Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim announced last week that the regularly scheduled city council meeting would take place at the regularly scheduled time, 7 p.m. at City Hall on the third floor.
At the Feb. 21 city council meeting he had announced a change in the meeting that he hoped would offer more time for public comment and calm down the city council meetings.
This was a partial response to the Feb. 7 city council meeting in which Chandler Hickenbottom of Black Lives Matter Saratoga refused to yield the microphone during the public comment portion, and the meeting was adjourned early because of that.
Kim’s changes would have started the meetings at 5 p.m. and the public comment would have come afterward.
He said that the public comment time, at 7 or 7:30 after the meeting was about the same as it is when the meetings began at 7, but at the end of the meeting there would be more time for speakers.
After speaking with city council members after the Feb. 21 meeting, he found he did not have the consensus on the board that he thought he had, he said.
He has told FoothillsBusinessDaily.com that he is just trying to find a way to allow people the time they need for public comment in a way that all people can agree to.
"It's not that important to me,” he said of the meeting times and organization. “What's important to extend the public forum."
He said in an interview that he will not pursue charges or tickets against people who speak over time. Public comment has historically been the first 15 minutes of the meeting, and each person has gotten two minutes to speak. He is extending all of it.
"We're going to do four minutes so we're doubling the time people have. Depending on the night we're going a minimum of 30 and maximum of 60 minutes," for public comment.
In the interview he took issue with the Commissioner of Public Safety James Montagnino’s decision to ask the police department to issue a summons to Hickebottom for disorderly conduct, a charge to which she pleaded not guilty today.
Kim said given that the New York State Attorney General is already investigating the city’s reaction to BLM protest from 2021, the situation does not look good to have Black people summoned to court for verbal protests.
[Read more: Two more subpoena’s issued regarding the BLM Saratoga investigation, and the City has paid over $35,000 to lawyers in BLM Saratoga investigation.]
"I think it really creates a negative dynamic," the mayor said. "I certainly don't think we should antagonize a group, any group."
[Read about Montagnino’s move to summon Hickenbottom here.]
He said he is expecting BLM Saratoga to show up at tonight’s meeting.