It occurs to me that this break-out box (as they are called) that appeared in print never made it online. I wrote a story on the mayor's race, but here is what all of the other city politicians have been doing:

Office	Candidate	Starting balance	$ Raised	$ Spent
Accounts	John Franck	$8,636	$7,798	$2,556
	John Arpei	$0	$100	$0
Public Safety	Christian Mathiesen	$3,372	$0	$76
	Richard Wirth	$31	$6,291	$1,083
Public Works	Anthony "Skip"     Scirocco	$949	$9,273	$2,022
	William McTygue	$0	$9,977	$1,080
Finance	Michele Madigan	$2,386	$6,939	$2,684

A few things to point out.


John Franck seems to have the most money on hand of any candidate (except those for mayor). Most of his money has come in $100 and $200 contributions, though there is one $2,323 unitemized entry from February, which is likely his annual fundraiser.


John P. Arpei's $100 reported Monday was contributed by John P. Arpei, but then he only officially announced he was running two weeks ago.

Christian Mathiesen didn't just not raise or spend any money as of Monday, but he filed a "no activity statement" last week indicating he hadn't done any fundraising or spending between the January and July periodic filings. The "Starting balance" was actually from his January disclosure.


Richard Wirth received mostly small contributions with two notable exceptions: $1,000 from both Leon Pokoik from Sarasota, Fla., and the Saratoga Springs Republican Committee. I also noticed a couple police officers on his list, but they were for under $100 apiece.


Anthony "Skip" Scirocco's money has come with a few big contributions. There was a $500 from Minerva Coins and Jewelry and a $1,000 from the Saratoga County Republican Committee. He also has a list of unitemized: one for $4,019 from June and another for $500 even from April. The latter seems a little odd to me, since they are usually aggregate numbers from small donations or transfers...


William McTygue started with nothing earlier this year and raised about the same amount as Scirocco between January and July. Most of it came in small contributions, though there were two $500 ones from Charles Morrison and Bonnie Design. There was also an unitemized donation from July for $2,618.


Despite not having an opponent, Michele Madigan has raised a relatively substantial sum in the last six months. Her biggest single contributor was the Police Benevolent Association (She also has managed to get more cops hired, so you know…) with $1,000. She was the only candidate they contributed to. She also received a $445 contribution from Sheila A’Hearn.

She also received unitemized contributions of $245, $975 and $1,374, all on the same day in March.

If you are interested, visit the Board of Elections website and type in the name of the candidate you want to look at.  When the next screen comes up, you can look at all of the individual pieces of the candidate's fundraising committee.

For donations, scroll to the bottom and select the year you want. Then click "Get List" to see contributors that year.

It's been quite some time since John Arpei was endorsed by the Saratoga Springs GOP to make a run for Commissioner of Accounts. A little more than a month after Arpei was endorsed and said he would make his announcement official within the week, he is prepared to make that announcement... within the week. 

Here is the brief announcement from the GOP:

"John Arpei will formally announce his candidacy for Commissioner of Accounts of the City of Saratoga Springs this Wednesday, July 10 at 12:30 pm in Congress Park near the veteran’s bricks.
Dave Harper
Chair, Saratoga Springs City Republican Committee"

This will make the first time since 2007 when he took office that Accounts Commissioner John Franck will have opposition.

*Update*

I received another announcement about Arpei's announcement. This time from Debbie Harper (not sure if or what the relationship is to Dave Harper). This one had a little more personal flair.

"Long time resident, John Arpei is announcing his run for Commissioner of Accounts for the City of Saratoga Springs on his birthday. Wednesday, July 10^th at 12:30 pm he will gather with friends, relatives and supporters at the Veteran’s Walk located in Congress Park. There, at his Father’s memorial brick he will declare his candidacy."

Well the Housing Authority was as contentious as ever Tuesday night at the City Council meeting where Democrats attacked each other over what should be done about the salaries of the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority.

"You need to do your job tonight and take a vote on this resolution," Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan told Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen, who was trying to table the vote on disapproving Housing Authority salaries proposed by Madigan.

