The New Berlin Taxpayers Alliance supports honest and full disclosure from candidates for local office. We believe those who seek elected positions should be transparent with their political beliefs and social values so voters can individually decide who will best represent them as an elected official. While school board is a non-partisan election, it is clear from local, regional, and national news reporting, that political issues have been ever present in our schools. Race-focused curriculum, politically driven health and safety mandates, biological males competing in female sports and utilizing female bathrooms, and the imposition of the ‘social values’ of teachers and administration that contrast with the family values of students are relevant topics the New Berlin School Board will likely have to address in the future.
In the past there has been a sentiment that school board issues are independent from the larger political discourse in this country. We disagree and think the events of the last 2 years have proven how representative a candidates partisan political ideology is in predicting their policy decisions on local issues. We establish this context to explain our decision to share the information that has been provided to NBTA, pertaining to school board candidate Meg McKenzie, from our local sources. NBTA contacted McKenzie for comment but she did not respond.
New Berlin West and Eisenhower High Schools both have school resource officers. Some school districts have opted to eliminate school resource officers. In addition, decisions regarding the summoning of police to schools for disciplinary issues varies from district to district and is the subject of much debate. For this reason, the disposition of a candidate towards police is relevant to school board candidates.
In the spring of 2021, New Berlin Police were present at a school board meeting where political activists from outside the district and Milwaukee television news media were present. Meg McKenzie shared the following statement on social media regarding the police presence (note DEI = Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) https://dei.extension.org/:
Does McKenzie believe police presence is meant for “intimidation”? Does this statement demonstrate her true belief on police resource officers in school? Would she be against calling police when students commit crimes?
On April 10th 2021, candidate McKenzie posted the following assertion to her Twitter account. We conclude based on reading this post that Ms. McKenzie is referring to police as ‘racist dangerous criminals who operate with impunity’ and that the law enforcement system is broken. Some share this view, some do not. Voters should be aware of candidate McKenzie’s attitude towards law enforcement.
Also note in the prior image McKenzie makes the assertion “black people don’t swim”. NBTA believes this is an incredibly racist statement. We encourage Ms. McKenzie to do a google search for black Olympic swimmers, of which there are many medal winners. She could also visit any of the great Milwaukee County Park System pools to see many black children swimming. McKenzie has a habit of accusing others of racism. While NBTA recognizes hypocrisy and double standards are normal operating procedure for many politicians, we think McKenzie should have some introspection on her own racist statements.
New Berlin is a diverse community with middle class, suburban, rural, and wealthy households. By demographics many of those wealthy households are ‘white’ and identify as, or tend to vote republican. In a tweet from April 7th 2021 McKenzie makes very pejorative accusations towards ‘white wealthy Republicans’.
NBTA attempted to contact candidate McKenzie to ask if she was seeking the votes of wealthy white republican residents of New Berlin and/or how those who fit that category could expect fair representation on the school board for themselves or their students within NB schools. We did not receive a response.
Many residents of New Berlin have concerns about election integrity and voter fraud. Meg McKenzie has shared her disposition on this subject as well. After the Georgia legislature passed election reform that expanded voting opportunities while making fraud more difficult, school board candidate McKenzie cast a KKK reference towards those who supported the legislation.
The New Berlin Taxpayers Alliance would ask candidate McKenzie if she also thinks New Berlin residents who support election reform “might as well be wearing hoods”, but she did not respond to our request for comment.
Cancel culture and false accusations against conservatives are also notable issues in this country. Many New Berlin residents tend to be strong 2nd Amendment supporters. In a tweet from April of 2021, McKenzie characterized Kyle Rittenhouse as a “white supremacist, killer, and murderer”.
There is no evidence Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of the charges filed against him after a diverse jury declared him not guilty. In addition apparently Ms. McKenzie thinks that police officers shouldn’t be allowed to donate to support wrongfully accused citizens. NBTA wanted to ask candidate McKenzie if New Berlin residents should expect this kind of rush to judgment, and incendiary false accusations against a person who is presumed innocent, from her as a school board member, if elected. She did not respond to our request for comment.
The New Berlin School Board election is on Tuesday April 5th. Voters should be aware of the 6 candidates for the 3 seats, Meg McKenzie, Kate Unger, and Scott Jentsch have aligned themselves as having shared views. See image capture from Kate Unger’s election website.
