Bob Goldsack looks at 2008 for DV schools

WESTFALL — As the Courier went to press Thursday morning, Bob Goldsack was the odds-on favorite to be named president of the Delaware Valley District Board of School Directors on Thursday evening. Even if he’s not named, the views of the president of Taxpayers United, which sponsored five members of the new board, are not likely to be ignored. Who is this guy? To many, he’s the taxpayers’ savior: a conservative Republican in a conservative Republican County, a party committeeman at home, in Dingman Township. But, he insisted in a Friday interview, “I have no desire to run for any higher office.” To opponents, like outgoing Board President, John Wroblewski, “he’s a dangerous man.” After Goldsack distributed a late, pre-election flier in November, Wroblewski called a press conference to denounce the flier’s claims about land appraisals for property the district was then planning to buy. Goldsack responded to this criticism in a letter (see page 10) which doesn’t speak to appraisal issue. Still, he says his position on the issue is valid. The 64-year-old Hoboken, N.J. native is a married father of four children. He and his wife, Yolanda, have six grandchildren. She serves as director of the Pike County Elections office. If you look at Bob Goldsack’s profile on the school’s Web site, http://www.dvsd.org/SchoolBoard/schoolboard.htm, you will see a man of letters, with a post-graduate degree in education and psychology, with 10 years teaching and administrating experience in New Jersey schools. But sit down and talk to him and you meet a blue-collar guy who makes his living installing floor coverings for Home Depot and Lowes. “It was something I learned as a kid. Friends and colleagues would ask me to help them with projects and it became a business. Goldsack-Roman Floor Covering of Hoboken now employees up to 30 people. He was introduced to Pike County while installing a floor for a friend in Gold Key Lake. “I finished the floor and Yolanda I spent the rest of the weekend looking for property,” he recalled. Goldsack’s background in drug intervention youth programs and an active interest in politics soon got him involved with Delaware Valley and the Pike County Republican Party. First appointed to the school board, he lost his first bid for election. “We got lazy and didn’t campaign. I learned,” he said. Elected with Taxpayers United member Deborah DuCharme in 2005, he has often teamed with the unaffiliated Ed Silverstone in a conservative minority. With the election of Diane French, John Kupillas and John Wladar, he says that will change. If he is named president, Goldsack has plans. French will head a new curriculum committee which Goldsack said he hopes will help increase student placements in better colleges. Kupillas will chair the long range planning committee, and Wladar will head a new transportation committee. Silverstone will chair a new human resources committee that will evaluate district staffing. Goldsack says a new, multi-story elementary school with administrative offices can and should be built on the Westfall campus, still leaving room for playing fields. He termed the previous board’s desire to build only on new property as empire building, an “edifice-rex” complex. He’s not going to support construction of new bleachers at the stadium. “How does adding 1,500 more seats make crowding better? ... My agenda isn’t anti-sports, it’s about excessive spending.” As for the now minority members, he said: “I hope they will recognize that the board is sincerely interested in education and cutting waste and that they work with us on that ... We’re not here to destroy education, but to make it better.”