Mathiesen said he did his job every City Council meeting.

"You're not doing it tonight by asking me to table this resolution," she responded.

Mathiesen was arguing that he needed more information about the salaries before he could vote to disapprove the SSHA salaries Tuesday night.

That was, ironically, the same argument Mayor Scott Johnson used to justify voting for the disapproval, something he said was "not a vote of no confidence" about the SSHA, just a vote that indicated he did not have enough information to make up his mind.

Meanwhile Madigan and Accounts Commissioner John Franck basically said Mathiesen was making their point for them.

They have repeatedly requested information from the SSHA and though some has been provided, the supporting documentation for the salaries has not been among it.

SSHA policy requires that they basically justify the salaries they pay their employees.

"I cannot even fathom how you can justify a public employee's salary doubling in four years," Madigan said (again to Mathiesen).

As an explanation, here's something from a year and a half ago:

"(Executive Director Ed) Spychalski’s 2011 compensation is $151,956, not including benefits, including the use of a publicly-owned vehicle. His starting salary in November 2006 was $74,777 and he has received $77,179 in pay raises since then."

That included two bonuses, so in the fiscal year that starts next month his salary is being proposed as about $145,000.

"Is he overpaid? Possibly," Mathiesen said. "Is he outrageously overpaid? I don't think so."

Mathiesen said he needed more information from the Housing Authority before he would vote on the issue.

"We've been talking about this for 19 months now," Franck said. 

Here's another couple tidbits from past stories:

According to the State Comptroller's audit of the SSHA conducted last year, Spychalski makes more than 93 percent of the housing authority directors in the country.

That includes the directors Plattsburgh, Troy, Schenectady and Albany, each of which handles “significantly more tenant rentals” than the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority.

In fact, Spychslki at his peak made about $45,000 less than the New York City Housing Authority director, John Rhea, who managed 178,882 apartments, 2,602 residential buildings and 334 developments, according to its website.

Anyway, it's unlikely the vote will have much of an effect on the SSHA.

They vote on their 2013-2014 salaries with their budget Thursday and Board member Al Callucci said he expects the budget to pass, as is.

"There's no reason it shouldn't," he said, after the City Council meeting. 

At Tuesday's City Council meeting, Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen stated, matter of factly, that when Greg Veitch becomes the chief of police it will leave a hole in the upper-end of the department that will need to be filled by other officers.

So it sounds pretty official that Veitch is the new chief, which isn't a surprise. I'm told a press conference or press release will be issued Friday about the transition.

The other part of his statement is also something to pay attention to. When Veitch takes over for Police Chief Chris Cole, who is retiring, it is going to mean that two of the top three positions in the department will be left empty (Assistant Chief and Captain). There are I believe five lieutenants and a handful of sergeants, a couple of whom will likely be moving up in the department.

In the mean time, the City Council just voted to hire two new police. While the only dissenting vote was the mayor, John Franck came to the defense of the cuts that have left the department in a seeming perpetual state of short-staffing.

Mathiesen has long advocated for hiring the officers back who had been laid off in 2010. "It puts too much pressure on the remaining members of the force," he said Tuesday. 

Mathiesen said the cuts were "foolhardy" and "apparently taken lightly," for which Franck told him he was "uneducated" about the issue.

Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan, who (curiously) was the one to propose hiring two new officers, argued that the "magic number" in the department seems to be 72 officers, but Franck said before the layoffs "they were saying they needed 91 officers."

Mathiesen, then, said they may need more than 72.

"72 may bee too low, frankly, given the activity in our city," he said. If he had his druthers, he said, he would hire a consultant to evaluate how many officers the department actually needs.

Many seemed in favor of that, but as Mathiesen has told me in the past, it may cost a good deal of money which could be applied to more important public safety needs.

Maybe with two new officers coming in, though, now will be the time.

Well, looks like public safety employees will be drug tested after all, "in the very near future," according to Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen in Tuesday night's City Council meeting.

That is different from where he was on the issue last week when he said he was not in favor of the tests. At the City Council meeting, though, Mathiesen said he still didn't think it was necessary, but "if it would make the community at large would feel safer" for having drug tests, he would look into it.

