Neither the mayor nor the Corporation Counsel attended. The Troy City Charter requires both to be present at all regular and special council meetings.
Local Law 4 would repeal and replace Section C-40 of the Troy City Charter, the provision defining when the mayor may declare a state of emergency. The amendment redefines “disaster” as a specific list of qualifying events: fire, flood, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, high water, landslide, wind, storm, wave action, epidemic, air contamination, terrorism, cyber event, blight, drought, infestation, explosion, water contamination, and bridge failure or collapse.
A camera contract renewal does not appear on that list.
The amendment is a direct response to Mantello’s April 1, 2026 emergency declaration over Flock Safety license plate reader cameras. She used emergency powers to authorize a $78,000 payment without council or auditor approval. As of June 25, that declaration was in its 85th day. Council President Steele: “That’s why we’re amending the charter. It’s open-ended with her.”
Because Local Law 4 amends the city charter, state law requires three separate public hearings before the council can vote on it. Resolution 72, introduced by Council President Steele and moved by Council Member Spain-McLaren, scheduled those hearings.
Before the vote, Council Member Favreau raised a practical concern: if all three hearings were held on the same night, residents who could not attend one would have no alternative. Steele agreed. The schedule was spread across two dates.
Committee review is set for August 20. If no amendments come out of the hearings, the council could take a final vote in September.
Resolution 72 passed 7-0.
Two residents spoke before the vote and one after, each raising the administration’s absence.
Frankie, a resident who did not give her district, thanked the council for calling the special meeting. She noted the mayor’s emergency declaration was in its 85th day and observed that the mayor was at a campaign fundraiser rather than at the council meeting she was required to attend.
Sylva Menard, of 5th Avenue in District 4, thanked the council and cited Troy City Charter Article 5, Section 219, which requires the Corporation Counsel to attend all council meetings in person or by deputy. No one from the administration was present.
After the vote, Avi Minard cited the charter provision requiring the mayor to attend all regular and special meetings and take part in discussion. Council President Steele acknowledged the concern and expressed hope for more collaboration and cooperation from the administration.
While the meeting was underway, Mantello was hosting what she described on Facebook as her “Cookout Fundraiser” at the C.R.A.B. Club, starting at 6:00 PM on June 25. Her post: “Together, we’ve made tremendous progress making Troy safer, cleaner, and improving quality of life throughout our city. But there’s still more work to do, and I’m asking for your continued support as we keep Troy moving forward.”
The City Charter is not ambiguous. The mayor is required to attend all regular and special meetings of the council. This was a special meeting. She did not attend.
It is not the first time. At the new council’s first public forum on January 8, 2026, Mantello and her entire administration were absent. Sean Collins of the Troy Area Labor Council said from the podium that night: “The mayor’s absence at the new council’s first public meeting is indicative of what the next two years of your term will be.”
Partisan angle: Mantello used emergency powers to bypass the council and the city auditor over a contract dispute. The council is amending the charter to close that gap. She vetoed the resolution to schedule the required public hearings. The council called a special meeting to move the process forward anyway, overcoming her obstruction in 11 minutes. She was at a fundraiser. Residents at the meeting named the charter provisions she and her Corporation Counsel were violating in real time.
Sources: Troy City Council Special Meeting, June 25, 2026 (YouTube recording; transcript via yt-dlp auto-captions); Special Meeting Agenda; Special Meeting Minutes; Mayor Mantello Facebook, June 25, 2026; WGNA; Troy City Charter, Article VI (mayor attendance); Troy City Charter, Article 5, Section 219 (Corporation Counsel attendance)
]]>That is the city’s system for public records. Two and a half years into the Mantello administration, it is not working.
Alex Horton was hired as Director of Communications on January 14, 2025. He came directly from the congressional office of U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro, a Republican who lost his reelection bid in November 2024. Before that, Horton managed Molinaro ally Thomas Marcelle’s 2022 campaign for New York State Supreme Court.
