News

Aug 10, 2023

Police report sheds light on argument that led to village manager’s resignation

Jul 25, 2023 The current Saranac Lake village board and manager pose at their first meeting together on April 4, 2022. From left in the front row are Trustee Matt Scollin, Mayor Jimmy Williams and

Jul 25, 2023

The current Saranac Lake village board and manager pose at their first meeting together on April 4, 2022. From left in the front row are Trustee Matt Scollin, Mayor Jimmy Williams and Trustee Kelly Brunette; in the back row are Trustee Rich Shapiro, Trustee Tom Catillaz and Manager Erik Stender. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — A leaked police report obtained by the Enterprise on Tuesday sheds new light on an altercation between the Saranac Lake village mayor and manager that led to village board calls for an investigation and the resignation of the manager.

Mayor Jimmy Williams allegedly grabbed village Manager Erik Stender by the throat and “slammed” him against a wall, according to a statement Stender gave to village police in a leaked report on the July 11 altercation.

Stender maintains that he was physically attacked by Williams. Williams has declined to comment on the incident. Village employee eyewitnesses say Williams was acting defensively as Stender punched a wall next to him, which Stender denies.

The report, written by Saranac Lake Police Chief Darin Perrotte, states that a verbal argument between the two escalated into a “brief physical exchange” in the upstairs town hall hallway outside the treasurer’s door.

Perrotte said he received a report of alleged second-degree harassment and investigated. The investigation closed, finding no evidence of a crime being committed. Since pushing and shoving without injury is harassment, a violation charge, it does not rise to the criminal level and an arrest cannot be made unless someone presses charges. Both declined to press charges.

Stender said he didn’t pursue any charges because he didn’t see it helping the village. Ultimately, Perrotte said without anyone pressing charges, police cannot charge someone for a second-degree harassment claim they did not witness.

In the report, Perrotte concludes that it is unclear exactly who initiated the physical escalation. The statements from Stender and eyewitnesses are “conflicting in primary aggressor as well as the chronology.” Perrotte chalks this up to the unreliability of memory in accounts like this.

Williams consistently declined to comment on the allegations and accounts in the report.

“I’m not going to indulge the folks who leaked this,” he said.

Williams said he believes the document was leaked illegally, or at least preemptively, before the village approved the release through the official FOIL process.

The Enterprise has attempted to obtain the report through a Freedom of Information Law request, but that request was denied by the village on the grounds that it is an internal report containing confidential information under an “attorney-client privilege” that makes it ineligible for FOIL.

This blockage was disputed at Monday’s board meeting as Trustee Rich Shapiro unsuccessfully pushed for it to be released.

“The public deserves transparency,” Shapiro said.

The rest of the trustees said they wanted to release the report, but wouldn’t agree to do so until they knew it was legal. Williams said they were still waiting on confirmation from the village attorney that the report could be released legally. The village attorney was not at Monday’s meeting, which irritated some residents in the audience.

Shapiro said while the attorney was looking at it as an internal workplace violence report, he argues that this report should be classified as a “criminal investigation” since it is a police report. Perrotte classified it as “police investigation,” since it is about an alleged violation that does rise to a “criminal” level.

Shapiro called Williams a hypocrite because he campaigned on a platform of transparency.

“I think there are other underlying motivations in regards to this whole thing,” Williams said. “I have talked to three of the four trustees who said they had no part in releasing that document. Take what you will from that.”

From the start, Williams has felt this whole thing was blown out of proportion. It was two people letting off steam and shouting, he says.

“It doesn’t deserve the coverage it is getting,” he said.

It was a private disagreement and it should stay that way, he said. He said it doesn’t help to keep hashing this out and that the village needs to focus on moving forward.

Williams points out that neither him nor Stender filed an official complaint to the police or human resources officer. Perrotte first heard of the fight immediately after it happened, when Stender walked into his office “visibly upset” and told him about it, telling the chief that he did not want to report it for police action.

“I am not going to perpetuate the circus that this has become,” Williams said. “Sometimes when two people are very passionate about something, which is the leadership of Saranac Lake — a place we both are from and love dearly — sometimes that passion can lead to disagreements. It did. I don’t hold anything against Erik and I hope he doesn’t hold anything against me.”

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What’s in the report

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Stender, in his statement to the police, said he and Williams were working in their joint office on the morning of July 11 when the owner of a local business came in, upset about the recently announced temporary closure of the village parking lot next to their business for unexpected contamination remediation work at the village park next door.