That comes after comments online and elsewhere against his position (probably from people who get drug tested at their own jobs and don't carry guns or drive at high rates of speed).

The commissioner said he would be evaluating how to implement random drug testing in the Saratoga Springs Police Department, because both the chief and the union said they were in favor of the idea.

As Police Benevolent Association President Paul Veitch said “I believe there should be a drug-testing policy because I don’t want someone with a narcotics problem working next to me," particularly when they are carrying guns.

"I haven't had anyone come up to me and say they were happy about that article in the paper," Accounts Commissioner John Franck said to Mathiesen at the City Council meeting. He was referring to my recent article regarding the public safety commissioner's stance on random drug testing. "I don't think anyone is going to be with you on this."

Of course all of the people at the table said they did not believe there is a drug problem in the department. "But if that is the case they shouldn't have a problem with it," Franck said.

Mathiesen reiterated his stance that the system in place works. That is, when the officers of the departments see a problem, they address it.

He didn't specifically name Justin Moran, but he said "I saw how well the department worked with the other situation." Being the only drug case in recent history in the department, I have to figure it was that (also based on previous comments he made in the story I already linked to). "I knew the background," he said. "I knew how effectively it was taken care of."

Franck pointed out that he had to submit to a drug test when he was hired at his accounting firm and that people at Walmart are drug tested.

"That doesn't make it ok, just because Walmart does it," Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan said. She advised caution because of false-positive tests that could end a person's career.

"We don't want to kill anyone either," Franck said.

Mayor Scott Johnson also agreed with Franck (someone mark it down on the calender) about the need for drug testing. He said when firefighters are racing to the scene in their 20 ton (fire trucks range from 15 to 30 tons, I read) truck, "they are basically driving weapons."

When Franck kept citing Mathiesen's comments in The Saratogian's article, Mathiesen seemed to want to back away from it, saying something about how Franck should know not everything in the newspaper is accurately quoted. Of course, he didn't deny anything in the newspaper.

He said "I was asked if I supported random drug testing," something he said he does not. He said he was surprised by the question. "My reaction was 'What about cost? What about methods?'"

Mathiesen said he still doesn't support it, but "If the community feels otherwise we can look at it."

"It seems very blatantly political -- it's the last City Council meeting and the contracts would not be renewed until after the next election," said Finance Commissioner-elect Michele Madigan leaving the City Council meeting Tuesday night.

She had just watched four contracts with law firms and one contract with the city's human resource company, Pinnacle Human Resources, LLC. extended to two-year contracts, something sources in City Hall said is unprecedented.

Accounts Commissioner John Franck spoke out on the city council about just that.

"We've never done this as far as I can remember," he said.

"I think they are good services, but this is bad government" Franck said of the contracts with the HR company as well as the law firms of Harris Beach which handles labor and collective bargaining and Fitzgerald, Morris, Baker and Firth PC which is currently litigating lawsuits on charter challenge and civil service. "I don't think these contracts should go more than a year," Franck said.

He was the sole council member to vote no on all of the contracts except the contract to continue litigating the appeal of the Saratoga Citizen petition, which Kenneth Ivins Jr. also voted against.

Mayor Scott Johnson said the rationale behind extending the contracts is that they locked in the price for the next two years and could avoid any cost increase (something Franck said hasn't happened since 2006), but Madigan saw a different motivation.

"It appears that the rationale behind these amendments may be to solidify them until after the next election so that the incoming council members will have no say in them," she said in a prepared statement she read to the council during public comment.

Franck said that if the City Council were going to award extended contracts to the law firms and Pinnacle, they should put out requests for proposals. "It doesn't make sense to me, I don't see the prices going up dramatically," he said, adding he would expect even better prices if the city put out a request for bids.

It was the last council meeting for two of the men around the table Tuesday. Madigan will replace Finance Commissioner Ivins and Christian Mathiesen will replace Public Safety Commissioner Richard Wirth in less than two weeks and the remaining members offered their praise and farewells to their two departing comrades.

