This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Friends and even persons who don’t know me can attest to my cynicism. I don’t deny it. But now and then an asterisk is necessary. Josh Goldberg earns one easily.
As long as I have known Josh Goldberg (a decade now) I’ve found him humane, caring, and interested in his fellow man. His enthusiasm is infectious and convincing. He does honesty like an ophthalmologist does cataract surgery — intensely, with care and compassion. After seeing him in action THEN you see what honesty was intended to be. It’s natural and pervasive for him. Blessed with a benign temperament, Josh constantly displays the courage of his commitments, which are comprehensive, perhaps even sacred. I have absolute confidence that his longstanding interest in serving on City Council for Ward One is anything but a fickle or self-aggrandizing move designed to fill out a resume.
Josh has long and proud tenure on Longmont’s Planning Commission. He’s not “in it” for his industry, he has no axe to grind, he listens intently, and he speaks with reserve. Having learned the value and means to fashioning recommendations born of consensus, it is clear he will know well how to apply them to broader decisionmaking.
I have never detected the most remote hint of any rancor, bias, or self-serving ego in Josh. The community is his priority; it is his passion; it is who and what he is. His confidence and faith in the future allow him to join in attaining multifaceted goals for Longmont. He’ll go to the wall for his city, but he does not insist on having only his own way. His experience offers him a compass, not a strait jacket.
My only regret is that Josh cannot be cloned. If every seat on council were filled by someone so dedicated and fair-minded, the city would always thrive.
-- Gregory Iwan
