Council president’s moves raise eyebrows
A City Council member is baffled after she was removed from committee assignments by leadership, a move she contends will jeopardize economic progress in the city.
Councilwoman Karen Zalewskiwildzunas was stripped of her leadership of the council’s Development and Planning Committee and removed from her perch on the Finance Committee by council President John Mootooveren. Both are critical in furthering economic development initiatives, including the sale of city-owned properties.
Zalewski-wildzunas suspects her demotions are politically motivated.
“It’s clear this is an attempt to slow the process down and I don’t understand why,” she said. Zalewski-wildzunas lodged a formal objection on
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Monday and demanded Mootooveren publicly address his rationale.
Mootooveren would only say he removed Zalewski-wildzunas from chairing the Development and Planning Committee after receiving an advisory memo from city Corporation Counsel Andrew Koldin determining that the move was lawful under city code.
A second memo penned by Koldin determined Mootooveren cannot remove properly seated rank-and-file committee members, Zalewski-wildzunas said, which applies to the Finance Committee.
Koldin, who serves as legal counsel for both City Hall and City Council, declined to furnish the memos, citing attorneyclient privilege.
Mootooveren said the city code isn’t clear on barring the council president from making committee changes.
Mootooveren told the Times Union on Tuesday that he had no choice but to make the changes after the departures of excouncil members Leesa Perazzo and Ed Kosiur earlier this year left the body with just five members.
Mootooveren and Councilwoman Marion Porterfield, who will replace Zalewski-wildzunas as chair of Development and Planning and has been tapped to sit on Finance, wanted to avoid a Democratic primary by having the two candidates endorsed by the city Democratic Committee in February immediately be seated.
Zalewski-wildzunas disagreed, opting instead to support a primary.
All three are up for re-election this year.
Mootooveren cited the refusal to seat the endorsed candidates — Carl Williams and Halieab Samuel — as a key reason for reshuffling the committees. And he appeared to indicate that a decision by his colleagues to fill the vacancies ahead of the general election would prompt further adjustment of the assignments.
“I do hope the three council members can support the appointments and we wouldn’t have any issues with committee assignments,” Mootooveren said, also referring to Councilwoman Carmel Patrick and Deputy Majority Leader John Polimeni, who supported a primary.
Porterfield and Zalewski-wildzunas have sparred over police reform, with Porterfield favoring a more bold and aggressive response over Zalewski-wildzunas’ more gradual approach to change.
Zalewski-wildzunas has been supportive of city Police Chief Eric Clifford, while he and Porterfield have sparred, most recently, last week over the department’s use of knee-to-neck holds.
“Quite frankly, it appears to be a political maneuver and appears to be aimed at defunding the police department,” said Polimeni, who opposes stripping Zalewski-wildzunas of her assignments.
The move has already led to delays in conducting city business — including approving Finance Commissioner Anthony Ferrari’s request for a bond anticipation ordinance on Monday.
Locking in a lower interest rate will result in savings on capital projects this year, Ferrari told lawmakers, imploring the Finance Committee to approve the authorization ahead of a deadline to secure more favorable financing.
But lawmakers deadlocked, and the move failed to make it out of committee.
“We have an opportunity to get this bonding done at an extremely low rate and we can’t jeopardize something that is going to help the city tremendously,” Zalewskiwildzunas said on Tuesday. “This could financially impact the city.”
Ongoing projects
Porterfield on Monday called for more time to review line items in the $7.4 million capital project plan, including the purchase of Tasers and vehicles for the police department.
“I want to look closely at things we’re purchasing and there are a number of things,” said Porterfield.
Yet while some city business was recessed due to the flap, the Finance Committee on Monday did approve a bid to award a contractor $2.8 million to continue build-out of the city’s municipal Wi-fi network.
Councilwoman Carmel Patrick criticized Mootooveren for making the last-minute changes without input from lawmakers, calling them “injudicious.”
“I’m dumbfounded by what I consider to be irresponsible and really destructive moves by Mootooveren,” Patrick said.
Councilperson’s concerns
Patrick contended the vacancies left by Perazzo and Kosiur haven’t impacted committee operations — neither served on the Finance Committee — and is a politically motivated attempt by Mootooveren to diminish Zalewski-wildzunas’ presence during a re-election year.
Patrick penned a letter to city and county Democratic Party officials asking them to intervene, contending that since Mootooveren has not responded to calls by Polimeni or Zalewskiwildzunas for the past several months, “it is difficult to resolve this situation personally.”
The first-term lawmaker also criticized Porterfield’s perceived lack of experience compared to Zalewski-wildzunas, who has a professional background in banking, finance and real estate.
“For what it is worth, as a first-year councilperson, I was somewhat amazed by Ms. Porterfield’s lack of understanding of basic budget and finance principles when we discussed the 2021 budget, and thankful that Ms. Zalewski-wildzunas was able to help broaden her understanding,” Patrick wrote.
And removing Zalewski-wildzunas “greatly jeopardizes their management and Council’s decision-making, leading, of course, to poor outcomes for the City,” Patrick wrote.
Porterfield said Zalewski-wildzunas never asked and offered any help on budgetary issues.
“I’m not sure what Ms. Carmel Patrick means with those remarks,” Porterfield said.
Porterfield said if she doesn’t have the proper skill set to dive into an issue, she reaches out to people and city staffers to help work through it.
“The city has people on their staff who do that,” Porterfield said. “I don’t work for the city in that capacity, which is why I go to the Finance Commissioner.”
Zalewski-wildzunas said her expertise is critical in furthering city efforts, including sale of city-owned properties, a leading priority of city Mayor Gary Mccarthy’s administration. With her leadership of Planning and Development, the city sold $1 million in property sales in 2020, successfully moving the properties — most of which are in blighted neighborhoods — back onto city tax rolls, Patrick said.
Most are now owneroccupied, a key to stabilizing neighborhoods.
“I understand the dislike on assignments,” Mootooveren said. “But these committee alignments will remain in effect until any further changes.”