Saratoga Springs public safety commissioner says he’s ashamed of City Council

By WNYT

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The Saratoga Springs public safety commissioner is responding to a City Council resolution that aims to right the wrongs of racism in the city. Jim Montagnino sent a letter to the police and fire departments. He said in that letter that he’s ashamed of the City Council and calls protesters “a mob intent on spreading chaos and division.”

The City Council meeting on Tuesday to pass the resolution ended early after a protest led by Saratoga Black Lives Matter.

The City Council approved the Restorative Justice Resolution by a 4-1 vote. Montagnino was the only member of the council to vote against the resolution.

Montagnino’s letter blasts the resolution.

Open Letter to SSPD and SSFD (May 3, 2023)Download

“I am ashamed that my colleagues have allowed the City Council to become a sounding board for a misplaced and doomed ideology. I am ashamed that people who were elected to lead have instead chosen to follow,” he said in the letter. “I am ashamed, as a part of the civilian authority which serves men and women who have freely chosen careers that require them to run in the direction of danger and not from it, to be a member of a City Council that cowers in fear from mere words shouted from the mouths of a mob intent on spreading chaos and division in our city.”

The letter ends with Montagnio telling the police and fire departments, “You owe no one an apology.”