The Schumacher/Hamilton contract matter keeps rolling along

The matter of Sam Kooiker disputing the truthfulness of the Hamilton/Schumacher contract has hit the Rapid City Journal newspaper this Saturday morning:
Alderman and Rapid City mayoral candidate Sam Kooiker cried foul Friday over a local political action committee’s amended campaign finance report that he believes is an attempt to smear his reputation.

and...

Included in a letter from Barker & Little, Hamilton’s company, to the South Dakota Secretary of State’s office is a copy of Schumacher’s contract dated and signed May 31, 2006, just a week before the June 6 election, guaranteeing Schumacher a base pay of $7,000 for 350 hours of work and bonuses based on the percentage of the vote Kooiker received.

Kooiker said he was not aware of Schumacher’s contract and questions its authenticity considering there weren’t 350 hours available between the date of the contract and the election.

“Mike has helped me on all of my campaigns, and my campaign never paid him anything,” Kooiker said. “The fact that there was an amendment filed on the same day I said what I said in the media tells me this is an attempt to smear me.”

The amended finance report was filed March 22, 2007, which is the same day Kooiker was quoted in the media declaring he had no intention of taking any of
Hamilton’s money during this year’s mayoral race.
Read the entire article here.

As people squabble back and forth (doing so anonymously on this website, I might add), we need to cut the chatter and nonsense from the debate and focus on what we know is true.

Ultimately in this matter, someone is lying, and someone is telling the truth. From there, in the court of public opinion it's up to us to decide.

Personally, as I form my own opinion, I look at the track record of the people involved. The funny thing about history is that it usually is a good indicator. There is the saying about leopards and the changing of their spots. It's a saying for a reason.

One person I've never observed to be anything but truthful, and never, ever heard a word to disparage his integrity. The other? Well, lets just say after you see enough things, and hear enough stories, you start to take someone's version of the story with a grain of salt.

Based on your own experiences, it's up to each of you to decide for yourselves.

(and use your names when you comment. Most people with convictions aren't afaid to let their words stand or fall on their own.)

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'm putting my money on Sam's story. I've never known him to be anything but totally honest.
wdporter said…
Great site...even if you're a smart aleck.

Adding you to my (very short) list of South Dakota bloggers on LogiPundit.

Forming a sort of ad hoc "Senate" of bloggers who keep up with local politics.

Come see us.
Anonymous said…
Pat,

As someone who has personally been called everything from as "lazy as the day is long, to "waterhead" (slang for retard) by anonymous posters on this website I agree that people shouldn't be posting anonymously. So turn off anonymous posting and make people stand behind their comments. I'm only sorry that your character had to be questioned before you were concerned about this.
PP said…
Mike -

I get pounded on every day on this website, so I can take it. My point is that there are accusations being thrown around with no one willing to back up their words.

So, as an experiment, anyone commenting under this post needs to put their name to it.

I struggle with the issue on anonymous versus identified posting, because I wouldn't want to kill the reason why some people read - to see what commentary arises.

Some is interesting, insightful, and valid. Some (admittedly is crap.)

So, in this instance - let's see what happens when people are required to stand behind their words.
PP said…
Given the number of comment posts I've had to drop because people weren't identifying themselves, I'm not hopeful for this experiment.
Anonymous said…
Rick Kriebel said;

1) The Kooiker/Fuller elections were so far apart, June for Kooiker, November for Fuller(I think) that I find it hard to believe that a sum of almost 8,000 dollars was mis-placed?

2) I, was in the same circle of friends as Sam and Mike. The election party for Mike Schumacher was at my house. For all the times we met at perkins, millstone, windmill truck stop, my house, Sams House, Schumacher never once mentioned he was being paid for the Kooiker re-election campaign. In the end, who cares, I suppose there are no penalties for this sort of thing.

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