TORONTO – Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustee Howard Goodman, 63, was arrested Nov. 12 on charges of criminal harassment and forcible confinement.
Police said Goodman allegedly harassed an individual from the fall of 2013 until the present, and that, on one occasion, he “forcibly confined” this person. Police said they’re conducting an investigation into the matter, and Goodman is scheduled to appear in court Dec. 18.
A Toronto police spokesperson would not release the name of the alleged victim, and TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird said, “As [the matter] is before the courts, we won’t be commenting. We’re referring questions to the Toronto police.”
But both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail have referred to anonymous sources that say the alleged victim is TDSB education director Donna Quan.
Goodman, trustee for Ward 8 Eglinton-Lawrence since 2003, did not seek re-election in the recent municipal race, and his seat will be taken over by Jennifer Arp next month.
Last May, Goodman wrote a letter to his constituents telling them that over the past few years, “The ‘cut and thrust’ of typical politics have overshadowed all else.”
In the months prior, Goodman had received negative attention for alleged bad behaviour at board meetings.
According to the Star, Goodman had apologized to Quan in December for an outburst he admitted was “not the friendliest.”
In March, Goodman sent Quan an email, which he also forwarded to the other trustees on the board. In it, he apologized for his behaviour at a board meeting several days earlier, at which he’d apparently confronted Quan about the issue of outstanding fees to the Ontario Public School Boards Association, an organization that represents school trustees across the province.
He wrote, “It was not my intention to cause distress. In addition, if you and/or others did feel my behaviour to be out of line, it would be of great help to have a conversation about what it was that I said and/or did that caused these feelings. Such a conversation may avoid these sorts of unpleasant misunderstandings in the future.”
Following the incident at the meeting, Quan and several senior staffers wrote a letter to the chair of the TDSB and expressed feelings of intimidation, as well as referring to a culture in which board staff had to deal with abusive, threatening and insulting comments by some trustees.
Shortly after the news that Goodman had been arrested was made public, Sam Sotiropoulos, outgoing trustee for Ward 20 Scarborough-Agincourt, tweeted “Finally. #TDSB Trustee @HowardGoodman has been charged by police for his treatment of director Donna Quan.”
Sotiropoulos also tweeted a copy of a letter he wrote in January to the then-TDSB chair Chris Bolton, in which he referred to a meeting where he felt “Trustee Goodman’s tone and manner were threatening and unprofessional.”
He said that after he submitted that letter of complaint about Goodman, Bolton told him that the matter would be referred to the TDSB’s code of conduct committee, but Sotiropoulous added that, “to my knowledge, that never happened.”
Sotiropoulos, who lost his seat to Manna Wong in the Oct. 27 election, has himself been no stranger to controversy. In late August, he drew criticism for tweeting that he “reserve[d] the right not to believe in [transgenderism],” until he sees “scientific proof.”