Keep Maureen Mengelt's Memorial Plaque In Place
- Petition bySun Prairie, United States
The fact that I have to petition to keep a MEMORIAL plaque up in honor of my mother should speak volumes. Why should a mourning family and community have to fight to have a dedication kept in place? One person complains about it, and suddenly that constitutes the State of Wisconsin removing it entirely? Please sign to help prove that the majority vote should rule vs. a single complaint.
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| ELCA bishop Burnside was on his way to a church meeting when he mowed down Maureen Mengelt, and drove drunkenly away from the fatal accident. Witnesses chased and trapped him. |
The struggles that my family have had to put up with regarding all of this are just plain absurd. My mother was hit and killed by a drunk driver, a bishop at that, all while innocently taking a Sunday afternoon training run. That in itself has been the single most traumatic event of my life. But the aftermath of this case involving the State of Wisconsin is simply disgraceful.
Bruce Burnside was free for over a YEAR while we tried to move the court case forward. That failure to proceed is due to the State of Wisconsin. During that painful year-long process, the community took comfort in placing running shoes at the site of the crash. These represented her love of running and how much she impacted fellow community members. Yet one person complained about them (Why? How does that affect their life, truly?) and the Department of Transportation removed them.
My family has repeatedly gone out to collect those shoes from the State of WI and put them back on the site. Again, they would be removed days later. This cycle continued until we teamed up with Matt Glowacki to create a "proper" memorial. That way, we wouldn't have to continue dealing with these complaints and also have our memorial as a way to grieve and represent the beautiful soul that was taken from us that horrible day.
We took time to create a tasteful dedication to my mother, Maureen Mengelt. Now we've been notified that the State of WI is removing the memorial site due to ONE measly complaint. This is truly an outrage. Why should one person dictate such drastic measures? What is so offensive to them that it must be removed entirely? How black can someone's heart be? This is not a distraction to drivers. This is a way to represent a wonderful life that was taken way too soon due to someone's choice to drink and drive. For this to be removed would be yet another failure to our family and the Sun Prairie community. The State of Wisconsin should be ashamed to even consider taking these actions.
To:
Wisconsin State Government
Wisconsin State Government
Keep Maureen Mengelt's Memorial Plaque In Place
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your name]
