BRUMM

MARQUETTE — No progress will be made on the two recall petitions against local school board members Jennifer Klipp and Jennifer Ray until after the November election, said filer Margaret Brumm.

Brumm, a longtime resident and patent law attorney, unsuccessfully attempted to recall two Marquette Area Public Schools Board of Education members for their votes to eliminate the Redmen/Redettes nickname.

Although the vote to drop the old name was 4-3, with two others voting in favor of its removal, Brumm said she wasn’t targeting them. Trustee Glenn Sarka is in his last six months of the role and therefore ineligible for recall while she didn’t go after Cheryl Maddox-Smith because she’s only a “follower of Ms. Ray and Ms. Klipp,” Brumm said.

To succeed, Brumm needed 3,692 signatures for both members by Aug. 2 but fell short with the last reported number at 480 signatures each as of July 15.

The language of her recall petition, which was approved on June 12, remains valid for 180 days after approval. In this case, that’s Dec. 10. However, the signatures collected are only valid for 60 days since it was initially signed; if Brumm decides to resume the effort, she would need to collect all the signatures all over again.

If she collects the required signatures needed for each candidate by the December date, the recall may be placed on the May 2025 ballot.

Depending on who wins the upcoming election, Brumm might begin re-collecting signatures. This would give her a little less than a month to accomplish her goal.

Since the loss at the beginning of August, Brumm has trademarked the use of the phrase “Marquette Redmen” on clothing in the state of Michigan.

She made this decision due to alleged stories of MAPS employees and students being barred from saying the old nickname or wearing Redmen paraphernalia. She claimed this information was given to her by “more than one person who self-identified as being an employee in some position with the public schools.”

“I will not let anybody make the word ‘Marquette Redmen’ a forbidden phrase,” she said. “I will not let that foolishness, that arrogance, that dictatorship exist (even) if I have to file 20 trademark applications.”