When I returned from vacation this past June, I found an email waiting from me from The Collaborative. Sufficiently vague enough to make me very very curious, when the headline reads: MPS School Board Recall Collaborative Announces Community Petition Day at Lincoln Park. Here is this text of the email which included a .pdf with the same content:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: MPS School Board Recall Collaborative
Website: www.mpsrecalls2024.com
Email: Info@mpsrecalls2024.com
Phone: (414) 219-0360Milwaukee, WI – July 4, 2024 – The MPS School Board Recall Collaborative is thrilled to announce our upcoming Community Petition Day, scheduled for Saturday, July 6th, at 1 PM at Lincoln Park near the playground. This event is a vital part of our grassroots campaign to bring accountability, transparency, and community-centered change to the MPS School Board of Elected Officials.
We invite community members, supporters, and media representatives to join us for an afternoon of civic engagement and community-led action. There will be food, petition packets, a brief training session for petition circulation, and more information available for all attendees. This is an excellent opportunity to learn more about our grassroots efforts and how you can contribute to the movement.
The media is encouraged to join and select a Petition Collection team to shadow as they engage with nearby community members and collect petition signatures. This firsthand experience will provide a deeper understanding of our grassroots mission and the community’s response to our campaign.
In addition, we are excited to announce the launch of our new website, mpsrecalls2024.com. Our website allows supporters to learn more about our efforts, make donations, sign up to volunteer, apply for paid positions, and stay informed about upcoming events and opportunities to support our efforts. We encourage everyone to visit our website, sign up to volunteer and donate.
We express our heartfelt gratitude to all who have signed petitions and supported this effort so far. Your involvement is crucial as we continue to drive this grassroots movement forward. Together, we can bring the accountability, transparency, and change needed in the MPS system.
For more information, please contact us at info@mpsrecalls2024.com or 414-219-0360. Thank you for your support, and we look forward to seeing you at Lincoln Park on July 6th!
MPS School Board Recall Collaborative
Email: info@mpsrecalls2024.com
Phone: 414-219-0360
Website: mpsrecalls2024.comStay Connected:
Facebook: facebook.com/mpsrecalls2024
Twitter: twitter.com/mpsrecalls2024
Instagram: instagram.com/mpsrecalls2024
Interesting, but still very very vague and do you have any idea who is behind this? My first instinct was a left leaning group since this was sent to my personal email address but despite their touting transparency, this isn’t very transparent, and their website is almost less so if that is possible. I mean even their About Us tab doesn’t say a word about who ‘us’ actually might be. Now given the questionable financial and reporting missteps in the Milwaukee Public Schools this past year, I am not unsympathetic about shaking up the board and the administration at MPS. But the more I read on their website and the more I read in the press, the less comfortable I was with the group. I have linked a number of articles below and my pull some info from them as I see fit as I go here.
First:
The MPS School Board Recall Collaborative launched its recall campaign June 12, weeks after severe problems with the district’s financial reporting came to light. The Collaborative accuses four school board members of mismanaging the district’s budget: Marva Herndon, who serves as the board’s president; Jilly Gokalgandhi, the vice president; Erika Siemsen; and Missy Zombor.
To a trigger a recall election for any of the board members, the group would need to collect a quarter of the votes cast in that board member’s district in the 2022 gubernatorial election. That’s 5,137 signatures against Herndon, 7,759 against Gokalgandhi, 6,809 against Siemsen, and 44,177 against Zombor, who holds the only citywide seat.
That’s a lot of signatures and they had until August 12, 2024 to turn them in. But after the question of who are these people, the next question is why these board members? After all there are 9 MPS board seats, although one is currently vacant, but why these four and not all eight incumbents? I don’t have an answer for you on that one.
On July 25, 2024, “Members of a group seeking to remove half the Milwaukee School Board said Wednesday they have collected 37,000 signatures on their petitions with the help of paid canvassers, but they’re not saying where the money is coming from.” As we will see later, that seems a stretch. But the big question now, is where IS the money coming from? Red Flag!!! Certainly when money is anonymous there is an agenda in the shadows somewhere and it may not be the purported publicly declared goal. And then it gets weirder. Those working on the campaign don’t seem to know who or what their benefactor is either.
Asked why they wouldn’t identify the donors, speakers at the press conference said no one there knew who they were. The treasurer of the recall committees, Janice Patterson, has said she can’t answer questions about funders.
And then it gets more interesting: Two of the four people apparently involved with the recall efforts are described in news articles as: Tamika Johnson, a private school teacher, and Nicole Johnson, a former charter school administrator. So technically Milwaukeeans, not necessary disinterested private parties…since they are identified as persons employed by schools that compete with MPS under the voucher and charter school programs.
A group attempting to recall four Milwaukee Public School board members failed to submit enough signatures to trigger recalls against at least three of the board members.
To recall Herndon, the group needed 5,137 signatures, it submitted 1,489 signatures. For Gokalgandhi, the group needed 7,759 signatures, but submitted d 280. For Siemsen, the group needed to collect 6,809 signatures, but submitted 75 signatures. The group needs to collect 44,177 for Zombor’s seat.
And again, despite their supposed working toward transparency, their financial filings seem to be in violation of election finance rules. But that won’t be totally clear until the effort is completed and the final reports are filed. But election financial reports aren’t as easy as they seem, are they kids?.
Sorry for the mess here today, with all of the links and quotes the formatter isn’t up to the task. And there is more to the story, so check the links. This whole thing stinks to high heaven of a MAGA style takeover.
Sorry, this one is behind a firewall: MPS recall petitioners say they have 37,000 signatures and backing of anonymous donors
Political groups spent $1.2 million on MPS referendum; now unknown funders back MPS recall
