The Man Who Wants To Be Mayor
By Nancy Muldoon
My interview with Public Safety Commissioner Ron Kim took place on the afternoon of June 10th 2009-
Citizen Nancy: “What inspired you to run for the Mayor of Saratoga Springs?”
Ron Kim: “No one else would do it. Believe me; actually that was one of the realities. We [The Democratic Party] were looking for somebody to run and because the Commission form of government is such that, being Mayor isn’t what it normally connotes in other forms of government in other places. I really like being Commissioner of Public Safety but to be a successful Mayor you have to have a team.”
Citizen Nancy: “What’s wrong with City Hall right now?”
Ron Kim: “Well, the budget is a really serious problem, we have some serious problems.”
Citizen Nancy: “How is it that a town that is as affluent as Saratoga Springs is having budget and financial problems?”
Ron Kim: “I think there is a couple of reasons, historically we’ve tried to maintain this with lowest tax county, city in the state, and we’ve done that sometimes through less than the best accounting ways. In other words, we’ve done a lot of one shot revenues, we haven’t saved for a rainy day, that kind of thing. I think that’s one of the things that has created a problem. I don’t think we generally have a lot of fat, I don’t agree with the analysis that [Finance Commissioner] Ken Ivins has said in the press that we have to cut the fat out. We [Public Safety Commission] run a pretty lean operation for the kinds of responsibilities that our department is required to undertake, not just in August but really year round.”
Citizen Nancy: “How was the Saratoga Springs public duped into believing that the Commission form of Government shouldn’t be changed?”
Ron Kim: “Good question, I don’t know, I was for the change, I actually debated up at Skidmore in the middle of that, I was a proponent of trying to change against, I think Gordon Boyd was on the other side of that and it was very disappointing to me.”
Citizen Nancy: “Let’s go back to the budget for a minute. I showed up to that meeting last week where Finance Commissioner Ken Ivins said that Saratoga Springs is the only host community in New York State that does not benefit financially from the VLT’S. I was shocked to hear that, how is that possible?”
Ron Kim: “It’s a good question because we don’t know what happened with the three men in the room [Gov. Paterson, Malcolm Smith and Sheldon Silver] thing. The way they technically did it was they basically used a poverty measure, and interestingly enough they drew the line right where Saratoga was above that line and so every other community got it. [Money from VLT’S] What was interesting, at least in my experience that we [Saratoga Springs] were the only community that was actually going down there [Albany] to fight for it. We had a meeting down there [Albany] sometime in the Fall of 2000, we had several meetings and it was a bi-partisan issue, everybody went down, I remember one [meeting] were we had a press conference scheduled and I think a representative from out west came, said a couple of words but basically out of 8 or 9 communities that are getting this [VLT] funding we [Saratoga] were the only ones that were really rattling peoples cages. Who knows why they [Paterson, Silver, Smith] did it, some people say, well cause its cause [Joe] Bruno wasn’t part of the three men in the room and they were saying to heck with him. Others say it was because [Saratoga] we had just gone through a budgeting cycle where we had to raise taxes, so do we really need this? [VLT money] I don’t know, I think that we [Saratogian’s] can’t give up on it. We are going to have this Racino here probably now until eternity. There are increased costs, we can document it.”
Citizen Nancy: “What are your feelings on the Racino, it offers nothing of quality for the community of Saratoga. What do you think?
Ron Kim: “I think it is so troubling that government increasingly, at all levels is relying on basically, on people’s vices to fund government. It seems to me, it’s the most regressive tax you can have and it a tax, its an entertainment tax, people say its voluntary but it is increasingly disturbing that whether it be the lottery or all these other mechanisms, somehow were afraid to just come right out and say, here’s what we need folks to run a good government or get these services done so instead were gonna fool ya through these other ways. It’s a reality, we don’t have choice, we fought against it, when these folks [The Racino] were coming in [to Saratoga]. Now the most we should do is to try to get something out of it if we can because the money.
We are the second most profitable Racino in the state [of New York], Yonkers is first. For us [Saratoga] not to make a dime out of the place, really is terribly inequitable. We made that case to all sorts of governmental leaders while we were down there [Albany] and I guess it fell on deaf ears.
