Judge sides with GOP on legal payments
Judge stops $113,000 total payments, city regroups, mayor says.
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The Saratoga Springs city council entered an executive session during its pre-agenda meeting Monday morning to discuss “the Brandi lawsuit.”
The pre-agenda meeting is often a quiet meeting that simply highlights the planned agenda for the full city council meeting the next day.
However, about five minutes into the meeting, Mayor John Safford called for an executive session to talk about the lawsuit. The council stayed in session about 40 minutes but made no decisions, Safford said when they reconvened in public.
“The Brandi lawsuit,” as the mayor called it, filed by Saratoga Springs Republican Committee Chair Michael Brandi, asked the courts to stop the city of Saratoga Springs from paying for legal fees accrued to Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran, Deputy Commissioner of Accounts Stacy Connors, then-Commissioner of Public Works Jason Golub, and city employee Brooke Van Buskirk.
The four had hired outside law firms after the Saratoga County District Attorney’s Office opened an investigation into the “on-call” pay of deputy commissioners last year.
The fees for Moran and Connor amounted to $111,000 for Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, a law firm with offices worldwide. They bill at more than $1,000 per hour. The fee for Golub and Van Buskirk amounted to about $2,300 to Schreiber Law of Saratoga Springs, a firm that bills at $450 per hour.
Judge James E. Walsh sided with the Republicans over three major points: He wrote that the four looking for compensation were not the target of the investigation and therefore had no reason to hire outside counsel and therefore should not be compensated. Also he wrote that the matter was not a civil case, and city leaders and employees are only compensated in civil matters. And finally, that the city “lacked the authority to authorize the payments.”
It is this final matter that Mayor John Safford said will draw the attention of the city council. The state law overrides any city law that the council may have used to approve the payments, the mayor said of the judge’s decision. But it does not mean the payments will never be made.
“It just brings up a ton of conversations...Anyone that’s asking me, I’m saying I’m glad we got a decision since at least I know where we’re standing,” he told the Dispatch.
He said the question will become in the future if there’s an investigation and someone is called as a witness — “and this is a big grey area” — will the city pay for it?
“It’s really not clear in the law,” the mayor said, adding, “The conversations will continue, but whatever decisions we make will be made in public. People will know what we’re doing.”
The lawsuit brought by Brandi and the city GOP contended that an investigation into the on-call pay did not directly involve the work for the city of Moran, Golub, Connor or Van Buskirk and therefore, the four of them should not be reimbursed for the expenses they incurred.
As well, the investigation was not a civil matter, and the law only allows for reimbursement in civil cases. For that reason the four at the center of this lawsuit cannot be reimbursed, the lawsuit contended in court filings.
Normally, the city would compensate leadership and employees in matters when they are sued civilly or when they require outside legal counsel directly connected to their work for the city. The investigation was not a civil case.