"We Are A Mess" | New Haven Independent:
After decades on New Haven’s Board of Education, Carlos Torre has seen changes. He’s not happy about them.
“We are a mess,” he said. “We’re going down in flames.”
Torre has been an appointed board member for 20 years (in two decade-long stints). He previously served as board president. Until this year, meetings tended to be peaceful, efficient, with little debate or rancor.
That all changed over the past six months. Controversies have clouded board meetings. And the board has split into two factions. One faction — including Torres, no longer the board president; Alicia Caraballo; and the first-ever elected board members, Edward Joyner and Darnell Goldson — is highly critical of the school administration. Members have killed proposals and stopped appointments. Heated and sometimes personal board debates have stretched meetings long into the night.
The Independent has documented those controversies weekly in news stories. The board’s new president, Mayor Toni Harp, has given her side of the controversies on her weekly “Mayor Monday” WNHH radio show. Members of the other side asked for equal time to give their side of the story. So Torre and Caraballo — who served as principal of the Adult Education school before retiring after 26 years with the school system — showed up to do that on an episode of WNHH’s “Dateline New Haven” program.
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