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Tom Goldenberg.
Democratic mayoral challenger Tom Goldenberg added his voice to those calling for a return to in-person Board of Education meetings, in a press-release preview of comments he plans to make at City Hall Monday night.
Goldenberg, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant who is seeking to unseat incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker in this year’s Democratic primary, issued that call during a Monday afternoon email press release.
His campaign sent out that email several hours before the Board of Alders Aldermanic Affairs Committee plans to hold a meeting in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall. During that 6 p.m. meeting, local legislators will publicly interview Board of Education Vice-President Matt Wilcox, whom Mayor Elicker has tapped to serve another term on the city’s school board.
In the press release, Goldenberg calls for the committee to “delay or deny reappointment of any Board of Education member until three conditions are met by the Board of Education.”
One of those conditions is “a willingness to host Board of Education meetings in person so that the community’s faith in the Board’s transparency and accountability can be restored.”
The ed board has met exclusively online ever since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic nearly three years ago. In a recent interview on WNHH’s “Dateline New Haven,” fellow Democratic mayoral challenger Shafiq Abdussabur also called for the Board of Education to ditch the remote and resume meeting in person to tackle the school system’s challenges. Elicker, who sits on the Board of Education and appointed a majority of its members, has defended continued online meetings as boosting accessibility and citizen attendance. Board of Ed President Yesenia Rivera has offered a similar defense. Click here to read a recent article about that debate.
In addition to supporting a return to in-person school board meetings, Goldenberg’s email press release also calls on the Board of Education to “publicly present data on in-school drivers of low reading scores and the city’s last-place finish among all Connecticut cities and towns on chronic absenteeism” and to make sure that there is an “an open superintendent selection process that includes community members and teachers on the Search Committee.”
Click here to read Goldenberg’s press release in full.