Mantello gave him the records access function on top of the communications role. His formal title in FOIL matters: Records Access Officer.
At an April 23, 2026 Law Committee and Finance meeting, a council member asked Horton about his training.
“Have you ever received training in FOIL compliance?”
His answer: once. When he first came in, a staffer whose title he could not recall walked him through the GovQA portal. That was it.
Corporation Counsel Richard Morrissey, who was also present, confirmed he trained Horton on which exemptions apply to which requests. When a council member asked Morrissey the same question about his own training, he said: “I don’t recall.”
When residents appeal a denial, the appeal goes to Morrissey, the same attorney who oversaw the original response.
The record of FOIL under this administration is not a bureaucratic failure. It is a pattern.
At the January 8, 2026 council meeting, a Troy resident testified that he had reached out to Horton about a public records matter. Horton gave him his email address. The resident sent two messages. Neither was answered. He filed a formal FOIL request. It came back with nothing.
“Either they lied to me,” the resident told the council, “or they have really bad records.”
At the May 21, 2025 council meeting, a resident testified that the Troy Police Department had categorically denied FOIL requests for Flock Safety surveillance camera data going back to 2023. He brought documentation and a written response from the New York State Committee on Open Government, the state body that exists to advise municipalities on FOIL compliance.
The committee, he reported, “could not explain” the denial. He described them as dumbfounded.
The administration later renewed the Flock contract through an emergency declaration in early 2026, bypassing city council. The contract is the subject of a May 2026 lawsuit.
The April 23, 2026 meeting also revealed a separate breakdown: the administration was not present when FOIL was called as the first agenda item. The council moved on to other business. Morrissey and Horton appeared later in the session.
Deputy Mayor Seamus Donnelly addressed the FOIL backlog at the April 23 meeting. His explanation was that the city’s records are in disarray.
“I first came into office,” Donnelly said, “I go into my actual physical office, there’s documents in piles and different things all over the place. I had reports that had Harry Tutunjian’s name on it to current ARPA reports.”
Harry Tutunjian left office in 2011.
A council member’s response: “To be fair, you made your own mess.”
Donnelly agreed: “Rick just for the record noted and then I went ahead and made my office a bigger mess than I probably found it.”
The administration has been in office since January 2024.
Mantello announced Horton’s hire with a statement that he brings “a strong commitment to transparent communication.” She gave the FOIL function to a political operative with no government records experience, placed appeals with the same attorney who handles denials, and her own deputy mayor admitted on the record that he added to the filing chaos he inherited. The words and the record do not match.
Sources: Troy City Council Law Committee and Finance Meeting, April 23, 2026 (transcript); Troy City Council Regular Meeting, January 8, 2026 (transcript); Troy City Council Committee Night and Finance Meeting, May 21, 2025 (transcript); Mayor Mantello Announces Hiring of City Communications Director, troyny.gov
]]>“Because we live in a democracy,” the council stated, “policy disputes are resolved through the democratic lawmaking process, not at the whims of a single chief executive.”
Mantello called it “frivolous litigation instead of collaboration.”
An Article 78 proceeding is a New York mechanism for challenging government action as exceeding lawful authority. The council’s argument has two parts: first, that the emergency declaration itself was outside the scope of mayoral power; second, that spending $78,000 without council or auditor authorization was an illegal act regardless of the emergency label.
Resident Bex Cahill had laid out the charter argument at the April 23 Law Committee meeting. Troy City Charter Section C-40 defines an emergency as conflagration, riot, storm, earthquake, or other unusual peril to life and property. Continuation of a vendor contract does not meet that standard.
Council President Steele said the declaration “overstepped legislative authority.” The lawsuit made the same argument in court filings.
The lawsuit did not come out of nowhere. A week before it was filed, on May 4, the council introduced a local law establishing standards for license plate reader use in Troy. The DA and police chief opposed it. The administration had also been unwilling to hold departmental meetings about Flock’s data practices, a point Steele had raised repeatedly.
