"Wiping the slate clean" in the context of the mayor's divisive campaign to take over our schools could mean nothing BUT taking the threat against voting for the school board off the table -- unless Mr. Duffy was just making meaningless babble. Very sadly, much of what the mayor said last night was empty and he was utterly incapable of answering the urgently important questions asked -- it was only with skillful and assertive communication skills that parents in the audience were able to force a shift in the format of the mayor's controlled and filtered "dialogue". It was then, when audience members could speak, that the mayor became confused and offered to wipe the slate clean. Let's do it, wipe it -- take attacks against voting rights and community control off the table.

What's really frustrating is those media outlets WHO WERE NOT THERE (CITY) perpetuating FALSE information about those opposing the mayor's plan. Those who spoke up last night had ties to NO UNION EXCEPT THEIR FAMILIES. CITY NEWSPAPER: please stop collaborating with other media power players and start doing your own job with some (just some!) amount of journalistic integrity.

I was at that meeting. There were no F Bombs. No food fights. One should seriously question an administration (and its agenda) that lets its chief spokesman make such statements, even when used as hyperbole. BeWhen did it become so acceptable

What I did see was a moderator flipping through the questions (looking for softballs to throw?) in full view of an audience that wasn't hearing any of their questions getting read. No wonder they finally got fed up and revolted against the format.

My question for example: Mr. Mayor, you repeat Mayor Bloomberg's assertion that the NYC 4-year graduation rate is 62% every chance you get, saying we could do better. But the NY State Department of Education website says the NYC graduation rate is 46% - same as ours. Aren't you concerned that reliance on this talking point hurts your credibility?

My second question (after the mayor spoke at length about extended hours and after-school use of facilities): How is it that you think as mayor, we should keep the schools open for after school, weekend and vacations, when the Recreation Centers (many of them physically co-located with our schools) were closed early every night during Spring Break? Its not like our kids all went to Disney World. Where would the money come from to pay for those extended hours?

Gary Walker is definitely going to eat his words as the full tape of the discussion will probably be released shortly and people will be to see that there were no F-bombs or food fights. Even Duffy said he thought the discussion was healthy. I wonder why his administration is now retracting the day after. I guess Duffy can keep his cool better than Gary Walker. I was at the last two forums. I had my hand raised both times. I submitted my question by the card. Many people know I'm against mayoral control. Of course, I was never called on and my question wasn't read. The censorship continues.

I spoke with Ted Capuano in the mayor's office hours after this was posted (seeking a retraction of the false and offensive accusations from Gary Walker). When asked for factual account of which "special interests" were hijacking legitimate debate Mr. Capuano cited a "17 year old kid" being disrespectful to the mayor. So students are the special interest groups derailing legitimate dicussion of mayoral control? No, no, no. (Remember Students First! according to the mayor's talking points.) Then who is Mr. Walker referring to? There is no answer because he lied (there was not even a question, much less any disruption, from unions or other "special interests" at any of the mayor's forums). I then asked Mr. Capuano why Mr. Walker lied about cursing and food throwing at the mayor's forums? He said the "F-bomb and food fight" quote referenced the "tone" of the forums. When I pressed back about the inaccuracy of the reference, Mr. Capuano said the forums were contentious. Yes, the forums ARE contentious because community members -- mostly parents overwhelmingly opposed to mayoral control -- are intelligently standing up to the mayor's wrong-headed plan to take control of public education. Mr. Walker's far-out and offensive attacks on the heels of the mayor's mixed up and somewhat incoherent statements about wiping slates clean and stepping back to allow a process on what this should look like signal a lack of clarity and weak leadership. The last thing we should accept is Mayor Duffy taking over "leadership" of our schools. Can you imagine if we parents have to go through this kind of fight to raise our voices, and then when we do raise our voices, the mayor will do what he wants anyway, and then have his communications office issue statements slandering us? Unbelievable! If you are not in this fight, it's time to get involved.

City and Carrie Fien should apologize for (1) accepting Gary Walker's account and not getting independent corroboration of his allegations, and (2) reporting second-hand on an event that should have been covered in person. City seems so determined to one-up the D&C that it published a post that fails to meet standards of professional journalism. According to other commenters who apparently were present, Gary Walker is not telling the truth; let's stick with a two-source rule in the future, City! You would be less embarrassed now if you had spoken to Willa Powell, it seems.

could the 'f-bombs and food fights' be reference to the school board meetings where f-bombs are used? and food fight could just be an attempt at school related humor.

Let us just remember the the F-bombs thrown at the board meeting were by a person that the mayor supports and contributed to her campaign

REVISED

I wish Ms Fien and other journalists would stop letting the media-czar and master manipulator Gary Walker get away with silly, coded statements, politically-loaded language and slogans such as food fights. Such language is clearly designed to conjure up particular images in readers minds-eye. What in the heck is meant by food fights, and what does it have to do with the issue of mayoral control?

There definitely were no so-called F bombs dropped during the forum.

REVISED

Mr. OBrien,

You asked a very important question regarding F bombs being used at school board meetings. Im quite certain many recall that an F bomb was clearly dropped by a Commissioner at a school board meeting during the most recent elections, which everyone would have heard had it not been bleeped-out during news reports. Gary Walker and Robert Duffy did not become upset by that situation. In fact, very shortly after it happened, Robert Duffy (Im sure with a little help from Gary Walker) used every major media outlet in town to reaffirm his support for the F bomb - dropping school board Commissioner. He even attempted to rationalize it away by talking about how passionate the person is regarding education issues. Yet, when a 17-year-old student allegedly uses an F-bomb (not during the forum thats being discussed), but apparently at some other time --- Robert Duffy supposedly becomes so upset, so flustered that he forgets what his position is on an issue thats so important and so critical that it represents the hill upon which he is willing to die --- WOW! Hypocrisy is a gross, gross, gross understatement!