Markeshia Ricks Photos
Gonzalez at Monday night’s City Hall vote.
Schools’ Garth Harries and Will Clark with Bartlett and Paolillo.
The Board of Alders voted Monday for Board of Education member Daisy Gonzalez step down at the end of the month, before her term ends, to make the ed board’s size legal.
That’s not going to happen, responded school officials and the mayor’s office. The matter may end up in court.
That was the end result of city officials’ latest efforts to fix language in the revised city charter that created a hybrid appointed and elected Board of Education with seven members. Due to a legislative screw-up, the new hybrid board — set to begin work on Jan. 1 — now has eight members for its first year, rather than the required seven.
The Board of Ed voted last week to fix the problem by expanding the number of members to eight for one year, until some of the members’ terms run out.
While Gonzalez and her supporters looked on, the Board of Alders voted 24 to 1 Monday night to require a different fix: to shorten her second term, which was slated to end December 2018. Instead her second term is set to expire in just 10 days. (Upper Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen abstained.)
Monday night’s vote doesn’t appear to be the end of the matter, at least not according to mayor Chief of Staff Tomas Reyes and her liaison to the Board of Education, Jason Bartlett, echoing comments of Board of Ed officials.
“She’ll be at the next Board of Education meeting,” Reyes declared of Gonzalez after the meeting.
“And not as a bystander either,” Bartlett added.
“She’ll be on the board,” Reyes said.
“This is the alders’ mistake,” Bartlett said. “They confirmed Daisy for a four-year term, then they implemented the language of the charter [change to create a hybrid board]. They did not have to confirm her at that time. To come a year-plus later and rescind that appointment is just not correct. They cannot do that.”
Acting City Corporation Counsel John Rose (pictured) told alders as much before they voted Monday night when asked by Beaver Hill Alder Claudette Robinson-Thorpe what authority alders had to remove any member of the Board of Education.
Rose’s response: none. He argued during the alders’ public caucus that the Board of Ed is a legal creature of the state, not the city. So the alders have little say in how it operates, Rose argued. In a formal opinion, Rose wrote: “Even if the Board of Alders does revoke or repeal its order approving the mayor’s appointment (reappointment actually) of Daisy Y. Gonzalez to serve a four year term on the Board of Education, the alders are powerless to remove her. Nor do the alders have any power to limit her term to one year or to cause that term to come to an end of Dec. 31, 2015.”
“The only control that the board of alders has is how much money you give, and to some extent, how many people can be on the board,” he said. “You cannot remove Daisy Gonzalez from the Board of Education.”
Rose said the Board of Ed has no legal responsibility to follow a vote to remove Gonzalez.
The alders hired their own attorney, W. Martyn Philpot Jr. (pictured). He begged to differ with Rose.
“I certainly agree with attorney Rose’s assessment of the Board of Education being enabled by the state,” Philpot said. “I tend to differ with him with respect to the authority that the Board of Alders has with respect to any appointment or ratification that is extended to one of the appointments made by the mayor. I think it has the right to rescind or amend any appointment.”
In his formal opinion to the board, Philpot wrote: “It would appear abundantly clear that the composition of the city of New Haven’s Board of Education is uniquely a local issue which, pursuant to the Home Rule Act, the city of New Haven’s Board of Alders are in a position of legal authority to resolve. While the interests in the education of the city’s children can certainly be considered a matter of concern for the people of the state whether or not the city of New Haven’s Board of Education contains seven or eight members appears to be exclusively a matter of local concern.”
Robinson-Thorpe (pictured), the lone dissenting vote Monday night, said the two conflicting opinions were reason enough to vote no, particularly considering that in her mind the mistake in the language rests with her and her colleagues. She said the board should have sought a third, neutral opinion that looked at the legal ramifications of following either attorney’s advice.
“I feel like we made the mistake in the beginning, so I don’t think we worked hard enough to try to work that out,” she said. “Everybody always votes the same way, and there were people in there that felt the same way [I did]. Everybody is so scared that they just vote with the board, because people are so scared to stand out there alone. I have nothing to lose at this point.”