The council was not simply blocking a vendor payment. It was trying to legislate guardrails on a technology it had never formally approved, while the administration refused to engage on the merits and then used emergency powers to pay the vendor anyway.
The April 23 Law Committee meeting fell on day 23 of the state of emergency. Resident Francis Sweet cited the full list of emergency declarations Mantello had issued since taking office. The Flock declaration was her tenth.
At the same April 23 meeting, resident Sylva Menard reported a development from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, that had occurred that same day. The Oshkosh City Council voted unanimously to rescind its Flock contract renewal, reversing a 5-2 approval vote from the night before.
The reason: Flock lied to the council. During the Tuesday approval meeting, a council member asked a Flock representative directly: “Does the system create a heat map of a vehicle’s movement using multiple aggregated images?” The Flock representative said no. Police Chief Dean Smith had already seen those heat maps. The morning after the vote, Smith told the city manager what he knew. Within one day the council held a special session, rescinded the contract unanimously, and apologized to the community. Smith said all Flock cameras would come down before summer.
Menard said she had transcripts of both Oshkosh meetings available for the Troy council.
Partisan angle: The council filed suit after trying every other option first. It tabled the contract, requested information Flock never provided, directed the auditor to pause payments, and introduced legislation. Mantello bypassed all of it with an emergency declaration. The lawsuit was the only avenue left.
Sources: Spectrum News, May 12, 2026; WNYT; News10; CBS6; WBAY, Oshkosh, April 23, 2026; Troy City Council Law Committee and Finance Meeting, April 23, 2026 (transcript)
]]>District 1 Councilor Phil DiLorenzo framed it directly: “Do we stand with our residents, or do we ignore what they’ve made abundantly clear?”
Mantello issued a statement after the override calling the council’s action “radical agendas over the needs of ordinary residents.” She had previously asked: “What’s next? Is it rent control?” She maintained that increasing housing supply, not regulating landlord conduct, was the right approach to affordability.
The law passed regardless. Troy joined Ithaca, Binghamton, and Albany as New York municipalities that had opted into the state’s 2024 Good Cause Eviction framework. Syracuse had failed to pass it in February on a tied vote.
At the same April 9 meeting, the council voted 7-0 on a separate item: authorizing a five-year license agreement for the Frear Park restaurant concession. Commissioner of General Services Joe Mazzariello had served on the RFP scoring committee. Two applications were scored; the committee’s recommendation passed without objection on the same night the veto override made headlines.
Partisan angle: The May 2025 Republican council refused to hold a public hearing. Voters replaced all of them. The new council passed the law, Mantello vetoed it, and the council overrode her. The override required a two-thirds majority. The council is seven Democrats. The math was never close.
Sources: Spectrum News, April 9, 2026; WAMC, April 10, 2026; News10; Troy City Council Finance and Regular Meeting, April 9, 2026 (transcript)
]]>The council and the auditor sued her five weeks later.
The auto-renewal had already triggered on March 1. The council did not receive the Flock contract until Friday, March 13 at 5 PM, twelve days after the renewal window closed. The council was being asked to ratify a contract that had already been renewed without its approval.
The March 19, 2026 Finance Meeting drew more than 150 people, described as more than double the previous record for a Troy council meeting, with overflow into a conference room. Over 40 speakers testified, unanimously opposing the Flock contract. The council tabled the authorization 7-0, pending additional information Flock had not yet provided, including a security audit report (SOC 2) and technical details about data practices.
Corporation Counsel Morrissey said on the floor that the enforceability of the auto-renewal clause was “a legal question for courts to decide.” If the council declined to ratify, he said, the city would need to defend that position.
On March 31, Council President Steele directed the city auditor to pause all Flock payments until outstanding questions and public concerns were resolved.
Mantello declared the emergency the next morning. She called the council’s interference “just not appropriate,” arguing it created “confusion” and disrupted public safety infrastructure. She called the council’s proposed data regulations “dangerous, misguided and a gift to criminals.”
