School board recall election cancelled

The decision on replacing Michael Sleeper and Chuck Dallas on the Shawano School Board will not be in voters’ hands as the petitioner agreed to withdraw her recall petitions.

The Shawano School District made that announcement late Aug. 25, the last day of the verification period to check signatures on the petitions that Shawano parent Bobbi Lemerond submitted against the two men. Sleeper and Dallas submitted their resignations, as did board member Chris Gull, earlier in the week, which on its own would not have stopped the recall, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“At the time of their resignations, certificates of sufficiency had not yet been transmitted to the school board, and the school board had not yet called for a recall election,” according to the statement, which was sent to the media by Lori Sherman, the school board’s administrative assistant. “The petitioner requested that the recall petitions be withdrawn, and that further recall election process be discontinued. In consultation with legal counsel and elections officials, the district has accepted the recall petitioner’s request.”

Lemerond contacted the district’s attorney, Geoff Lacey, and sent a letter requesting the withdrawal shortly after learning the two had stepped down on their own.

With the recall cancelled, that means it will be up to the board to determine who will sit in those seats until next April, when the next school board election is scheduled to take place. Whoever is named to Sleeper’s seat can run for a full three-year term, as his seat was up for election in 2023 anyway. The heir to Dallas’ seat can run for a one-year term, with his seat due for election in 2024, and the next person to fill Gull’s seat can potentially be elected for a two-year term, as that post is up for election in 2025.

Candidates to seek Gull’s seat will need to reside in the city of Shawano to apply. Sleeper’s seat covers parts of the towns of Belle Plaine, Navarino and Waukechon, while Dallas’ seat covers parts of the towns of Richmond, Herman and Pella.

Shortly after the district’s announcement, Lemerond made her own announcement on social media: “I am grateful for the resignations from the two recalled board members and that we will not need to cause unnecessary expense to the school district or the tax paying community through the recall election process. As parents and community members of the Shawano School District our goal was always to initiate a positive change that would benefit the School District staff and our students. Working together as a community will be the key to rebuilding and improving our district for years to come.”

The board is expected to do what it just recently completed for two other board seat resignations, which were filled by Karen Smith and Sam Sousek. The process included soliciting applicants from the areas covered by the board, and then they will be interviewed by board members in an open session and selected by secret ballot.

Lemerond, in an interview with NEW Media, said her goal was achieved, even with the recall not moving forward. She had specifically sought the removal of Dallas and Sleeper because they were on the board when Superintendent Randi Anderson was hired. Anderson is resigning Sept. 2 following months of public outrage over a number of policy and fiscal decisions.

“The goal was to change up the board and get some new faces on there, and that’s happened,” Lemerond said.

Lemerond noted there’s nothing in state law that forbids rescinding the petitions, so she felt that was the best option to save the school district some expense. The recall election would have taken place Oct. 4, a month before the state’s general election, and required the district to bear the full cost of poll workers, election equipment and more.

“If it’ll save the school district money and save the community money to not hold an unnecessary election because both of the men resigned, I’d do it,” Lemerond said. “I handwrote it quickly so we could get this moving and see if it was even a possibility.”

Lemerond noted that, even though she’s glad that the two men decided to resign and allow new people to take the helm, she wished Dallas and Sleeper had made the decision sooner.

“The last couple of days were really hectic trying to see if we could stop the recall, where if they had done it sooner, I think it would have been easier to negate things,” Lemerond said.

With a majority of school board members resigning this summer, Anderson also making the decision to leave, and new administrators in all four of the public schools, Lemerond sees that the district has a lot of work ahead and said she would apply for Gull’s seat in order to work toward solutions.

“It’s definitely a rebuilding process,” Lemerond said. “I think it’s a positive thing that has occurred, and I think we can rebuild and heal. It’s going to take time. It’s not something that can take place overnight.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com