Robinson-Thorpe said she believed the vote was unfair to Gonzalez and to parents.
In addition to the separation of powers issue, the controversy has sparked other broader concerns among those involved:
• Critics of the alders’ action argue that this vote could set a precedent: If the alders don’t approve of the actions of an independent board or commission, they can retroactively try to remove its members.
• Critics of the ed board’s action argue that expanding the board is an attempt to blunt the impact of democratically elected new members who promise to put the schools under greater scrutiny.
The immediate past president of the Board of Education, Carlos Torres (pictured seated), said that Gonzalez is recognized as the parent voice on the board. He said when she was first appointed by then-Mayor John DeStefano, she was charged to represent parents, and she has done that. He said state law is clear that Gonzalez’s appointment can be rescinded only for cause such as a failure to perform her duties.
He said the worst case scenario is that the matter will now end up in the hands of the courts and ultimately cost the city a lot of money to resolve.
“If we don’t come together as two bodies and reconcile this to decide what’s best for the kids and the residents of New Haven it will go to the courts,” he said. “We get counsel; they get counsel. The courts sort this out and just shy of when the term was going to be over anyway, the court makes a decision and we’ve both spent millions that could have been used to fix city streets, or to get better educational processes for the kids. That money is out the window and nobody is the better for it except the lawyers.”
Parent Jennifer Ricker (pictured far right) said parents were upset not only that alders were considering removing Gonzalez, but also that they learned of such a possibility on the day that it was slated to happen.
“I hope that it is made aware how much the parents stand behind Daisy Gonzalez,” she said. “We want Daisy, as a parent, to represent us on the Board of Ed. We really need to know that when the Board of Ed. is meeting that there is somebody up there that truly understands where the New Haven parents are coming from. Daisy understands because she is one of us.”
Ricker said not only does Gonzalez attend citywide meetings, but she has been instrumental in reforming several parent-teacher organizations. She said whatever process led to the decision to remove Gonzalez was not a transparent one and it did not consider the needs or wants of parents.
Gonzalez said the whole experience has left her feeling like a pawn.
“I’m not a political player,” she said. “I’m on the board. I work with schools. I work with parents. I work with students to make sure schools, students, and parents are getting what they need to be getting from the Board of Ed. That’s my focus. That’s what I concentrate my efforts on. This is very upsetting for me.”
Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker (pictured seated) said that ultimately the decision to remove Gonzalez wasn’t a personal one about Gonzalez or her performance on the board, but about the need to adhere to the what voters said they wanted when they revised the charter — a seven-member board.
Gonzalez happened to be the last ed board member whom alders confirmed for reappointment, so it made the most sense to shorten her term to comply with the law, Walker argued.
“It’s simple. We have a legal opinion, and our lawyer said what we did tonight is right,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that the the Board of Ed is just going to disregard what we did here tonight. The charter says seven members.That’s the law.”
In response to the criticism that they acted hastily and at the last minute, Walker and Majority Leader Alphonse Paolillo Jr. pointed out that they had been working with education officials on a fix since September. They said they were presented with no solutions that would have reduced the board to seven before the charter took effect at the beginning of the new year.
When asked if the next step would be into a courtroom, Paolillo said, “at the end of the day, the vote was what the vote was tonight and we will consult legal counsel as needed.”
Aliyya Swaby contributed to this report.
For previous coverage:
• Schools Approve 8‑Member Transition Board
• Eyewitness to Blunder (Opinion)
• Bartlett: Goldson’s Wrong (Opinion)
• In Board Of Ed’s Math, 7=8 (Opinion)
• Schools Try To Fix Supersized Board
• Oops! New Board of Ed Illegally Supersized
Wouldn't it have made more sense to shorten the term of the Board of Ed member least recently approved (and therefore closest to the end of his/her term anyway) rather than shorten the term of the member most recently approved? If they had done that, who would have been removed?
Removing the parent voice from the Board is just bad policy and bad politics.