Reedsburg City Hall Free Of Recall Opponents
A Sauk County town has been a surprising battleground in the movement to recall Gov. Scott Walker, especially since Reedsburg city leaders agreed to let recall supporters and opponents use their city hall to promote their causes.
Joan Meyer and Jeri Nikula are just two of the volunteers sacrificing their time to collect signatures for Walker’s recall. They do it because they said Wisconsin has sacrificed far too much.
Their fellow recall volunteers get to work inside city hall on the weekdays after Reedsburg administrators gave them permission.
But recall organizer Bill Waser said the building is closed on weekends, a fact he said makes the job tougher on Saturdays and Sundays. He’s worried what might happen as the weather gets colder.
“We don’t want anyone out here on the sidewalk when it gets slippery, slipping and falling,” said Waser. “We don’t want them getting hurt. It’s for the citizens, and I guess that’s what the other side doesn’t understand.”
Republicans said that that government resources, like city hall buildings, shouldn’t be used toward the recall petition process at all.
The city gave the OK, but Reedsburg’s mayor said the GOP hasn’t been back.
?We didn’t understand what they were doing,? said Waser, of the GOP’s push for equal access. “They haven’t really showed up, they’ve come in and talked to us.”
Sauk County Republicans determined that setting up in city hall would be “hypocritical,” the organization’s chairman, Tim McCumber, wrote in an email.
“The government offices are where citizens can come and talk to their government and receive basic government services,” McCumber said. “It should not be a place where political propoganda can be disseminated — whether it is our message or anybody elses.”
Waser said recall volunteers will keep using city hall, making phone calls, going door-to-door, all the while making sure everyone gets counted.
“If we fill up our quota and things really dry up here, if there’s a county that needs help, we’ll drive there,” said Waser.