Franck said Wirth has "always been a gentleman who looked past party lines," and he thanked him for his "tireless service" running the city's largest department seven days a week, something Franck knew he did because he frequently saw Wirth coming and going from City Hall on the weekends while he hung out at Compton's.

He said Ivins was dealt a tough hand over the last few fiscal years but said "in your four year period you have brought us back."

Scirocco thanked the both of them as well, though made eye-contact with Ivins (whom he has publicly disagreed with on frequent occasions) when he said "You both in your heart made the right decisions I'm sure."

Johnson commended them for their community service and "dedication to our city."

"Those of us who serve in these capacities know it is no easy chore to undertake," he said. And while he hoped they would continue to be involved in city politics and service, he had one parting lighthearted(?) request:

"Don't come to public comment please."

To drive that point home, here's Madigan's comments to the council in full:
I see that this evening's agenda includes discussions and votes on the Pinnacle Human Resources contract and the Harris Beach contracts. It is my understanding that the current Pinnacle HR contract runs until May 2012 and the amendment seems to merely extend the contract to December 2013. The Harris Beach contracts are also being amended tonight to extend from December 2012 to December 2013. All of these contracts are being amended until after the next election. Absent a pressing need to amend these contracts, it seems premature to even discuss these tonight. Again, a new council will be seated in 12 days, and there are 5 months remaining in the current Pinnacle HR contract and a full 12 months remaining in the Harris Beach contracts. It appears that the rationale behind these amendments may be to solidify them until after the next election so that the incoming council members will have no say in them.
While I have briefly reviewed the specifics of the proposed amendments, and must wait to find out more in tonight’s discussion and possible vote, I must point out the possibility that a majority of the new council may not agree with the wishes of the majority of the current council on such important matters. If this is the case, what will it cost the city to once again change, amend or terminate these contracts? I would respectfully request, in the interests of good governance, fiscal prudence, and transparency, that this council postpone discussion of these items until the next meeting, when the new council will be seated.
Of particular concern to me is the contract being amended that relates to Human Resources. Local governments are facing unprecedented challenges; whether we are addressing fiscal challenges, environmental issues, public safety, or a crisis, having the right people in the right jobs will pay off for our city. It is not clear to me, especially since I have been unable to review the contract in question, that outsourcing Human Resources – in violation of the City Charter - is in the best interest of our city. Since this is such an important issue, I believe it is unreasonable for the current council to take any action on this contract, thereby encumbering the new council which will be seated in 12 short days. We can take this matter up in just a few weeks, and I humbly ask you to allow us to do so.
Thank you,
Michele Madigan, Commissioner of Finance-elect

The city has not received many calls about same-sex marriage licenses according to Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner John Franck— that is, not many from people other than the media.
The commissioner said numerous calls have come from local media, as well as larger outlets like the New York Times, asking if any same-sex marriage couples had requested licenses and whether the city planned to open City Hall Sunday— the day the law takes effect— to issue the licenses.
"Since we have not received any calls requesting it, we will not be open July 24 to issue marriage licenses," he said. To date, Franck said he has only received two calls from private citizens, and they were general questions, not inquiries about Sunday and because City Hall would not typically be open Sunday, the 24th would be no exception.
"We are going to have a large demand, but we have not had any demand for (July 24)," he said.
In other cities like Albany and New York, the city clerks have been so inundated with requests for the licenses they are holding lotteries to see who can get legally wed Sunday and who will have to wait.
During the same City Council meeting Tuesday, Franck explained the new forms issued by the state.
"The changes are very minor," the commissioner evaluated.
On the current forms, there is a specific half for the Bride and Groom's information. On the new forms, both sides simply say "Bride/Groom/Spouse." They each have a spot to put the sex, but it is an optional addition.
Similarly, the original form has a spot that asks for each spouses' father and mother. The new form states: "Father or parent," and "Mother or parent," and where it used to ask for the "Signature of the Groom" and that of the "bride," now it just says" "Signature."

Here are the new and current documents with the changes circled by Franck:

Saratoga Springs Marriage License Forms