Leith may dissolve to avoid concerns over white supremacy
LEITH — Leith Mayor Ryan Schock would rather dissolve his town’s government than take a chance that two write-ins to the town’s council could rekindle antagonism from the town’s brief, but vicious, brush with white supremacy.
So this week, he went door to door in the tiny Grant County village and collected 12 signatures to petition for dissolution. On Wednesday, the Grant County Commission accepted the petition and set a date of July 23 for a special election, when the 18 people who voted in the town’s city election will decide whether to give up their incorporated status and turn their official affairs over to the county.
Schock said he fears that Michael Bencz and Deby Nelson, who live together and were elected with 10 and nine write-in votes respectively, could reopen old wounds left from when notorious white supremacist Craig Cobb tried to take over the town in 2013. He said, for all he knows, the couple might make “great” council representatives, but he’s tired of being stuck in the middle of it all.
Bencz has denied any association with Cobb’s ideas. However, but he did buy a Leith property from Cobb and showed up from Wisconsin just as Cobb started a national call out for like-minded racists to help take over the town and fly flags bearing the Nazi swastika.
Read more: https://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/leith-may-dissolve-to-avoid-concerns-over-white-supremacy/article_af0a11d4-43ed-5684-971e-618d542a1188.html