Rapid City Council follies continue… Rapid City Alderman admits posting false information?

Posted by PP at the SDWC

February 26, 2008

I can’t tell you how much I love Rapid City Government.

When it comes to fodder for blogposts, it is an eternally fresh and bountiful fount of goofiness which it seems will never, ever dry up. Last year, we had Cabela’s, Tom Johnson’s gender & sober driver identification problems at 1am, Jim Shaw hulking out at the Iowa State Fair, Mike Schumacher (pick your controversy), so on, and so forth.

This year, we have jetsetting council members, ghetto monopoly, and Mike Schumacher once again.

Now in the latest, it seems that similar to the recent E-mailgate, we’ve another person posting false information on the internet, (once again, here at the SDWC).

And this time, it’s a sitting councilman, Alderman Deb Hadcock.

If you recall the other day, I’d posted some information that came up around the time of E-Mailgate, with a person writing as “deb.” “Deb” was making allegations against City Councilman Sam Kooiker which seemed reminiscent of charges that had come up this last year:

The first comment came on my post on the Rapid City Weekly’s story on E-mailgate, which led to some further explanation and examination….

deb Says:
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 am

Well Mr. Powers this is what happens when people place fake e-mails and letters to the editor and play games with peoples lives with no consequence,there has to be a better way to make people accountable,these games on the council did’nt start with Mike they started with Sam.

And…

The part that got my attention is that the comments contain wild accusations, with utterly nothing to back them up. And in the case of the first one, it would appear to closely mirror the accusations Councilwoman Hadcock had made when the original accusations came out on Mike Schumacher faking e-mails this last summer.

Kooiker said a city employee sent the fake e-mails last June over concerns about Rapid Transit. He said Hadcock hired a private investigator to try to link him to the messages but was unable to do so.

“I was exonerated,” Kooiker said. “The whole thing is very unfortunate.”

But, Kooiker said, Schumacher admitted to sending an e-mail under a false name to fellow council members in December. The e-mail assailed Christmas lights in the city, a pet project of Hadcock’s.

Read that here. Her accusations being brought up again at a time when a former commissioner is in the spotlight for faking the mayor’s e-mail address is curious timing, as if this writer is trying to intentionally link councilman Kooiker to impropriety.

You can review the entire post here.

What makes this worth revisiting is the fact I had a couple people questioning me as to whether this might possibly be Mike Schumacher writing under a different name in another instance.

I assured the people asking that as far as I could tell, the posts originated in Rapid City, and it appeared that Mike Schumacher had nothing to do with it. I noted, while the comments posted were somewhat irrational, it could be Alderman Hadcock. Or it just as easily might not be.

So, one Rapid City local reporter decided to ask her. As I’m informed, she very proudly admitted that she posted that information:

I spoke personally with Deb Hadcock today. She says the posts here from “deb” are hers.

Michael Sanborn | Feb 25, 2008 5:14 pm

Read that here. Michael Sanborn is a former columnist with the Rapid City Journal, and currently a reporter/columnist with the Rapid City Weekly News.

Good gosh. At this rate, I’m contemplating website registration for anyone who ever ran for city office in Rapid City. It would make the scorecard easier to keep track of.

Anyway, if we look back on it, no evidence could be provided to back up Hadcock’s claims, despite her having the city look into it, and her personally hiring a private investigator to investigate the accusations. Yet, despite Alderman Kooiker’s earlier exoneration, Alderman Hadcock is posting accusations on-line yet 8 months later ?

The fact that a sitting city council member can’t let go of accusations proven false nearly a a year ago – and her continued airing of them on-line without any shred of proof would seem to give one pause to question her integrity.

Or we could just skip that part, and question her fitness for office.

In any case, the next time she’s up for election, it should give the voters pause. Very serious pause as they contemplate whether or not they’re putting their best foot forward to make Rapid City a better place, or if they’re just giving someone with a vendetta a soapbox to scream from.

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