Steele called the emergency declaration “a very cheap tactic” and an overreach of mayoral power. She also denied that a valid contract existed at all, arguing no renewal was binding without formal council approval.
Mantello anchored her position in a specific case. Juan Rivera, 27, was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Kevin Hall Jr., killed in April 2025 on 3rd Street in Troy. Flock cameras helped locate Rivera within hours of the crime. Mantello cited it repeatedly, calling the cameras “a critical tool” in investigations.
She also offered to establish a task force and issue a new vendor RFP, gestures the council did not take as a substitute for legislative guardrails.
At the March 19 meeting and in the weeks that followed, Steele raised a specific concern: Flock data had previously been shared nationally, including with ICE and what she called “other nefarious outlets,” until officials raised objections. Mantello said current data sharing was limited to local municipalities only and that she had already disabled the national search function within the Flock system.
The council was not satisfied with an administrative fix. Councilmember Noreen McKee introduced Local Law 3 to put the guardrails into binding legislation.
The city council and the city auditor filed suit against Mantello on May 11, 2026. The lawsuit argued Mantello abused her emergency powers, improperly authorized a $78,000 payment without council or auditor approval, and set a precedent for unchecked executive authority. The council sought a court order declaring the emergency declaration unlawful, nullifying the order, and invalidating the contract renewal.
“Policy disputes are resolved through the democratic lawmaking process,” the council stated, “not at the whims of a single chief executive.”
Mantello called it “frivolous litigation instead of collaboration.”
By late May, the administration and council announced an agreement on camera use policies: annual audits of Flock data, limits on data sharing to intra-agency requests handled case-by-case, and an explicit ban on using the cameras for immigration enforcement or monitoring First Amendment-protected activity.
The council paused action on Local Law 3 for 60 days. McKee made clear the pause was not a retreat. “Because it is non-binding,” she said of the policy agreement, “it’s no substitute for legislation and the Council will continue to move forward with the law.”
The lawsuit status was not resolved by the compromise announcement.
Partisan angle: Mantello’s emergency declaration was not a response to a public safety crisis. It was a response to the city auditor. She used emergency powers to override an administrative check, bypass the council, and pay a vendor while the council was in the middle of drafting legislation to regulate that vendor. The compromise came later. The lawsuit came first.
Sources: CBS6, April 1, 2026; Spectrum News, April 2, 2026; News10, April 2026; CBS6, Lawsuit; CBS6, Rivera conviction; WAMC, May 20, 2026; WAMC, May 27, 2026; Troy City Council Finance Meeting, March 19, 2026 (transcript)
]]>Two-thirds of Troy residents rent.
Good Cause Eviction limits rent increases to whichever is lower: 10% or the inflation rate plus 5%. Landlords can exceed those caps with documented operating cost increases or capital improvements. Tenants gain protection from arbitrary evictions; landlords can still remove tenants for nonpayment, lease violations, nuisance complaints, or illegal activity.
The law excludes single-unit owners, subsidized and rent-stabilized properties, co-ops, condos, public housing, and properties where tenants pay below 345% of fair market rent.
New York adopted Good Cause statewide in 2024, but required municipalities to opt in. Ithaca, Binghamton, and Albany had already done so. Syracuse’s common council failed to pass it in February 2026 on a tied vote.
The council had been here before. On May 22, 2025, the Republican majority voted 4-3 against even scheduling a public hearing on Good Cause Eviction.
Their arguments are on the record. Councilor Thomas Casey called the legislation a Fifth Amendment violation, saying landlords “have a chance of losing everything” while “renters get a U haul and move on.” Councilor Bill Keal said renters “took the lowest cost rental unit available.” Councilor Ryan Brosnan proposed Residential Occupancy Permits as an alternative, arguing they would “generate revenue for the city.”
Tenant advocates left the chamber chanting “We’ll remember in November.” The coalition later held a candidate forum on tenant rights issues. No Republican candidates attended.
They remembered.
