Kim for Mayor campaign (2021)
Ronald Kim
Saratoga Springs mayor Ron Kim tells FoothillsBusinessDaily.com that he plans to change the role of the city attorney and that his first pick to fill that role, Elizabeth Fletcher-Fairbanks, has bowed out for personal reasons. Kim has on his portion of the agenda an announcement regarding the city attorney during the pre-agenda meeting of the Saratoga Springs City Council at 10 a.m. and this evening during the regularly scheduled board meeting at 7 p.m.
In the meantime, Kim and his Deputy Mayor, Angela Rella, both attorneys, are filling the role left vacant this month when Kim did not reappoint former City Attorney Vincent DeLeonardis and Assistant City Attorney Tony Izzo.
“We think we’re going to propose a better model for a cheaper price,” Kim said of the new structure which he said would save the city $50,000 to $100,000 per year.
He said the attorney position will be part-time at about 30 hours per week with, possibly, a paralegal position to assist the attorney.
The city attorney under this plan will become a manager of the outside counsel, overseeing the various activities. He said that no attorney can be an expert at everything, so the city could "buy the expertise" when needed, rather than spending the money on a full-time attorney.
He said the city has been paying about $200,000 per year for two attorneys and an additional $150,000 for three attorney who worked as outside counsel. The city attorney job had a base salary of $135,000 per year starting in 2018.
The city has a labor attorney on retainer and a land-use attorney, Kim said. However, the former city attorney, DeLeonardis, attended Planning Board meetings in the past year.
The city also uses an attorney legal actions such as the civil case between the city and the family of Darryl Mount Jr., who died after a police chase that left him in a coma.
Elizabeth Fletcher-Fairbanks had taken some heat on the Saratoga Springs Politics blog for her residence and whether it was in the city and whether she qualified for the job because of that.
“I think we’re going to have someone [to replace the Fletcher-Fairbanks nomination] in a couple weeks,” Kim said.
He did not say what the salary of the new position would be.
The agenda for the morning meeting had a “discussion and vote” item on the mayor’s portion of the agenda , but the link to any documentation was dead on Monday Jan. 18, and Kim said he would be pulling that item in the morning meeting. The draft agenda on the website now says "Announcement: City Attorney."
Kim said the original idea was to have a proposal, but now it will be more of a discussion.
Also listed was a discussion and vote of non-union full-time employees including the Civil Service coordinator position and the city attorney.
That item, under Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi's agenda, has been changed to list only the civil service position. The base pay for that position will rise from $58,000, which was effective in 2020, to $65,000 effective Jan. 1 of this year.