State Senator Van Wanggaard & State Representative Amanda Nedweski today called upon the Kenosha Unified School Board (KUSD) to respect the 2022 Spring Election results of a year ago and re-appoint Eric Meadows to fulfill the term to which he was elected. Earlier this month, the Kenosha Unified School Board declared a vacancy in the seat to which Meadows was elected and had been serving for the last year.
“First and foremost, this is a certified election, and it has been certified for nearly a year. Why wasn’t this issue raised long ago?” said Nedweski. “Neither the Wisconsin Elections Commission nor the KUSD school board took a vote on how to remedy the problem. Eric has been completely denied due process, and has been bulldozed into simply accepting an unelected bureaucrat’s recommendations. Is KUSD prioritizing voter intent, or are they exploiting the timing of this discovery to circumvent the election process so that they can appoint a board member of their choosing?”
“This was Kenosha Unified’s screw-up, not Meadows’ and not the voters’,” said Wanggaard. “They have no more right to kick Eric off the Board and select their own new member than I do to kick Bob Wirch out of the Senate and pick his replacement. Can you imagine the outrage if I did that? This isn’t a club. It’s an elected body!”
According to published news reports, last month the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) notified KUSD that an error had been made in their election notice a year ago. Kenosha Unified’s election notice stated that three, three-year terms were available. Meadows was one of the three candidates elected to the three seats.
Last month’s WEC notification informed KUSD that one of the three seats was only supposed to serve the one-year remainder of a then-recently-vacated term. KUSD had a number of options available, including holding a special election or extending the term to correct its error. Instead, the KUSD School Board chose to kick Meadows off the Board with little debate and no vote. This option allows the KUSD School Board to select its own new member.
“Kenosha Unified could have corrected their mistake a number of ways. Instead of fixing their mistake, Kenosha Unified doubled down on it,” said Wanggaard. “They picked the one option causing the most division in the community and the most disruption to the School Board. Thankfully, KUSD can still do the right thing, and select Meadows as his own replacement and hold an election later. It’s not just the right thing, it’s the fair and equitable thing to do.”