In November 2025, Democrats swept all seven Troy council seats. Every Republican who voted against holding a public hearing on Good Cause Eviction lost. Council President Steele put it plainly after the new council passed the law: “All of those who opposed those two items were defeated soundly.”
The new council reintroduced Good Cause Eviction in early 2026 and passed it unanimously on March 5.
Mantello vetoed on March 18. Her stated concern was small landlords. “Many of our rental properties are owned and operated by small, local landlords, individuals and families who often own just one or two units,” she wrote, citing rising costs for taxes, insurance, energy, and construction. She said she could not support the measure “without knowing the impact” and urged a transparent, comprehensive study.
Her alternative: increase housing supply through construction, redevelopment, and landlord partnerships.
“What’s next? Is it rent control?” she said publicly. “So I think my ask was very reasonable. Let’s just take a pause. What’s the rush?”
Not every landlord agreed with her framing. Sylva Menard, a local landlord who had previously spoken at council meetings, said responsible landlords “already doing most of what good cause covered” have “nothing to fear.”
Mark Speedy of the Capital Region DSA, who had been organizing for the law for two years, called the passage a milestone. Steele had already told the council the veto would not hold.
Partisan angle: The Republican council voted in May 2025 against holding a public hearing. Voters replaced every one of them. The new council passed the law unanimously in March. Mantello vetoed it anyway and called for a study. The voters had already conducted the study.
Sources: CBS6; Spectrum News, March 18, 2026; Spectrum News, March 5, 2026; WAMC, May 23, 2025; Yahoo News
]]>Six months earlier, she had promised the opposite.
ICE enforcement in Troy did not begin in 2026. By September 2025, the Capital Region Sanctuary Coalition had documented 36 detainments in Troy since February, two more in East Greenbush, and one green card deportation.
Verónica Amador’s husband José was detained on August 13, 2025. She drove five hours to find him after he was transferred. “We haven’t been able to find out and speak,” she said. “Where’s he at?”
On September 5, 2025, residents, labor leaders, and community groups gathered outside Troy City Hall. Angela Baylor of the Troy Capital Region Sanctuary Coalition said: “It disturbs me to no end that community members less than a mile from my home are being picked up.” Council President Sue Steele was there. She called it “a human rights issue. It’s a matter of justice. It’s a matter of following our Constitution.” She pledged to reintroduce anti-ICE legislation.
Mantello and Police Chief DeWolf responded with a joint statement: the city would “fully cooperate with any federal law enforcement agencies to maintain public safety and to uphold the law.”
That was September 2025. When the new council passed its resolution in early 2026, that cooperation pledge became “solely a statement of the Council’s political views.” Residents had already reported ICE vehicles in Troy on New Year’s Day 2026.
The new council’s action was not the first attempt. On September 18, 2025, the old Republican-majority council voted down Resolution 98, a human rights and due process resolution introduced in response to ICE activity in Troy. It failed 3-4, with the three Democratic members voting yes and the four Republicans voting no.
Among those who came to speak against Resolution 98 was Sara McDermott, then serving as Legislative Aide to the Republican-majority council and a county employee. She went through the resolution’s numbered findings one by one, called ICE operations “intelligence-driven and focused on criminal aliens and immigration fugitives,” and closed: “Let’s stop the political fear and get back to focusing on Troy.”
The resolution failed. In 2026, Mantello created a new city position for McDermott, Deputy Director of Operations, at $80,000 per year.
Rensselaer County was the first county in New York State to sign a 287(g) agreement with ICE, doing so in 2018 under then-Sheriff Patrick Russo. The program authorizes local officers to conduct immigration enforcement on people held at the county jail. By February 2026, the program had expanded statewide: the NYCLU counted 12 to 14 law enforcement agencies across nine New York counties with 287(g) agreements. New York State has 528 law enforcement agencies across 62 counties.
Russo is no longer sheriff. Kyle Bourgault, a Republican, was elected as the county’s 67th sheriff and has maintained the 287(g) agreement alongside County Executive McLaughlin. McLaughlin has defended the program by saying officials could not explain to constituents why people who were arrested were not checked against federal databases.
