 in 2029. The City Council is expected to host a Public Hearing and hold a discussion and potentially vote on the 2025 Capital Budget and Capital Program at its meeting on Tuesday night Sept. 3.    

BALLSTON SPA — The Saratoga County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution during its monthly meeting Aug. 20 to purchase a 1.4-acre parcel at 96 -116 Ballston Ave. (Route 50) in Saratoga Springs for $3 million as the future location of a permanent Code Blue homeless shelter. 

A memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, was also unanimously approved in anticipation of entering into a long-term lease with the Shelters of Saratoga organization to build and operate the cold-weather shelter.     

The goal is to have a facility open on-site by the fall of 2025, said Saratoga County Board of Supervisors Chairman Phil Barrett.  

Code Blue protocols are activated when the temperature is 32 degrees Fahrenheit or less, including wind chill. As an emergency wintertime shelter, it presents a different setting than a year-round 24/7 low-barrier shelter that has been discussed in Saratoga Springs in recent years. 

“The county has a responsibility that’s mandated by New York State that we need to fulfill,” Barrett said. “We need a permanent location because we’re in a very difficult position year-to-year trying to find a Code Blue shelter. We found a piece of property that can be purchased at a very attractive price – based on the zoning, based on the fact that there’s a building on the property – to be a solution to the problem.” 

The parcel was appraised at approximately $3.2 million, according to the board resolution. It stands directly opposite a commercial strip mall which features a market and other amenities and is along a public bus transport line. 

“The zoning on the parcel allows for a great deal of density, multi-family projects,” Barrett said.

Plans call for the county to purchase the parcel for about $3 million and as owner of the property enter into a long-term lease with Shelters of Saratoga, or SOS, who will presumably use the one existing building on site as well as raise funds to develop the property where a shelter will be constructed. 

“Ground leases of this type are typically over many years, at least 50 years, and there are provisions in there: if the organization were to go defunct, if there were some other circumstances where they were not able to provide the services any longer or no longer fiscally viable, then that building would revert to the county,” Barrett said. “It’s important that the county have some influence over any programs that occur there – and that’s something we will have through an MOU with Shelters, through our ownership of the property, so the county is protected.”

Basically, the county will purchase the land, and SOS will pay for the construction and operational expenses of the shelter, including staffing, utilities, and maintenance.  

The MOU will outline the basic financial arrangements and the County’s general responsibilities, including acquiring the parcel of land, leasing it to Shelters of Saratoga, and exercising final authority over which programs are conducted on the property.

County leadership and S.O.S. are philosophically aligned, Barrett added. “The county doesn’t want a low-barrier shelter, neither does Shelters. The county doesn’t want a safe injection site, or anything of that sort, neither does Shelters.”  

S.O.S. has operated a Code Blue shelter at a variety of temporary locations in Saratoga Springs during the past several years, efforts to site a permanent shelter rejected at every turn by those living close-by or with nearby interests. 

Supervisor Michele Madigan, who represents the city of Saratoga Springs at the county level, thanked her fellow board members for agreeing to the proposal, adding that the securing of a permanent site was a long time coming and is an important step to address a community need. 

“Our first Code Blue Shelter in Saratoga Springs opened in 2013 and in 2016 this became a government mandate,” Supervisor Madigan said.

The Code Blue Saratoga program was born from the tragic death of Nancy Pitts. The 54-year-old mother of two sought shelter on a Williams Street porch during a frigid December night in 2013. She was discovered by police the next morning. Within days of the homeless woman’s death, a cooperative partnership between then mayor-elect Joanne Yepsen, non-profit organizations, and members of the community was initiated and a plan set in motion to site an emergency shelter in the city. A series of cold-weather shelters have followed, each on a temporary winter-to-spring basis. 

The Code Blue program provides people with winter shelter and safety from the cold. In addition to overnight shelter, the organization offers nightly dinners and resource navigation, supportive housing, and linkage to treatment. The 2023-24 winter season included 299 unduplicated guests and was open for 171 nights, with 11,560 meals served donated by local businesses and organizations, according to S.O.S.