An committee working to recall a member of the DeForest Board of Trustees has submitted more 1,500 signatures of citizens in support of a recall election to replace trustee Bill Landgraf, well above the 1,392 required.
Landgraf has challenged 192 of those signatures, Village Clerk Calli Lundgren told Madison365, mostly due to what he said was lack of legibility. He also challenged 15 pages of signatures for what Lundgren called “circulator issues.”
Recall committee organizer Marc Storch said Landgraf’s objections included issues of some dates being potentially erroneous, and some volunteers circulating petitions not being residents of DeForest.
Landgraf did not respond to a request for clarification.
Lundgren said she is working to examine the signatures, which includes evaluating Landgraf’s challenges to them and the committee’s response to his challenges. The deadline to certify the signatures is August 9. If at least 1,392 signatures are valid — representing 25 percent of the turnout of the last gubernatorial election — then a recall election would be set for September 16.
The recall committee has endorsed Alicia Williams, who ran for Village Board as a write-in candidate earlier this year, to run against Landgraf if a recall election is called. Storch said the committee wanted to put forward a candidate in order to avoid a primary election, which would double the cost of the recall to the village.
Williams launched a write-in campaign after the village board voted to remove fluoride from the village’s drinking water. She received 1,739 votes, just 128 shy of winning a seat on the board.
Williams said the recall effort is not only about fluoride.
“I think the fluoride [vote] just put a whole bunch of eyes on the board, and then … you start to see some things you can’t unsee,” she said.
Those things include some concerning behavior from Landgraf during the course of the fluoride debate and his unsuccessful run for village president.
Petition organizers said Landgraf often acts inappropriately, sometimes attempting to intimidate critics.
Police records indicate he admitted to calling the workplace of a dental hygienist who’d sparred with him on social media over the fluoride issue, seeking to report misconduct. A week later, that same hygienist told police she’d received a letter from the state agency that licenses dental hygienists, saying someone had filed a complaint against her.
During the runup to the fluoride vote, a resident opposed to removing fluoride used a pseudonymous email address to express her opinion to the board; she later receieved a message from an email address associated with Landgraf claiming to be a “chief national reporter” and offering $200 for her time and opinions on the fluoride issue and asking for her phone number. Journalists typically do not offer payment to sources.
Chris McDonald, who lives just across the border in the village of Windsor but is supporting the petition, told police that Landgraf drove past him several times as he was campaigning for Williams in April. Landgraf even rolled his window down and reversed his car to confront McDonald, but McDonald told him not to talk or he would call police, so Landgraf drove off, McDonald said.
Landgraf has also posted jokes about sexual assault featuring images of Bill Cosby, who was convicted of indecent assault in 2018.
Storch said every one of the 30 volunteers circulating petitions encountered at least one person who said they wanted to sign but feared “retribution” from Landgraf.
“Every single one of them encountered at some point someone that said, ‘I would like to sign, but I’m afraid to because [Landgraff] will see my name,’ and the fact that people respond in that way is the very reason that we’re doing this,” Storch said.
Williams said most people she encountered were happy to sign onto the recall effort.
“At the doors, there was not much convincing that needed to be done,” she said. “People either had already had an unsavory experience with Bill, or they were just like, ‘yeah, give me a piece of paper. Where did I sign?'”
Williams said she’s ready to campaign, should the signatures be certified and a recall election called.
“I really didn’t stop” campaigning after the spring election, she said. “It wasn’t a loss for me. Seventeen hundred people writing in my name was pretty historic. It’s really fun at the doors now, because people are like, ‘oh, yeah, I voted for you. I’ll vote for you again.’ Sometimes it’s just about building momentum and getting out there. It’s a real grassroots effort.”
Williams said in addition to the fluoride issue remaining “a bone of contention,” she hopes to bring civility to the board, and to address other issues like affordable housing.
For his part, Storch is confident.
“I am absolutely positive that our recall petition will be certified, and I have incredible confidence that Alicia will be the next trustee added to the village of DeForest,” he said.