Governor Hochul signed the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act to void these agreements across the state. McLaughlin and Bourgault announced they would sue Hochul over it, arguing she was overstepping her authority.
Mantello said nothing about the county’s program or the legal fight next door. When asked about the Troy Police Department’s position, Chief Barker directed inquiries to the mayor’s office. Communications Director Alex Horton said TPD “work on criminal matters only, not civil immigration matters.”
Partisan angle: Mantello’s silence in 2026 was a choice, not a default. In September 2025, she made that choice explicitly: full cooperation with federal law enforcement. When the new Democratic council passed a resolution pushing the other direction, she dismissed it as politics. The county she sits next to had been running the first 287(g) program in New York for eight years, was fighting the governor in court to keep it, and she had nothing to say about that either.
Sources: CBS6, Troy rejects ICE cooperation; WAMC, September 8, 2025; CBS6, September 5, 2025; Spectrum News, September 5, 2025; Spectrum News, NY counties 287(g) breakdown, February 2026; News10, Rensselaer County pushes back on new law; Troy City Council Finance Meeting, September 18, 2025 (transcript)
]]>Mantello’s response: “Filings like this are emblematic of why Troy hasn’t had a real city hall in 15 years.”
The Foundation’s core claim was that the LDC violated the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The complaint alleged that the agency took a “hard look” at some issues while ignoring others, and that it wrongly classified the project as an unlisted action rather than a Type 1 action, which would have required a full Environmental Impact Statement given the scope of the work.
The suit also argued the LDC approval caused irreversible damage to the historic character of the building – damage that was ongoing and could not be undone by the time any court ruled.
The lawsuit flagged risks the LDC had not publicly disclosed: asbestos, lead paint, and 1914-era steel beams. The Foundation argued those undisclosed hazards represented real cost exposure that the environmental review had never accounted for, and that the $8 million construction estimate could not hold once they were properly reckoned with.
This tracked what preservation engineer Michael Lynch had been saying publicly. When architect John White testified at the November 6, 2025 Finance Committee meeting, he called the $8 million construction figure implausible, noting a 2010 assessment had put full restoration at $10 million. The administration pointed to the guaranteed maximum price contract, which requires the contractor to absorb overruns up to the GMP ceiling. The Foundation’s position: the ceiling may not be high enough, and no one had done the math on the undisclosed risks.
Deputy Mayor Donnelly told the council at the November 6 Finance Meeting that the State Historic Preservation Office supported the project as an adaptive reuse model and that a SHPO letter had been shared demonstrating that support. Council President Steele disputed this on the floor. The letter does not commend the project. It does not call it a model.
What SHPO actually said was that reversible work would have no impact on the historic property. Lynch identified the problem: “The city took that and said, ‘we are doing it reversibly,’ and that’s where there’s a disconnect.”
Because the LDC did not apply for historic tax credits, SHPO has no enforcement role regardless. The administration can call it preservation without any legal obligation to preserve.
Donnelly, for his part, said the Foundation’s legal claims “lack merit.”
The Troy Proctor’s Foundation formed in 2009 specifically to save Proctor’s Theatre as a performing arts venue. For 17 years, the building sat – foreclosed in 1978, dormant for decades, partially reactivated by Columbia Development but never restored as a theater. When Mantello announced city hall would move there in June 2025, some people were relieved. At least something was happening with it.
The Foundation’s concern was what exactly that something was. Foundation president Erica Veil raised it plainly: “It’s not even just the fact that it’s the building that it’s too late for. It’s taxpayers, what we’re going to be saddled with.”
The Foundation raised more than $6,000 through a GoFundMe to help fund the legal action. The lawsuit was not about opposing the building’s use. It was about what was going up inside the auditorium and whether anyone had properly reviewed what that would cost – financially and historically.
