I received a nice email from a supporter of Bill Hosko shortly after I published my post about the St. Paul City Council race in Ward 2. It was a friendly email from a woman who currently works for Bill.

Rather than paraphrase, I’ll just post it:

Your experience is your experience and I won’t doubt what it was like for you to work for Bill.  But I feel obligated to let you know that I have been doing some contract work for him on this campaign and he has been good about paying what I’ve billed for.  I am able to set my own schedule and if that means he needs to wait a few days for work to be done, then he waits.  If there’s an error, he shrugs it off.  He’s particular (even exceedingly picky about details), and I wouldn’t call him the easiest client, but he is able to maintain a professional demeanor, and his debate performance and interaction with voters he meets seems to be appropriate as well.    Has he changed over the past four years?   I haven’t known him long, so I can only attest to my work experience these past few months.  But it’s possible.

Can A Tiger Change His Stripes?

Is it possible that Bill has changed or more likely that this person hasn’t worked for Bill long enough? I don’t know. I don’t believe that Bill fired me because of a typo or because I chose to take the day off on a national holiday. He fired me because he found someone he preferred to run his campaign.

I met Bill one afternoon on a sales call. I was selling POS systems and he was on my list of business to annoy. We got to talking and eventually he asked me to be his campaign manager. I made it clear I knew nothing about political campaigns. He offered me considerably more than the nothing I was making selling credit card processing to people who couldn’t qualify for it with conventional companies, so I took the job.

I worked my tail off for Bill Hosko. I gave up my nights and weekends to work on his personal website as well as his campaign website. I sat in his store while he was out knocking on doors unable to do the campaign work because his computer system was so archaic. After spending the day in his store I would go home and work another 5-6 hours on his websites. I was his ‘date’ at campaign functions around the city.  He called at all hours of the day and night. He had me drive him around town because he didn’t have a car. He would actually ask me to drop him off a block before his destination so that it looked as if he had walked rather than gotten a ride. He prided himself on knocking on each and every door of the ward several times, and it wouldn’t look good if he was getting a ride. I thought it was silly, what was so wrong with getting a ride to an appointment, but he insisted he had an image to maintain. Whatever.

No Harm, No Foul

Halfway through the campaign Bill met a man whom he thought would make a much better campaign manager. I’m not sure his qualifications were any better than mine but if Bill preferred to have someone else doing the job I certainly wouldn’t have stood in his way. He needed to do what was best for the campaign and if that meant changing my role or eliminating it completely then that is what he should have done. He demoted me in the press by calling me an independent contractor whom he hired to place signs in people’s yards. One lie led to another. It was actually kinda sad.

Is Anyone There?

Bill didn’t sit me down and tell me what was going on. He didn’t tell me he had found someone else to do the job. After winning the primary he refused my phone calls. He actually hung up on me a couple of times (damn cell phones!). After a week of trying to contact him to see what we needed to do for the next part of the campaign it was clear that I had no job anymore. Bill didn’t have the balls to tell me the truth, he didn’t even have the balls to lie to me for a whole week. Eventually he sent me an email telling me I was let go because of the typo and taking the holiday off.

When I asked him to pay me he refused. He said something like I hadn’t earned the money he was paying me and therefore he wouldn’t be paying me for the final week he owed me. He made some noises about how I wasn’t qualified to earn as much as he was paying me because I had no experience. He didn’t care that I had two kids to feed and that I now had no job just as the economy around the world was tanking. He’d promised me employment if he won the election.

Yeah, I Missed a Typo

To be fair I have to admit that I did indeed make a typo on his website and I did take off Labor Day to spend with my family. However, it was with his blessing. He never once suggested I not take the day off. Of course he didn’t, by that time he didn’t want me as part of the campaign. Has anyone been fired for a typo or taking a national holiday off? Can you fire someone for taking a national holiday off?

Bringing in the Big Guns

I had to call an attorney who eventually convinced him to pay me, though it took many weeks and cost me financially while he delayed payment.

Bill could have handled it differently. He could have chosen to lead rather than be a coward and hide behind silly excuses.

I don’t know about you, but I want someone with courage, conviction and integrity representing me in my fair city. I don’t want someone who doesn’t have the courage to tell the truth. I want someone who can stand up and do the right thing, not someone who hides behind bad cell phone connections and poor excuses.

But that’s just me.

Up next, Who’s a Homophobe?