Contact: knudsonj@mtea.org
Taxpayers, voters deserve answers from blatantly dishonest campaign
MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee Election Commission staff have uploaded signatures dropped off by an anti-MPS campaign seeking to recall four of eight current MPS Board Directors. The campaign failed, submitting far fewer signatures than the 60,000 needed to trigger recalls for four seats. The group’s submissions included dozens of pages of signatures that appear to be in the same handwriting.
“The people of Milwaukee have emphatically rejected this dishonest effort to remove good public servants from our democratically elected school board” said MTEA President Ingrid Walker-Henry.
The public faces of the recall effort were a private voucher school teacher and the founder of a now-shuttered private charter school. They claimed to represent a broad grassroots movement. It became clear in late July, however, there were indications that anonymous forces were working behind the scenes, including resigned former school board member Aisha Carr and, according to campaign literature distributed by canvassers, City Forward Collective, an organization who supports taking taxpayer money intended for public schools and diverting it to unaccountable private voucher and charter schools.
“From the beginning when libelous assertions were made about MPS and MTEA, we have been alarmed at the clear anti-public education motivation of these recall efforts,” said Walker-Henry. “Despite their embarrassing failure to submit adequate signatures, the people of Milwaukee should remember that this campaign was fueled by individuals and groups whose sole vision of education in Milwaukee is its complete privatization.
At a July 24 press conference, the recall campaign made news by admitting they were being funded by “anonymous donors,” an admission for which the group is now under investigation by the Wisconsin Ethics Commission, which enforces campaign finance rules. At the same press conference, the group claimed that they had collected more than 37,000 signatures with three weeks left in the campaign – far more than the actual number of signatures they eventually submitted.
“We are deeply disturbed by the misrepresentation and omission of the truth by these individuals throughout their campaign,” said Walker-Henry. “Despite the campaign’s failure, the people of Milwaukee deserve answers and accountability from this group after they appeared to have blatantly lied to the media and the public about the number of signatures they had collected and about who funded their campaign.
“Taxpayers also deserve answers. This dishonest campaign, which was ironically supposed to be about accountability and resource management, was a total waste of taxpayer dollars and staff resources.
“And I’m no handwriting expert, but what little support the recall organizers were able to gather for their failed effort sure seems like it came from people whose signatures are strikingly similar to each other.”
