Mittler seeking supervisors position
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. >> Stephen Mittler is running as the candidate for one of two positions as Supervisor for the City of Saratoga Springs on the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communication and Spanish from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. Detailed within the conversation are only some of the numerous assignments and extensive corporate experience in sales management Mittler plans to bring to the table if elected. Mittler’s platform issues include: • Solid leadership from the County to be part of the solution and dialogue for the homeless population. Code Blue is a county mandate for winter shelter starting Nov. 1 - April 1. This year the County Board of Supervisors did not meet the mandate and there will not be a Code Blue Shelter until December.
• Ensure that our resources to fight the growing homelessness crisis are met with a plan for the City, and all municipalities in the County. We can then disperse resources to other parts of the County to support the homeless population.
• Develop a task force that involves all nonprofits who are supporting the homeless to meet, discuss issues, and formulate a plan that optimizes all of their efforts.
• Continue our community dialogue on how we can help the homeless population 365 days per year.
• School security that starts with the School Resource Officer and stronger mental health awareness and intervention, including School Resource Officers budgeted for every school in Saratoga Springs, mental health leadership by the County and a plan to include County resources, Saratoga Hospital, and school administration to enhance an already well laid plan to support our children’s mental health needs.
• The county Public Health department, county Department of Social Services, school leadership, and parents need to come together and work on a way to introduce mental health as part of any planned education of physical health. This needs to happen earlier in a child’s elementary years.
In the following conversation with Stephen Mittler, he details the things that motivated him to seek a supervisory position for Saratoga Springs with the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors, and the elements from his background that he feels make him ideally suited to serve.
••• Stephen, why did you want to run for one of the Supervisory positions for the City of Saratoga Springs on the Board of Supervisors for Saratoga County?
“I’ve wanted to be involved in local politics for quite a long time. My family used to joke with me that you’re like the mayor of Clifton Park, because there were so many friends, adults and kids that would walk through the old Clifton Country Mall.” ••• When it was a real covered mall with connected stores?
“Yes, so walking through there it was non-stop: ‘Hey, Steve! Hey Steve!’ It was adults who recognized me from my part time job at the pharmacy at Exit 11, which was Fay’s Drugs. That was the family joke: ‘You should be the Mayor;’ now they say ‘you’re exactly where you need to be.’” ••• You’re saying you’re accessible.
“Yes, in general. From a personality perspective. Not so much the public, but it’s my personality and what I’ve always thought of doing. I could never do it because I traveled three weeks a month at least. I would get on a plane on a Tuesday get home late Thursday or early Friday. That excluded me from any kind of public office or volunteering.” ••• That was Clifton Park. How long have you lived in Saratoga Springs?
“We moved to Wilton for three years in 2001, then moved to Saratoga Springs in 2005.
“Lifelong county resident. I was born and raised in Ballston Lake, went away to college at SUNY
Plattsburgh, spent a couple of years down in New Paltz in the Hudson Valley with my now ex-wife’s family. We wanted nothing more than to get back up here.” ••• You have a prolific background in corporate sales and marketing, with JP Morgan Chase as Global Commercial Card Vice President, as Business Banking National Sales Leader for Chase Card Services, and Major Account Manager with AIG. Since 2016 to the present, you’ve been a stayat-home dad, and the owner and chief operating officer of a consulting business. Please tell us more about that. Does it have a name?
“Not yet; it’s still evolving. It’s a business where I go into small businesses $5-20 million, so it’s not on the street small businesses. They’re operating at usually in that range, often family owned.” ••• Give us an example. “I don’t want to use company names, but I go into an organization that’s operating, sales are good, but they don’t have all the processes they would like to have.
“One was “meeting adverse;” they didn’t feel meetings were productive. At the monthly meeting, they’d talk about what didn’t get done at the previous month’s meeting.” ••• And wonder why? “With some resistance, I said “Let’s try a weekly meeting.” Do this; if it’s not effective, you can go back and do what you have to.” ••• Was this on site? “Yes; in Ballston Spa. It’s just me, onsite and local.” ••• What feedback do you offer?
“I help identify where the gaps are; this weekly meeting is still ongoing and may be the most productive time they spend as a leadership group. Managers of operations, administration, manager of the field team. In Ballston, three people get together weekly to look at the whole business.” ••• Which is somewhat analogous to the department positions at the Saratoga County. There are 31 county departments.
“So many lead and bleed into each other.” ••• Are the people dialoguing and engaging with each other? These skills apply to leadership at the County.
“You’ve got to be able to drive consensus and agree. I’ve started new organizations at JP Morgan Chase, managed existing organizations and shut down dysfunctional organizations. All three are challenging.
“When starting an organization, you have to build trust, in an existing organization you take a look at what somebody else has already created, and when shutting down an organization, you have to be mindful there’s a lot going on in these folk’s lives and you have to maintain trust where an industry has determined that department is no longer need, profitable, in the right location. Those are tough decisions that have to be made.” ••• I’m hearing someone has to have the courage to recommend change or to say in honesty “This isn’t working for you.”
“You have to build the respect, so it’s not going in and telling; it’s understanding what you’re doing. In many of the assignments I’ve had specifically at JP Morgan Chase, I was brought into an organization or asked to begin one because of my style.
“Being able to look at something and fix it or drive something, like you do at home with your personal budget, you have to look at where I’m at , what’s the income, what I’m spending, what’s the result?
“Taking that to the county level, there are multiple layers to the budget. There are always ways that budgets are funded. Being able to understand if something goes off on one side, how are you going to make that money up? If you don’t spend money one place, do you try to better fund something else, or keep it in reserve?
“So those are the things that folks who aren’t accustomed to managing and understanding large budgets, that’s something that I have solid experience with.” ••• That’s certainly of value, because as we look at your list of platform issues for the county, the Code Blue issue is of utmost importance. This year the County Board of Supervisors did not meet the mandate and there will not be a Code Blue Shelter until December. There is not a “them” and “us” to this issue.
“I refer to people as the homeless population. I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck and fortunately been able to maintain housing. While I had had the backing of family or the luxury of family that would keep me from being homeless, my only client in 2010 was Circuit City.
“They went bankrupt. I had a full staff supporting them from a banking perspective. It was scary, When they were shutting all their stores in November, I was faced with what would be done with the staff. They were nationwide. A lot of families. I was concerned for myself; I had two children. This was during the crisis around 2007-08.
“I worked in banking; had no idea what my next move was. I had to close the door on myself because I was in charge of shutting us down.
“We managed to keep our house; because of my experience and reputation, JP Morgan Chase sent me to work in Canada, while I still lived in Saratoga Springs.” ••• You have shared your awareness of transportation issues and a desire to develop Route 9 as a public transportation route.
“I went out with Shelters of Saratoga to motels along Rt.9 and saw people trying to get to work. It will be interesting to see what happens next year with that.” •••