Leader in Richland school board recall reports death threats. Police investigating
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Richland School Board Recall Effort
A high-profile group of voters filed to recall board members Semi Bird, Audra Byrd and Kari Williams after their controversial vote to make face masks optional.
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A leading voice in the effort to remove three Richland School Board members from office says he has received death threats.
Bradley Rew told the Tri-City Herald that he was contacted this week by people who said he would die unless he dropped his effort to recall Semi Bird, Audra Byrd and Kari Williams from the board.
Rew is a well-known Tri-Cities businessman and entrepreneur, having served as owner and president of Gale Rew Construction for more than 15 years. He’s a lifelong Tri-Cities resident, has been involved with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is a conservative.
On Wednesday, Rew said he received dozens of phone calls from numbers “all over the place and outside the country.”
He answered just two calls. Both sounded to be computer-generated.
One said that Audra Byrd was “called of God” and that Rew’s “efforts to remove her would result in them being Gods hands in removing you from this earth.”
The second caller said he was “an idiot,” said his businesses were going to go down and that he was destroying his community.
On the same day, a driver yelled death threats at Rew while he was in the parking lot of the Horn Rapids Golf Course in Richland.
Rew said he’s more worried for his family — who also have experienced some instances of harassment — than for himself.
“I feel that I have to take them seriously, but I do feel really much that this is an intimidation factor,” he said. “There’s definitely a worry there, but I’m not losing any sleep.”
He filed a report with the Richland Police Department, which is investigating the claims.
“We are investigating a complaint involving threats made towards Mr. Rew,” a department spokesperson said in a statement emailed Friday. “Because the case is under investigation, we are not providing any further details.”
Rew said he does not believe anyone on the school board is behind the threats. And he said Friday that he hadn’t received any other phone calls or threats since Wednesday.
Controversial recall
The threats come amid heightened tension between supporters of the board members and those who say their actions to vote to defy Washington indoor mask mandate last year were illegal and justify removal from office.
Signatures are currently being gathered by a recall group to put the recall question on the ballot.
The recall charges stem from a vote the school board took a year ago during the COVID pandemic to go “mask optional” in Richland schools, despite warnings from their legal counsel and from the state superintendent.
Charges accuse the three of violating the state’s Open Public Meetings Act, laws surrounding Washington’s indoor face mask mandate and district policies, and exceeding their school board powers.
On Feb. 9, the Washington Supreme Court allowed the recall process to move on to the signature gathering stage. If enough signatures are collected, voters could vote in August whether or not to remove the three from office.
Last summer, the campaign against the recall, Resist the Recall, called for a boycott of Rew’s businesses, specifically the Rewster’s Craft Bar and Grill and Horn Rapids Golf Course. The campaign told supporters to “consider a different venue.”
Facebook post
Rew posted about the threats on Thursday in a lengthy Facebook post on his personal page.
“I believe these individuals pay attention to my Facebook posts so my message to them is violence towards my family, myself or anyone involved in the recall will not help your cause to stop the recall but only hurt it,” he wrote.
“Please consider talking to someone, getting help, maybe talk to your religious leaders and get insight and help from them to calm yourself and comfort you and tell you guys that it’s not worth ruining your life or anyone else’s. I say that with true sincerity,” he continued.
Rew said in his post that he would put out a statement further clarifying his stance on why he’s pursuing a recall and that people on both sides of the issue should “be mature, listen and react with carefulness.”
“I love this community, I have lived here all my life, my family has been here for over 70 years, it’s success is very important to my family and I,” he wrote.
Speaking to the Herald, Rew said he believed the threats came from someone who was loosely familiar with the recall and had some technological knowledge on how to set up robocalls.
The language in the phone calls also appeared to be religious in nature. Rew said it’s unclear if the person was a follower of any particular church. It’s unclear if the person was an LDS member — a church both he and Byrd are members of.
“I want people to know that it’s OK if you don’t support the recall and it’s OK if you do. We can both be civil,” he said, adding later: “I hope that we can continue on to gather signatures and go through this process peacefully and legally, and leave it up to the voters to decide if we’re going to remove these three board members or not.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2023 at 3:07 PM.