Citizen Nancy: “Right, and all they offer to the community is $6hr jobs. I just don’t know how they get away with it.”
Ron Kim: “Right, right, yeah, it’s ah… if you talk about sustainability it’s certainly not sustainable, I mean I’m a bankruptcy attorney, I see some of those people [Racino customers] come in here with basically, you know put themselves on the list so they can’t walk into the Racino [because of a gambling addiction]. You know, again, if you talk about sustainability its not. I don’t know how government got into to this, I mean if you think about it in the 1960’s it was the Mafia that did this, (laughs) now its government that’s doing it.”
Citizen Nancy: “What do you think the number one thing that Saratoga needs to change besides the commission form of government? If you become Mayor what would be the first thing to implement?”
Ron Kim: “The first thing I’d do is to eliminate the frequent executive sessions (closed door meetings) that this Mayor [Scott Johnson] has. He [Johnson] goes into executive sessions a lot. We have gone into several executive sessions where for the life of me, based on the law of open public meetings law there is no basis for it. One of the more significant ones that I know that the School Board isn’t too excited with me for pointing this out is that there is a controversy that the city [of Saratoga] is having right now with the School Board that dates fairly….long term issue that we had to deal with is the maintenance of the various East Side Rec. fields and West Side etc. Its sort of a strange situation with the schools [who] own those [the Rec. Fields] but the city maintains them.
And with budgets as they are right now the city is looking to try to get more money from the school district to maintain them. Basically, the money that we receive which is about $50,000 a year hasn’t changed in over ten or fifteen years. The School Board, being budgets are tight doesn’t want to give us the money. Well, in any event long story short, they [The School Board] asked us to meet us in executive session. I said to the Mayor [Johnson] at the city council meeting, ‘For the life of me there is no reason that we ought to be going into a back room to talk about this with the School Board, we are a tax payer funded entity, they are a tax payer funded entity, there is no litigation between us, there is simply an argument, a difference of an opinion there is some discussion, we are trying to culminate a contract.’ And eventually we did work it out and there was a contract.”
“The mayor wants to continue chugging along on this Rec. Center and at this point it is a huge mistake, I know that most of the community feels that way. We have no plan to staff it, to heat it once its built, if we
are right now looking at cutting cops and firefighters how could we possibly think of adding another $250,000-$500,000 to our budget to basically staff and heat and cool a brand new building? It just makes no sense.” said Kim.
Ron Kim: “Another one the mistakes that this Mayor [Johnson] made, [is that] we had a comprehensive planning process that was finished at the end of Val Keehn’s term. They made some very specific recommendations about certain places that should and shouldn’t be developed, about zoning issues etc. One of the interesting recommendations was, that 23 Greenfield Avenue ought to be included….any place thats on the national historic registry ought to be included in the preservation. That was a recommendation that they [Keehn’s administration] that if we had passed, when Scott Johnson came in as Mayor, we wouldn’t have a problem up there [23 Greenfield Avenue] but he shelved it. Now that comprehensive planning committee, two years, two straight years, it was bi-partisan, it wasn’t just Democrats, it wasn’t just [Republicans] there was a green party member, it was a cross spectrum. Our Charter actually said that we need to undergo a comprehensive plan review every few years and it was time to do that. For him [Johnson] to just then shelve it was just ridiculous. I mean he didn’t just shelve it and appoint his own committee, he just IGNORED it and there is one example of a problem that could have been totally avoided if the recommendation [would have been considered.] It’s right there in black and white, its says right there, we are recommending that the city council adopt this comprehensive plan and one of the conditions of the comprehensive plan is that [this] house [23 Greenfield Ave.] would have been designated, as a… essentially protected from demolition.”
Citizen Nancy: Do you think he [Johnson] was told to shelve the project?
Ron Kim: “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. (laughs) Who knows?”
Citizen Nancy: “Seems a little coincidental.”
Citizen Nancy: “Is Saratoga going Hollywood? Are the Riggi’s being given preferential treatment?”