Gary Mertig recall, Butternut School District, Wisconsin (2021)
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| 2021 Gary Mertig recall, Butternut School District |
| Recall status |
| Recall election date |
| December 14, 2021 |
| Table of contents |
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Recall vote Recall supporters Recall opponents Path to the ballot 2021 recall efforts |
| See also |
| External links Footnotes |
A recall election against Gary Mertig, one of the five members of the Butternut School District school board in Wisconsin, was on the ballot on December 14, 2021. Nate Pritzl filed to run against Mertig in the election.[1][2][3] Mertig won the election, defeating Pritzl and retaining his seat.[4]
Recall supporters said Mertig lied when he said community members would have input on the school district's COVID-19 policies. Mertig said the community was allowed to speak at two out of the three meetings on the policies. The third meeting did not allow public comment because it was not listed on the agenda.[1]
At the time the recall began, Mertig had been serving on the board for 31 years.[1]
To read about other recall efforts related to the coronavirus and government responses to the pandemic, click here.
Recall vote
General election
Special general election for Butternut School District School Board, At-large
Incumbent Gary Mertig defeated Nate Pritzl in the special general election for Butternut School District School Board, At-large on December 14, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Gary Mertig (Nonpartisan) | 53.7 | 161 |
| Nate Pritzl (Nonpartisan) | 46.3 | 139 | |
| Total votes: 300 | ||||
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Recall supporters
Glenn Wegner, a resident of Butternut, Wisconsin, circulated the recall petitions. He said parents wanted a say in how students were treated. He said they were promised a meeting with all parties involved but that when the meeting was held, parents were not allowed to offer comments or ask questions. “We were not allowed to have any input, not allowed to ask questions of the county, not allowed to ask questions of the school board, nothing,” Wegner said. “Gary told us we were not allowed to talk, even though this was supposed to be our meeting. So we question that we do not have a community voice about the things that are going on in our community school.”[1]
The recall petition listed “non representation of concerned community, refusal to listen to public comment, lying to public audience” as reasons for the recall.[1]
Recall opponents
Mertig said community members were not allowed to speak at the third meeting about the school district's COVID-19 policies because the agenda did not include a public comment period. He said the district administrator compiled the agenda. “You have to be careful with the law. If it’s not on the agenda, you can’t talk about it,” Mertig said.[1]
Mertig also said, "No matter what somebody tells you, this recall is simply about masks. They will counter with some other crazy notion that I lied to them about speaking at a meeting, but basically what it is, that the board had two meetings and decided to go with masks, and they are anti-mask."[1]
Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in Wisconsin
The recall petition required 126 signatures to be put on the ballot. It was signed by 130 residents of the district.[1]
Mertig alleged that the way the recall signatures were collected violated state law. He submitted a letter to the Wisconsin Election Commission saying that at least eight residents who signed the recall were not witnessed by the petition circulator and that at least five people who signed were not residents of the school district. Mertig said those signatures should not have been counted, which would have stopped the recall election from being scheduled.[1]
Wisconsin Election Commission Administrator Megan Wolf ruled that the recall election could proceed because Mertig did not file his complaints against the petition with the school district within the 10-day time period set by state law.[1]
Ballotpedia covered 35 coronavirus-related recall efforts against 94 officials in 2022, accounting for 13% of recalls that year. This is a decrease from both 2020 and 2021. COVID-related recalls accounted for 37% of all recall efforts in both 2020 and 2021. In 2020, there were 87 COVID-related recalls against 89 officials, and in 2021, there were 131 against 214 officials.
The chart below compares coronavirus-related recalls to recalls for all other reasons in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
2021 recall efforts
- See also: School board recalls
Ballotpedia tracked 92 school board recall efforts against 237 board members in 2021. Recall elections against 17 board members were held in 2021. The school board recall success rate was 0.42%.
The chart below details the status of 2021 recall efforts by individual school board member.
See also
- Butternut School District, Wisconsin
- Recall campaigns in Wisconsin
- Political recall efforts, 2021
- School board recalls
- States that allow school board recalls
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Sawyer County Record, "Butternut battles over district COVID precautions as school board president faces Dec. 16 recall," December 8, 2021
- ↑ Butternut School District, "Butternut School District Contact Information," accessed December 9, 2021
- ↑ Abbey Smith, “Phone communication with the Butternut School District," December 16, 2021
- ↑ Ashland Daily Press, "Recall fails to unseat Butternut schools leader," December 15, 2021
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