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SARATOGA SPRINGS — A new mayor and a new public safety commissioner will be joined by three returning commissioners when the five-member City Council convenes in 2024.
“I pledge to work with everyone to advance the interests of our beautiful city,” said John Safford, shortly after declaring victory in the city mayoral race on Election Night.
Safford, the Republican challenger, secured approximately 45% of the vote to emerge victorious over incumbent Mayor Ron Kim (D, WF) – who secured 38%, and Chris Mathiesen (One Saratoga) – who received 17%, according to the unofficial results reported by the Saratoga County Board of Elections. Safford will be the city’s first Republican mayor since Scott Johnson’s third term concluded in December 2013.
Most of the 8,443 voters counted cast their ballots Tuesday beneath a heavy November sky that saw shafts of light trying to punch holes in a gun-metal gray drape of clouds, wind-blown leaves swirling like mad straphangers at rush-hour, and an indecisive climate unsure whether to leap into winter, or quietly fall back.
In the city of Saratoga Springs, there are just over 20,000 voters actively registered, with registered Democrats accounting for approximately 40% of voters, registered Republicans about 28%, and Blanks –those registered to vote but purposely unaffiliated with any party, counting for about 26.5%. The remaining 5.5% balance of voters are comprised of those registered with either the Conservative Party, Working Families Party, or a variety of independent lines.
In actual numbers, Safford collected 580 more votes than Kim, as the results currently stand. Prior to the election, some Democrats expressed concern that Mathiesen – who previously sat at the council table as a three-term Democrat Public Safety Commissioner – may secure some votes that otherwise would have gone to Kim. Mathiesen garnered a total of 1,420 votes in his mayoral bid.
Safford previously worked for nearly 20 years as a professional managing agent to multiple Homeowners Associations and Condo boards and ran on a platform to “bring back civility to City Hall,” and “address homelessness with solutions that actually work.”
In the contested race for Commissioner of Public Safety, Tim Coll - a registered Democrat running on the Republican and One Saratoga line, secured 49.2% of the vote, besting independent line candidate Kristen Dart (28.9%) and incumbent Democrat Commissioner Jim Montagnino (21.8%) for the seat.
Coll is a retired former Special Agent of the FBI with 30 years of law enforcement experience.
The new mayor and new public safety commissioner will start their two-year terms in January. The balance of the five-person council will be comprised of three returning sitting commissioners, all Democrats, and each of whom received more than 5,000 votes running unopposed this election year. They are: Jason Golub (Public Works), Dillon Moran (Accounts), and Minita Sanghvi (Finance).