Lynch also flagged the structural accountability problem. LDC ownership of the building, he said, “places some limitations on what the taxpayers of the city can do to influence the elected officials in making decisions, because now it’s the LDC, not the City Council.” An unelected development authority approved a 30-year lease on a historic building. The city council voted on a draft contract. A court is now being asked to weigh whether the review that preceded all of that met the legal minimum.
As of mid-2026, construction is ongoing. The administration is targeting a January 2027 completion. No ruling has been issued.
The community that spent years fighting to save Proctor’s as a performing arts space is now suing the LDC to stop a government office box from going up inside it. In 2004, that same community organized against an RPI proposal to gut the interior for office space while preserving the facade. They won. What is being built now is the same outcome, with different paperwork.
Partisan angle: The Foundation formed to save a theater. It is now suing to stop a city government from building a box inside it with no legal obligation to preserve the historic features that made the building worth saving. The LDC – not the city council – approved the development agreement. The council that might have asked harder questions was replaced by a lame-duck Republican majority that voted on a draft lease two days after losing every seat it held. The new council had no vote on any of it.
Sources: CBS6, lawsuit; WAMC, December 18, 2025; CBS6, acquisition; Troy City Council Finance and Regular Meeting, November 6, 2025 (transcript)
]]>Sean Collins of the Troy Area Labor Council, AFL-CIO, said it plainly: “The mayor’s absence at the new council’s first public meeting is indicative of what the next two years of your term will be.”
Council President Steele closed the meeting by acknowledging the administration’s absence and committing to a “more transparent environment,” adding, pointedly, that the council could not accomplish it alone and would need the administration to cooperate.
Collins arrived with a concrete agenda: a living wage ordinance, paid family leave for city employees, fair pay for performers at city events, and greater council involvement in collective bargaining. On that last point, he noted that recent CSEA and UFA agreements had included administration-pushed denials of retroactive raises.
Speaker after speaker described the same pattern. Drea Leanza had submitted a proposal nearly two years earlier to build owner-occupied homes on a city-owned South Troy lot, with TAP and Habitat for Humanity ready to participate. The administration had never answered. Natalie Jabau had sent a letter in October 2025 asking the city to correct a rezoning error that reclassified her neighborhood from “industrial residential” to “business development,” a change that put existing homeowners’ insurance at risk. No response.
Downtown resident Noah had emailed Communications Director Alex Horton twice about park benches the Mantello administration had removed, then filed a FOIL request, and was told the city had nothing on record. “Either they lied to me,” he told the council, “or they have really bad records.”
Francis Sweet put it as a pattern: reports always late, agendas posted hours before a vote, the city hall move rushed through with only symbolic public input.
Daniel Morisy, acting chair of the Joint Task Force on Sustainability and Climate Smart Practices, described more than a year of silence from the administration while time-sensitive grants expired. The task force had accumulated enough qualifying points under NYSERDA’s Clean Energy Communities program for $837,000 in match-free grants and could not get administration sign-off to access them. An EV charging grant worth up to $500,000 was also stalled. The city’s solar farm had been abandoned. The street tree committee had been eliminated. A formal request for appointment from the administration had gone unanswered for more than a year.
Jessica Bennett flagged a potential legal problem with the $6 million Frear Park pavilion bond the outgoing Republican council had rushed through on December 30. State law requires project plans to be available 24 hours before a vote on SEQR grounds. Bennett had called the city clerk at 3:00 PM on the day of the vote and was told no plans were on file. She had a recording of the call.
Downtown resident HG Warner read from a Capital Region Sanctuary Coalition post confirming ICE vehicle sightings in Troy on New Year’s Day 2026, one day before the forum: J Street and Fifth, J Street turning north on Sixth Avenue, 106th Street, near 103rd and Fifth, and entering 787 northbound.
Multiple speakers, including Jessica Ashley of the Rensselaer County Justice Center, Ammani Olubala of Troy for Black Lives, and Jessica Bennett, called for the city to restrict police data sharing with ICE and prohibit Troy officers from assisting federal enforcement. Collins noted the county sheriff’s 287(g) cooperation agreement made Troy’s posture a live question.
