Dear Editor:
At Tuesday evening’s Board of Education meeting, it was inspiring to see Mayor Jerramiah Healy sufficiently moved by an issue to come up to P.S. 11 and speak out. It’s only too bad that issue was political expediency.
Our honorable mayor, who runs an opaque government in City Hall but who is always transparent in his political maneuvering, lately has decided to become a champion of interim superintendent Franklin Walker remaining in that job on a permanent basis. If only Mayor Healy had realized how fond he was of Mr. Walker six months ago. His words might have moved the board to take a closer look at the longtime deputy superintendent.
But Healy couldn’t see his political play six months ago – there was no pro-Walker faction to exploit for the permanent Healy campaign. It is not as if he actually cares about the substance of the thing. Rather now, with the board settled on two finalists for the job, neither of whom is Walker, the mayor sees a chance to undermine the board’s decision and ruin the new superintendent’s tenure before day one – and try to hang the failure on his political rival, Councilman Steven Fulop.
One thing you can say about our mayor – he cares about our schools! Or rather, how he can use school politics to keep his no-count administration in City Hall.
DOUGLAS CARLUCCI