(Credit: Steve Thurston, 2023)
Saratoga Springs City Council meeting, Feb. 7 2023. Hickenbottom stands at the microphone.
The Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Public Safety James Montagnino asked the police department to submit a criminal complaint in Saratoga Springs City Court yesterday afternoon. The complaint is with the courts but is pending review, the clerk of the court’s office said in a brief interview today. No judge has been assigned the case and no summons has been made as it is pending, the clerk’s office said. News reports, statements from city commissioners, and from Black Lives Matter Saratoga say that Montagnino aimed the filing at Chandler Hickenbottom, a leader the BLM Saratoga group.
In a text Montagnino said he did not have time to talk this afternoon.
The complaint stems from the Feb. 7 City Council meeting in which Hickenbottom refused to relinquish the microphone during public comment, leading the city council to adjourn the meeting three times during the evening. The meeting was cut short, and the only action taken by the council was to approve the consent agenda. The commissioners said they had to do that in order to make sure city staff got paid.
BLM Saratoga issued a statement saying they “condemned the actions of Montagnino and we do not believe this is the appropriate response to this situation.”
[Read our story on that here.]
The BLM group was complaining that the city council had been slow to implement the 50 points of the Police Reform Task Force report, that the council was slow to meet with people from the BLM group and that the group wanted to hold a public meeting with the city council to talk about these issues.
Montagnino attempted to rebut some of the claims that BLM supporters made during the meeting, but was talked over during the meeting and could not finish his statement without interruption.
When he attempted to compare the response of the Saratoga Springs Police Department during a late night gunfight in November to that of the Memphis Police Department and the killing of Tyre Nichols, he was shouted down. Shortly thereafter the meeting was adjourned and held Thursday Feb. 9.
Neither Mayor Ron Kim nor the rest of the city council agree with Montagnino’s move to pursue legal action.
“I regret to hear that the Commissioner of Public Safety has filed a summons against a BLM activist for her disruptive conduct during the February 7, 2023, City Council meeting. This action is counterproductive to a continued dialogue with all members of our community, a waste of city resources and could potentially lead to additional costs to the City and taxpayers,” the mayor said in a statement. “This action is a misguided overreach by the Department of Public Safety which will waste our resources and could potentially lead to additional legal costs because the New York State Attorney General’s office is currently investigating the past administration for very similar actions.”
The similar actions were taken in 2021 when a meeting was adjourned early and the police called to the city council meeting room. The “Obstructing Governmental Administration” charges that stemmed from that against Saratoga Black Lives Matter leader Lexis Figuereo were dismissed last April.
In a joint statement, Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran, Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi and Commissioner of Public Work Jason Golub “expressed disbelief and outrage” at Montagnino’s action, their statement says.
“The criminal complaint filed yesterday by Public Safety Commissioner Montagnino is not something I support, nor was it something I was consulted on. I believe there are much better ways to respond to and solve the issues raised by BLM and by the Police Reform Task Force, rather than escalating unproductive rhetoric and taking unnecessary legal actions,” Golub said in the statement.
He is the city’s first African-American commissioner and co-chaired the City’s Police Reform Task Force.
“BLM and the protests we’ve seen locally and nationally over the past few years give voice to a problem that must be taken seriously, and not dismissed by leaders," Golub wrote. "I believe the best path forward is a strategic and ongoing dialogue between BLM, members of the council, members of the police force, and other impacted constituencies with concrete outcomes and accountability. Everyone must come to the table and work together in order for us to progress. Nothing is being furthered by this criminal complaint or heavy-handed approach other than furthering mistrust and continuing to fragment our community.”
To that end, the mayor pointed out in his statement that he proposed a new organization for the city council meetings and a regular “Mayor’s Community Forum” to discuss major areas of concern outside the regular council meeting. Both were approved unanimously by the council at their Tuesday Feb. 21 meeting.
The new council meetings will begin at 5 p.m., and public comment will begin at 7:30 or as soon thereafter as possible. People will have four minutes to speak instead of two.
“I respectfully call upon the Commissioner of Public Safety to withdraw this summons and join me in continuing to find common ground with all members of our community,” Kim’s statement says.
The council has scheduled a public meeting with the BLM group for March.