After speaking with the business owner, Stender said he was frustrated, sat back down and shook his head. He said Williams made a statement about the business owner just trying to run a business. Stender said he was trying to run a village.

He didn’t like Williams’ response to that, what he described as “a little smirk and a snarky laugh.” This set him off. He said he yelled at Williams, “this is the last time you’re going to laugh at me,” and left the room, “too pissed to even talk.”

Williams followed him out of the office, and the two continued shouting in the hallway. This is where the accounts of events start to deviate.

Stender said Williams grabbed his elbow and throat, spun him around and pushed him against the wall.

An eyewitness said Williams was cornered against the door and Stender punched the wall.

“Jimmy then tried to push Erik away defensively I believe and Erik threw both hands outward deflecting Jimmy’s hands,” the witness wrote in their statement.

According to the report, this eyewitness had earlier told Perrotte that “Erik looked as though he may strike the door or possibly the mayor” and that they felt the shove was “more so the mayor deflecting or pushing Erik away in a defensive move.”

“Personally, I didn’t think this was that serious,” the eyewitness wrote. “They both just got heated and got into it a little. It wasn’t like a fist fight or anything.”

Another eyewitness said they saw Stender shove Williams away with both hands.

The two backed away from each other and left.

Stender said he did not punch the wall.

“I did hit the wall, but it was with my body and not a fist,” he said. “That thump that they heard on the wall was not me hitting the wall out of anger. It was me hitting the wall against my will.”

He said he had not touched Williams before that.

“Absolutely not. That’s unacceptable in the workplace,” he said.

Another witness told police that Williams and Stender were “verbally abusive” to each other and described their conflict as frightening to employees around the office. Stender told Perrotte they had been arguing for weeks.

Stender said he was not choked, hurt or in danger.

“His hand on my throat was not choking me or trying to hurt me because if he were trying to, he clearly would have,” he told Perrotte.

But he was shocked. This was the moment that changed everything for him, Stender said. He had not thought about resigning before that.

“I’m not going to incur violence from the mayor. I’m not sticking around for that. That’s crossing a line that you can’t come back from,” Stender said. “How can I sit up there at a board meeting and sit next to him and think that we’re on the same team?”

Stender’s resignation is effective Wednesday.

“I do not see how I can proceed and work in this environment,” he wrote in his statement to police. “There has never been any physical confrontations between us before. There have just been a lot of conversations where he he sits me down and tries to to tell me how to to act and what to do. … I get that he is stressed and frustrated with me. I just don’t understand what is going on.”

Stender has been out of the office in the past week and was not present at the meeting on Monday. He said he has been preparing the department heads for his departure. Stender feels like he’s abandoning his village crew.

“I feel bad. They’re suffering,” he said.

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The circus

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Shapiro’s rejected request to release the report was the subject of a lengthy and heated discussion on Monday. Shapiro said it is legal to release. Williams said it is not, citing the village attorney’s counsel. Shaprio said the attorney gives advice.

“It doesn’t mean we have to follow it,” he said. “Especially if we don’t necessarily trust them.”

The FOIL process is a long one, Williams said, and it should not be expedited.

“You have an extreme vested interest in this,” Shapiro told Williams. “You’re trying to spin this.”

“I realize that you are passionate and enjoying tugging on every string in this ball of yarn,” Williams told Shapiro. “This is being blown way out of proportion … and you are creating a circus.”

Shapiro said he wasn’t the one who made the village manager quit.

“You created the circus,” he said.

At Monday’s meeting, Harrietstown resident Darra Wenske said the village board’s focus is on everything but village growth and improvement and she felt “embarrassed.”

“Learn how to work together or take a step back and reevaluate what you bring to the table. And maybe this isn’t the right table for you anymore,” she said.

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Refilling manager position

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Williams said he’s been speaking with several potential picks for the job — some want it and some don’t.

The opening is not being advertised, since it is an appointed position, Williams said.

“Don’t you think it’d be a good idea?” Trustee Tom Catillaz asked.

Williams said he plans to finish asking the people he was planning to ask. He said to advertise now would “confuse things” and delay filling the position.

“It’s not confusing. It’s good practice,” Catillaz said.

At the end of Monday’s meeting, Trustee Kelly Brunette called for an executive session to discuss “the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or corporation, or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation.” The rest of the board members agreed unanimously.

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