Saratoga County Supreme Court issues temporary restraining order for Moran legal fees

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Despite the City Council recently approving the payment of Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran’s more than $60,000 in legal fees, actions from the Saratoga County Supreme Court placed a temporary restraining order on those funds.

Following the city receiving a subpoena in April by the Saratoga County District Attorney’s Office regarding the investigation into alleged malfeasances arising from a resolution passed in February 2023 which outlined and approved on-call pay to deputy commissioners, Moran was recommended by the City Attorney David Harper to seek legal counsel and hired Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, a New York City-based law firm.

At the July 2 City Council meeting, Moran sought authorization to pay the $60,992.65 invoice, and after much-heated discussion, it was approved 3-2 the city would cover the commissioner’s legal fees. Moran, Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi, and Commissioner of Public Works Jason Golub all voted in favor while Mayor John Safford and Commissioner of Public Safety Tim Coll voted against the payment.

Following the city council’s approval, Saratoga Springs Republican Chairman Mike Brandi filed emergency litigation against the City Council, under Article 78 of the CPLR which seeks a temporary restraining order to halt any payments by the City during the litigation process, with Brandi contending that these payments violate provisions of the NYS Constitution prohibiting gifts to individuals, as well as several state and local laws.

On July 5, the Saratoga County Supreme Court indeed issued a temporary restraining order, effectively prohibiting any payments to the private attorneys of Moran during the pendency of ongoing litigation.

“This is the first step in halting this unconstitutional misappropriation of taxpayer funds,” Brandi said in a statement following the announcement of the temporary restraining order. “We are committed to ensuring that the public’s money is used transparently and in accordance with the law.“

Moran did not respond to the request for comments on the temporary restraining order.

At the City Council meeting, tensions were high as the commissioners discussed whether or not to approve this payment. With the city not having a defined standard in its code, there was much back and forth on whether the city was obligated to pay this bill, and if the fees were reasonable.

Harper stated that the City was obligated to pay the legal bills of Moran in both a memo and at the meeting.

“Commissioner Moran consulted me regarding whether he needed outside counsel to represent him in the matter of ongoing investigation related to on-call pay,” Harper said in the memo, which Moran read at the meeting. “I told him he needed outside counsel. Under the form of our government, the City Council must vote to approve payment of legal fees for outside counsel and the resolution must pass by a simple majority vote of three-to-two vote.”

However, while he believed the city has an obligation, Harper shared the reasonability would be something that needed to be determined by the City Council — and the lack of definition in the city code resulted in a clashing of opinions.

Golub expressed his belief that Moran hadn’t been told before securing the legal council that it was unreasonable, it would not be right then now after the fact to double back.

“This is the point I have been making throughout this is that we have not memorialized reasonableness standards in our code, which we need to do,” Golub said. “Given that we haven’t done that, and we didn’t have a conversation about the reasonableness of these fees with any of the commissioners in advance, I find it troubling to then after the fact say I don’t think it’s reasonable when reasonableness is an objective legal standard.

“It’s not an opinion. It’s not subjective. So, I’m troubled by anyone who’s going to sit here and say now after the fact that something is not reasonable when it’s clear that we do not have that standard in our code, nor has that conversation even been had with the commissioner by our legal counsel.”

Coll on the other hand, while sharing that he strongly supports the indemnification for all current and past city commissioners and mayors, especially with their salaries, believed the issue needed to be tabled and discussed at a later date — referencing that Golub too sought approval for legal fees, but his cost was much lower and used an attorney in the area.

“We should be looking at location or geographic area,” Coll said. “I think there are dozens of excellent attorneys in the Capital Region. So that does give me pause, the geographic location. The $450 an hour that Commissioner Golub is putting in versus $1,235 an hour.”

The topic of the reasonability of Moran securing a NYC-based attorney versus a local one was another highly discussed topic, with Moran stating he was given the OK for engagement by the City Attorney after putting his attorney in contact with Harper.

“I reached out to several attorneys locally that were unable to represent me and because of the extreme political nature of the accusation and that it is being investigated by a district attorney I sought counsel outside the direct influence of the politics related to the Capital District,” Moran said. “Further, I sought someone with very specific source matter expertise because I reject this claim. It is false.”

Moran also shared he and his employee named in the subpoena are both covered by the same attorney, so across the bills, the average cost per hour was $1,000 for both him and his deputy, or $500 a person. Harper also shared that Moran was given a discount by the attorney.

“We have made every effort to be as expeditious as we could in response to this, having proper counsel and adequately using the resources we feel we need to defend ourselves,” Moran said. “I have a very long career. I’m very successful in my job. I am not going to have my professional reputation, or the reputation of Deputy (Stacy) Connors, soiled by political shenanigans.

“I am going to put forth the best defense we can have — $500 is reasonable.”

While ultimately the vote was in favor of paying for the legal fees, the issued temporary restraining order by the Saratoga Supreme Court has ordered that no funds should be paid while the court’s decision is pending.