The DeForest Village Clerk has certified 1,516 valid signatures to recall Village Trustee Bill Landgraf, well beyond the 1,392 required. At its regular meeting Tuesday, the village board is expected to set the election date for September 16.
Alicia Williams has already declared her candidacy for the seat after running as a write-in candidate this past spring, garnering more than 1,700 votes, just 128 votes shy of winning a place on the board.
The recall committee has endorsed Williams in the recall. Organizer Marc Storch said the committee wanted to put forward a single 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.
Landgraf did not respond to requests for comment.
