[img]1218|right|Nancy Goldberg||no_popup[/img]As the only surviving School Board member who helped delay a bond measure last July, Nancy Goldberg said that “there is a world of difference” between the upset defeat of a School District bond measure last summer and a lopsided victory last night.
As Supt. Dave LaRose promised on that by-now infamous evening, last July 1, when a 3 to 2 vote temporarily flattened the bond measure, “We will take lessons from this experience.”
They unquestionably did, Ms. Goldberg said.
“Oh, dear God, there is a world of difference,” she said. “Transparency is in effect this time. People don’t feel as if they are being hoodwinked.
“People have legitimate concerns, many of which I am not fiduciarily capable of explaining. But I think I understand them..”
Last July, Ms. Goldberg teamed with former Board members Karlo Silbiger and Prof. Patricia Siever to temporarily sideline the bond measure, knocking it off of the November ballot.
Neither Ms. Siever nor Mr. Silbiger, out of curiosity, dropped by a School Board meeting at El Rincon School last night to see their July 1 vote effectively undone.
Before last night’s unanimous vote approving a $106 million bond measure for the June ballot, Ms. Goldberg said that the bond has undergone an appropriately thorough communal examination.
“We have to do the best we can with our own research, and we know what (health and safety, and physical improvements) that we need,” she said.
“And it is not just this time who made a point of telling me in emails that they didn’t have children in our schools – but they wanted the schools to remain of a high caliber.”
She received scores of pro-bond emails this winter, but last summer, Ms. Goldberg only counted “five or six.”
Another reason Ms. Goldberg ardently gave an affirmative vote this time is:
“I don’t feel the same awful pressure to make a rapid decision, like I did last July.
“It was much wiser,” Ms. Goldberg said, “to give the community time to adjust, to ask their questions.”
