Moving Saratoga Forward broke the news that a highly decorated senior officer of the Saratoga Springs Police Department was placed on administrative leave by Commissioner James Montagnino for what is best described as “insubordination.”
The lieutenant just happens to be the only female senior officer in the department. Years ago, she fought and won a discrimination claim against the Saratoga Springs PD.
Her personal record is impeccable, with not a single citation in her ~20 years of service.
The move to essentially terminate her from the department violates the progressive discipline policy that is commonplace in civil service careers.
Saratoga Springs blogger, John Kaufman, has done an excellent job covering the story. So we won’t repeat what has already been written.
Why is this relevant?
Unfortunately for Mr. Montagnino his treatment of women has been called into question in the not-too-distant past.
According to the NY Post Montagnino was driven from his job in the Westchester County court system for bias against female litigants in divorce proceedings.
The issue was so troubling to the Democratic Party apparatus in the city of Saratoga Springs, that James was denied their endorsement to run for city court judge in 2008, after the allegations of misogyny resurfaced in an article written by the Times Union.
Playing the race card
Given the Commissioners history, and rumored desire to seek higher office, we can sort of understand why Montagnino would be sensitive to allegations of treating women unfairly.
But what he did to deflect criticism was simply inappropriate.
After our story, Montagnino took it upon himself to speak to the press about an ongoing investigation. Doing so is wildly inappropriate, as District Attorney Karen Heggen pointed out in her statement on the matter
James then suggested that the highest-ranking female officer, one with an unblemished and impeccable personal record, was either “grossly incompetent” (misogyny?) or racist.
City Council Meeting
The problem for Commissioner Montagnino is that the victim isn’t an African American at all. A fact pointed out to him during the city council meeting on April 5th, when the audience corrected him on his claim.
The audio is a bit difficult to understand but what we are told by our sources that attended the meeting, is that when Montagnino again mischaracterized the “victims” ethnicity, the audience, which included Saratoga BLM leader, Lexis Figuereo and representatives of the family began shouting at the Commissioner.
“No he's not. He's not black.” “He's not African American.”
Aftermath
The Commissioner continued to give details about the alleged incident, again attempting to deflect from is personal actions. And despite the “victims” family specifically asking for him to “stop talking about it,” James proceeded in excruciating detail.
His statement clearly bothered Supervisor Tara Gaston, who after she asked James to stop talking about the matter, stormed out of the city council meeting.
Mr. Montagnino has perhaps permanently damaged his reputation with this stunt.
Our take is that the Commissioner should apologize to the “victims” family.
Furthermore, he should call the aforementioned female lieutenant and beg her to return to her role immediately.
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