The New Berlin Taxpayers Alliance will be reaching out to Jentsch and Unger to ask if the views Meg McKenzie has expressed over the last year align with their views, as indicated on candidate Unger’s website. We will provide future updates as appropriate.
New Berlin Taxpayers Alliance 
Can’t wait to read up on the next candidate. I assume you’ll be doing this for all of them? And if you knew history, you would know that her statement about why black people don’t swim is because in the past, community pools were segregated. Once segregation was changed, communities closed the pools rather than integrate. Now THAT is racist.
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Black people do swim.
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Despite your efforts, her comment is still racist stereotyping.
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I think we all know who the real racist is? The author needs to look in the mirror?
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What evidence do you have to make this claim?
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You know what’s really creepy? Whoever took these screen shots did so a year ago, way before Meg ever talked about running. Why?
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That’s an interesting response. Her own words. Why wouldn’t she be proud of what she said? As for when the screen shots were taken. How do you know one of her followers didn’t screen capture them? Maybe her followers aren’t as radical as she is.
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She is clearly not a racist, but that didn’t prevent you from writing your ridiculous propaganda piece. Only a true racist would feel empowered to use racism as a weapon to smear another human being’s good reputation.
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—-“only a true racist would feel empowered to use racism as a weapon to smear another human being’s good reputation”—-
You just described virtually every elected democrat and virtually every television personality on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS news.
People can read what Meg wrote and decide for themselves if her comment is a racist thing to say. Its our opinion it is a very racist comment. But others can decide for themselves.
As for propaganda, these are Meg McKenzie’s own words. These are screen shots of what she wrote. There is no spin. Its what she posted. Everyone can look at what she posted and decide what they think of it.
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I am so upset by how partisan school board positions have become. It never used to be this way years ago. Let’s get back to looking out for the best interest of our schools and leave these political views behind.
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Wow. Someone has A LOT of time on their hands. And someone gathering screenshots for a year on someone just in case they ever run for school board? That person is unstable and a bit obsessed. Stalker comes to mind. You are calling her racist. Care to comment on Jeffery Kurth? I’m sure you will find a way to defend his comments about Black History Month.
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Mindy, you seem to avoid the topic. Do you support Meg’s comments? Meg shared these comments on social media on the internet. She was clearly VERY proud of her comments at the time. Why is she not proud of them now? Why are her supporters so upset that Meg’s beliefs have been shared with the voters? Don’t you think voters deserve to know who a candidate is and what they believe? It’s our kids in the schools Meg desires to have authority over.
Jeff Kurth is not up for election. The Milwaukee television media had extensive coverage of Jeff Kurth’s statements last year. Jeff Kurth was also re-elected after those statements received extensive television media coverage. I don’t understand what your point is?
Meg McKenzie made all of these comments within the past year. These comments were not dug up from years ago like we so often see with cancel culture recently. These comments were not taken out of context or pulled form some hidden camera footage. She made them on a social media platform for the world to see.
I think it speaks more to your bias, than our sources motivation, that you would try to slay the messenger. Perhaps that’s your only option when you can’t defend her comments.
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I see nothing wrong with her comments, so no need to defend them. You say they are t taken out of context, but the way you pose you “questions” really does make them out of context. Telling her to Google black Olympic swimmers? 😂. Here is an explanation of Meg’s comment. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90213675
I could go through each of your “questions” and explain what she was referring to but I don’t have the time, plus, it won’t change your mind.
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The title to this post was misleading. It said we were going to learn about 6 candidates. This was an opinion piece by someone with a political motive. Obviously taxpayer alliance is not a reliable source for unbiased factual information on the educational stands, goals and experience of the candidates running for election.
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The title of the article says nothing about 6 candidates. The title of the post poses a question. People are free to make their own decisions based on the information provided. As for bias… The content shared is from Meg’s own twitter and facebook postings. Its her own words. How in the world could that be biased? No one reading the article should based their opinions on what was written by NBTA. They should view Meg’s own words as she wrote them and decide what they think of them.
As for the NBTA website. A typical article gets about 5,000 unique visitors, almost all of whom live in New Berlin. They can all decide for themselves what is or isn’t reliable. ***I challenge you to cite anything that has been posted that isn’t true.***
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