BOURNE — With the first 250 signatures behind them, those who are trying to recall Bourne School Committee member Kari D. MacRae will now be looking for six times that number.
The first step in recalling MacRae has proceeded to the point at which enough affidavit signatures were filed last week with Town Clerk Barry Johnson’s office to move the recall process forward.
During a meeting that filled the high school auditorium, Bourne educators and some parents of students last October pressed MacRae to resign from the school board due to posts on her TikTok account relating to gender identity issues and critical race theory .
MacRae refused to resign and proceeded to launch a state Senate campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Moran, D-Falmouth, in the Plymouth-Barnstable District. MacRae vows to remain on the Bourne school board if elected to Beacon Hill .
Election 2022: Bourne school board member will remain if also elected to state senate
The next procedural step after certification of the 250 signatures filed Wednesday for the recall is for Johnson within 10 days to notify selectmen and MacRae about the affidavit. Then he must issue a blank petition for collection of at least 1,486 signatures of registered voters, which must be certified to continue the recall effort.
The next round of signatures must be collected within 45 calendar days and, at the very least, must represent 10% of registered voters in town during MacRae’s election last year.
Former school committee member and chair Anne-Marie Siroonian has helped spearhead the collection of recall signatures and has pledged to run against MacRae in a recall contest. MacRae ran unopposed in the last election.
Selectmen Chairman Peter Meier said he does not want a recall question added to the annual May town ballot. However, Johnson said this will likely happen given the tight recall framework dictated by the Bourne Charter and his lack of funds for a special election.
“That election issue remains at the discretion of selectmen,” he said.
Johnson’s operating budget does not include funds for a $20,000 special election. But Meier said funds can be secured.
He said the MacRae issue is “culturally divisive on its own merits” and that he does not want “political partisan divisiveness necessarily being introduced to the annual election.”
Recall supporters are committed to collecting signatures, Johnson said, adding that the effort is not easy and was not meant to be when the Bourne Charter was written.
“I get calls routinely every week,” he said. “About (interim) schedules, deadlines and procedures.”
MacRae’s state Senate race, with high-level state Republican Party support, pivots on a number of points and embraces parental rights.
Fight spans two districts: Bourne school board member says she was fired from teaching job over social media posts
She was fired from a teaching job in Hanover in the fall . A conservative advocacy group, Judicial Watch, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Nov. 29 that claims MacRae was fired in retaliation for social media posts that objected to the inclusion of critical race theory in schools.
Bourne educators have stressed that critical race theory is not taught in Bourne classrooms and nobody has ever questioned what is taught about history in classrooms, which are based on state curriculum frameworks.
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