Top: Alexander Hamilton & Aaron Burr, July 11, 1804. Bottom: Ed Joyner & Darnell Goldson, Nov. 20, 2017.
A former top city cop Tuesday accused Board of Education members of encouraging violence among students by the way they handled a dispute in public — and challenged them to make it right.
The dispute occurred at the end of a contentious two and a half hour Board of Education meeting Monday night called to select a new superintendent of schools.
In the final minute of the meeting, after repeated clashes and amid yelling interruptions from an overflow crowd, Chairman Ed Joyner began speaking about accusations of past financial impropriety by member Darnell Goldson.
“You are about to get sued!” Goldson responded.
At which point Joyner approached Goldson and remarked, “We can go to Bowen Field and have a duel!”
As chaos swirled, the meeting was adjourned and the two men remained apart.
The encounter was the talk of the town that night and on WNHH FM’s morning programs Tuesday.
On her program “Love Babz Love Talk,” Inner-City News Managing Editor Babz Rawls-Ivy, who attended the meeting, compared the scene to “backstage at the BET awards. The only thing missing was the Hennessy and gold chains. That was not the Board of Education.”
Then, on “Dateline New Haven,” retired Assistant Police Chief John Velleca criticized the ed board members for sending a dangerous signal to schoolchildren through their conduct.
“They should be ashamed of themselves,” Velleca said. “This is not the way you handle a problem. … Kids see this. 2011 was the bad year when we had all the homicides and the shootings. How does that happen? It happens because our adults lash out with words and threats and lawsuits. Our kids lash out with physical violence and guns. It’s a very bad precedent to set. What they did was wrong.”
Velleca currently serves as sergeant-at-arms for the Connecticut State Senate. Even at the legislature’s tensest moments, he said, he has never seen the kind of behavior that was on display at Monday night’s ed board meeting at Beecher School.
He said police on scene handled it properly, separating people without resorting to arrests.
But he said Joyner and Goldson should face consequences — by showing up in the public schools to explain themselves to students.
“They should come out and say, ‘What we did last night was wrong,’” Velleca argued. And if they don’t, other school system leaders should, he suggested: “Somebody should talk to these kids and say, ‘Listen, this is not the way to handle this problem.’ … If it’s left to fester, it’s going to look like they’re OK with what they did. Which they can’t be.”
“They should definitely confront that word ‘duel.’ Because if you go and look at the history of that word, it’s a violent word. It leads to death. Somebody should say something. It got out of hand,” added WNHH Station Manager Harry Droz, who also appeared on the program.
In an interview Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Toni Harp, who sat next to Goldson during the meeting, called for a public apology over the confrontation.
“We send kids out of school, expel them for less than that,” Harp said. “They owe an apology to the people of New Haven. I’m sure once they view what happened, they are not pleased with themselves.
“It just goes to show you adults are not perfect, but hopefully they will apologize.”
(Click on the above Facebook Live video to watch Monday night’s board meeting. The ultimate confrontation between Goldson and Joyner occurs in the final minute.)
Goldson and Joyner — former allies on the board, then antagonists — have openly feuded for months at meetings and in publicly shared emails.
Goldson said Tuesday he’d be willing to make a joint appearance in the schools as suggested by Velleca — but only if Joyner apologizes to him first.
And if Joyner doesn’t apologize, Goldson said, he will consider pressing criminal charges.
“I’m the victim here. I’m the one who was attacked and threatened,” Goldson said. “I’ve asked Ed over and over again to fix this. He’s the leader of the board.
“I’m willing to do whatever is reasonable. [But] I’ve got to tell you — I’m a little afraid of him now. He’s got a very short temper. They had to pull him off [me].”
Reached Tuesday evening Joyner promised to “make it right.”
He vowed to work to put “the strife” on display Monday night behind the board. Even though Joyner did not support the board majority’s choice for superintendent, Carol Birks, Joyner said he called her Tuesday to pledge his support moving forward.
“Judge me by my deeds, not my words,” Joyner said.
“If you’ve got 21,000 kids on ship and a new captain, it’s our job to make sure they have smooth sailing. My job now is to honor the board’s choice and to work with Dr. Birks and support her. I reached out to her today and told her I will give her my full support to tell her we will begin to repair some of the breaches in the community.
“What’s more important is not what is said, but what is done. I’m going to do the right thing. I’m going to support our superintendent. I’m going to support our parents. I’m going to support our children.”
Click on or download the above audio file or the Facebook Live video below for the full episode of WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program with John Velleca and Harry Droz.
Click on the above Facebook Live video for Tuesday’s episode of WNHH radio’s “Lova Babz Love Talk,” which focused on Monday night’s Board of Education meeting.
Previous coverage of the superintendent search:
• Wanted: Schools Chief To Rebuild Trust
• Infighting Puts Super Search On Hold
• Super Search Gives Nutmeggers 2nd Look
• “Tonight Has Been An Embarrassment”
• 2 Superintendent Candidates Withdraw
• Read Their Resumes
• Supe Candidates Split On Charters
• Student Rep: School Board Should Reconsider
• Opposition Mounts To Birks
• Highsmith: No Deal For #2
• Divided Ed Board Selects Birks