Gigi Sweets, a Lansingburgh homeowner and music venue advocate, documented the economic damage from the sound ordinance Mantello had imposed without a council vote. The ordinance originally limited outdoor music to 9:00 PM, later walked back to 10:00 PM under pressure. Downtown bars generate roughly 50% of their income after 9:00 PM. Musicians were already moving to Albany. “It’s killing us,” she said. The council had never taken a vote.
Partisan angle: The new council had been in office for three days. Twenty-two residents showed up to speak about two years of unanswered letters, expired grants, removed benches, and a sound ordinance no one had voted on. The administration sent no one.
Source: Troy City Council Regular Meeting / Public Forum, January 8, 2026 (transcript; City Clerk’s office; no formal minutes filed)
]]>The vote was 5-2. Four Republicans voted yes. So did Councilwoman Katie Spain McLaren, a Democrat. Council President Sue Steele voted no.
“I would like more time,” Steele said. “I don’t feel that they have given us enough time to make an informed decision.”
McLaren, who crossed the aisle, said afterward: “I was comfortable with my decision and I guess I’m just hoping that I don’t regret it even though it’s certainly going to anger a lot of people.”
The $6 million authorization was intended for two playground upgrades, including one accessible to children with disabilities, expanded parking, and a new restaurant to replace the closed Park Pub. The total project cost was estimated at $7 to $9 million. The city had already spent $700,000 in ARPA funds on a pro shop, kitchen trailer, and tent restaurant before this vote.
When asked at the meeting how much the city would actually borrow, Mantello said: “I’m not going to take a guess, but less. I’ll say less than six mil.”
The bond market was to happen in January. Groundbreaking was targeted for May.
Resident Jessica Bennett called the city clerk at 3:00 PM on the day of the vote and was told no project plans were on file. State law requires SEQR documents to be available 24 hours before a vote. She had a recording of the call.
Bennett also raised whether the project had been properly classified under state environmental review law. Given the large acreage involved, it may have qualified as a Type 1 action requiring a full environmental impact review, rather than the lighter “unlisted action” treatment it received.
At the January 8, 2026 public forum, Ria Dale, a Frear Park resident and president of the Troy Public Library board, told the new council that park residents had never asked for a pavilion. They had asked for playground equipment.
Bond anticipation notes were executed on January 15, 2026 – five days before the new Democratic council publicly announced it had reached an agreement to use only $3 million of the $6 million authorization. Mantello disputed their claim of credit. She argued the city was only ever going to borrow $3 million, that authorization and borrowing are two different things, and that the bond anticipation notes were already executed before the Democrats could act.
The new council said it had secured more time for public input and reduced taxpayer exposure. Mantello called their statements “false and misleading” and warned they could damage the city’s credit rating.
Steele had also reportedly said that Deputy Mayor Seamus Donnelly called the bond “faulty.” Mantello denied this, saying Donnelly made no such statement.
At the March 19, 2026 General Services Committee meeting, the administration presented updated scope details: the restaurant and concession project would run approximately $5 million, with $3 million bonded and $819,706 in remaining ARPA funds. Community input sessions were planned for late April on playgrounds and mid-May on the restaurant.
When residents had been asking for playground equipment, the answer they got was a $6 million bond authorized on short notice, with no plans, by a council that had three days left in office.
Partisan angle: Mantello characterized the December 30 vote as bipartisan because a Democrat crossed the aisle. The two Democrats who voted no – including the incoming council president – were the ones who would be responsible for it. The administration spent the following weeks accusing the new council of making “false and misleading statements” for trying to walk back a $6 million commitment they had no role in making.
Sources: Troy City Council Finance and Special Meeting, December 30, 2025 (clerk’s minutes IDs 1760, 1761); Yahoo News / Troy lawmakers approve $6M bond; Spectrum News, January 21, 2026; Mayor Mantello press release; Troy City Council Regular Meeting, January 8, 2026 (transcript)
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