Taggart pushed to resign over posts
Menomonee Falls voters threaten to recall trustee
Menomonee Falls residents are calling on Village Trustee Steve Taggart to resign in the aftermath of controversial social media comments he made prior to a recent racial justice rally.
If he doesn’t resign, there is a push to get Taggart recalled.
“We are looking into it and hope to see what kind of support we can get,” said Menomonee Falls resident Clayton Jones, one of the leaders in a potential recall effort.
Taggart said a recall is “their rights as citizens.”
These efforts stem from Taggart calling the School District of Menomonee Falls “radical communists” on the Menomonee Falls Republicans Facebook page for their perceived role in a rally June 6 that started at Menomonee Falls North Middle School.
The rally, which was led by a recent high school graduate, included speakers who called for an end to racial injustice. The Menomonee Falls School District was not involved in the event, Superintendent Corey Golla said.
In a second post that same week — on a Menomonee Falls community Facebook page — Taggert said the gunshots a Facebook user heard was the police department practicing for the Black Lives Matter rally the next day.
Backlash compared to lynching
Taggart apologized for his comments, but the backlash has been swift from the public and village board.
Stephanie Kosmeder, who ran unsuccessfully for a village trustee seat this spring, compared the backlash against Taggart to a lynching, which prompted its own criticism.
Lynching, most prominent in the 19th and early 20th centuries, was a form of terrorizing Black Americans, according to the NAACP website. The
public killings, often by white mobs, rose after Black people were freed from slavery. They continued well into the 1900s.
“If we are going to hold him accountable and lynch him in the nearest tree we might as well hold everyone else accountable,” Kosmeder said at Monday’s village board meeting.
A Black woman quickly interjected: “You have to find another verbiage.”
Kosmeder apologized for her comment.
Protesters stop at Taggart’s home
For many, apologies from Taggart and Kosmeder weren’t enough. About 75 to 100 protesters marched outside their homes Tuesday night.
Based on video from the protests, about a dozen deputies with the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department also showed up in riot gear to stand in front of Taggart’s home. The department did not return a message seeking comment.
There were no arrests and no reported incidents, Menomonee Falls Police Department Lt. Gene Neyhart said.
“The purpose of going to both places was to show them ... that racism is not welcome in our neighborhoods,” Jones said.
Recent Menomonee Falls High School graduate Robyn George, who led the rally this month that sparked Taggart’s initial comments, was also there.
“Stephanie’s comments were insensitive, repulsive and ignorant,” George said of the lynching comparison. “It’s ignorant comments like Stephanie’s that make people of color feel unsafe in our village and allow people like Trustee
Taggart to feel comfortable posting comments like he did.”
Village President Dave Glasgow told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he received 160 messages expressing outrage over Taggart’s posts. He said many called for Taggart to resign. Taggart’s three-year term ends in 2022.
At the village board meeting Monday, dozens of people and a fellow trustee called on Taggart to resign.
Interim village attorney Adam Koening said the only way a trustee can be removed by the board is for neglect of duties, such as being regularly absent from meetings or the physical inability to perform duties.
A vote to give Taggart a censure, an informal discipline measure, failed, 33-1.
Trustees Katie Kress, Paul Tadda and Taggart voted against the censure, while Glasgow, Tim Newman and Randy Van Alstyne voted in favor of it. Jeremy Walz abstained.
A village trustee isn’t required to abstain in a vote about themselves, Koening said.
For a recall election to happen, Glasgow said 25% of the voters who voted in the 2018 gubernatorial election in Menomonee Falls need to sign the recall petition.
This would require 5,200 signatures, Glasgow said. After the signatures are verified, a special election would be scheduled.
“I’m extremely disappointed in Steve Taggart,” Jones said. “(He) still refuses to accept responsibility for his words. Clearly, he cares nothing about the people he represents, otherwise he would have resigned.”
Taggart’s ‘unfit to be a leader’
Taggart called his posts a “momentary lack of judgment,” but said his comments were taken out of context and used as “a political weapon.”
“This has taught me to take the time and care with every word,” he told the board. “We are all equally angry. You are looking for the bad guy here. Menomonee Falls does not deserve to see this kind of hateful divisiveness in our community.”
Taggart’s neighbor Jefferson Davis, a former village president, urged Taggart not to resign.
“I think he is a breath of fresh air,” Davis said. “Debate is good. Speech is good, especially in Menomonee Falls. They want to censure you so you are threatened and bullied in our community.”
Taggart’s comments perpetrated racism and violence, a resident said at the meeting.
“The day is long overdue for every community in this nation to recognize and take action against the disease of racism, especially in our institutions,” Jeannie Ware said. “Steve Taggart’s flippant, reckless, ignorant and racist Facebook comment regarding the Black Lives Matter rally is evidence that he is unfit to be a leader of any community.
“There is no other way to interpret his comment, except that his aim was to spread fear and create community division over a movement that is working to educate for racial equality.”
“There is no other way to interpret his comment, except that his aim was to spread fear and create community division over a movement that is working to educate for racial equality.”
Jeannie Ware Menomonee Falls resident