Troisi enters campaign for Accounts
Discussions over short-term rentals brought her into politics
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Jessica Troisi, a local photographer and housing contractor, launched her bid in a campaign to unseat incumbent Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran. She spoke to a crowd of about 40 supporters at Bailey’s Cafe on Phila Street in downtown Saratoga Springs on Tuesday July 8, 2025.
“From the outside, it's so easy to overlook the importance of the Accounts Department,” she said during her launch speech, “but anything you try and do in Saratoga, you quickly realize that your ambitions flow through the Department of Accounts,” she said.
In an interview earlier in the week, she explained that she has been both an event photographer and a developer of single-family homes. She said she has bought, renovated, lived in and then sold four houses. She is living in the fifth.
“I usually hang onto them for a few years and then sell them,” she said. Moving through the planning process and into the permitting process introduced her to the importance of the Accounts Department.
In her speech she said that the city needs a “thorough and ethical administration of our vital records, our contracts, our permits, they're all critical to the operations of a well run city, and our city deserves a commissioner of accounts that builds that office with integrity and accountability and civility.”
That last line drew the largest applause from the group during the short four-minute speech. It was a clear dig at Moran, who has a reputation with some in the community for belligerence. He can be a bulldog in city council meetings.
“Our city deserves transparency and decorum, and when elected, I promise to be the Accounts Department in a manner that is deserving of our great city,” she said.
As a developer, her first public foray into politics was during the discussions in recent years of the Short-Term Rental regulations that Moran led through the city council. It was here that she felt the tug of public life, she said in the interview.
“The final draft is far from perfect,” she said regarding the regulations, adding, “A lot of the really onerous parts at the beginning are gone now. She said in her speech and in her interview that she is new to public life and has preferred to remain a relatively anonymous person in the city, but she felt she had to work on the STR regulations.
“It ended up pretty good,” she said.
Asked during the interview about the new “no camping” ordinance that passed during a contentious Saratoga Springs City Council meeting last week, Troisi said that she agrees generally with the law.
Its official name is the "Camping prohibited on certain public property" law, and she bases her support on her time as a professional addictions counselor, she said.
“I will tell you, as you well know, homelessness is not a lack of affordable housing. It is a result of mental health and addictions," she said during her interview. That is the sentiment of many people who supported the law.
The law would allow police to give people an appearance ticket if they place camping equipment on the sidewalks or streets in the city, if they sleep or sit on sidewalks or curbs in the city or if they fall asleep on park-type benches.
Proponents of the measure say that this will get the people who need help the most into the system and get them the services they need to get healthy. It is expected that many, if not most, would go before Judge Francine Vero in what is called “Community Outreach Court.”
“I see it as pushing to try to get people into treatment. It’s a difficult situation,” Troisi said during the interview.
“Can we give it some time and see? I think there were a lot of people talking,” she said of the process of getting the law approved. “A lot of people angry about it.”
She added later: “If it were my family member and there is some way to push them into treatment, I might want to give it a try.”
During her speech she said she has started taking the state courses to become an assessor as required under city code. The commissioner of accounts also acts as the city assessor and therefore must complete the assessor training within three years of assuming the role, state law says.
She is endorsed by One Saratoga and the Republican Party, although she first attempted to win the support of the Democratic Party, she said.
“Deep in my heart, I felt the call of public service, and hopefully, with your help and support, I can step out from behind the camera and answer that call,” she said at the end of her speech.
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