JOYAL

MARQUETTE — One disgruntled Marquette resident submitted a recall petition on Thursday for the removal of Margaret Brumm from her position in the office of the Marquette Board of Light and Power.

Nathan Joyal, a citizen who lives and works in Marquette, was the individual who filed the paperwork largely due to the negative impact he says Brumm’s actions have had on the Marquette Area Public Schools Board of Education.

The exact phrasing of the petition cites that Brumm “has threatened to enforce her trademark of the name ‘Marquette Sentinels’ for the stated purpose of coercing Marquette Area Public Schools to change the nickname to ‘Redmen,’ which costs the public money and represents a violation of her fiduciary duties to the public.”

Joyal is referring to Brumm’s repeated attempts to trademark the Marquette Senior High School’s newly acquired name “Marquette Sentinels” for items of clothing as well as educational services on the state and federal level. Her original goal was to stop all rebranding efforts but as of late, Brumm has focused on serving the board Freedom of Information Act requests.

He said these actions caused the school board to pull resources and attention away from its students to handle the legal confrontation with Brumm.

“My seventh-grade daughter was repeatedly assaulted during this school year,” said Joyal. “The police secured a criminal conviction before the district could do so much as move my daughter into another classroom from her abuser. It took four months for the district to respond to the issue. During this time, Ms. Brumm filed or publicly threatened to file no less than five separate court actions against the school system, each of which drew resources away from parents and children who needed help, such as my family.”

As an alumnus of MSHS, a father of five children in four different MAPS schools and a Marquette native, Joyal said he couldn’t stand by as Brumm “engage(d) in unethical conduct that costs the district time, money and other resources.”

He described Brumm’s behavior as similar to that of a “bully” attempting to “harass and intimidate the fine folks who are serving the public in the school district.”

Joyal further stated in the petition that Brumm’s actions have cost the public money and therefore violate her fiduciary duties to the public. He cites that due to Brumm’s responsibility as an MBLP chairperson and secretary, she is bound by City Code Article 3 Section 1. It states that a public servant “shall avoid any action which might result in or create the appearance of impeding government efficiency or economy.”

Whether or not this line of reasoning holds up will be decided by the Marquette County Election Commission at 3 p.m. Wednesday, June 12, in a clarity hearing at the Probate Courtroom in the Baraga Avenue courthouse.

Joyal said he’s “optimistically hopeful” for the result of the hearing.

“My recall petition is based upon the notion that a city officer with fiduciary responsibilities over a specific budgetary pool implicitly has a wider fiduciary responsibility to refrain from unethically diminishing other departments’ budgets,” he explained.

It is important to note that the purpose of these meetings are to conduct a hearing and rule on the clairt and factuality of recall language filed. The election commission must only take into account the wording on the recall petitions themselves with no supporting documents.

Just one day before Joyal submitted his recall petition against Brumm, she was submitting a second petition calling to remove Jennifer Klipp and Jennifer Ray from their spots on the school board.

At 2 p.m. on June 12 in the same courtroom previously mentioned, the commission will conduct a hearing on Brumm’s petition against Klipp and Ray.

In addition to the recall petition, Joyal announced that he will be running for one of the three open spots on the MAPS Board of Education in the regular election this November.

“Besides having an extremely wide footprint within the district, I have a lot of experience with organizational administration and the operation of various institutional boards,” Joyal said. “I have spent most of my life in higher education, and I believe I have a lot of positive ideas and skills to contribute to our already amazing school district to make it even better.”