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September 12, 2008 06:21 PM UTC

Kolomitz, Ritter Engage in Giant Pissing Match

  • 17 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

As The Denver Post reports with plenty of vague references:

There was a time when Greg Kolomitz and Bill Ritter were virtually inseparable…

…That all changed when Ritter called a news conference last spring to allege that Kolomitz had wrongly paid himself more than $80,000 from the fund to pay for Ritter’s inauguration.

“I was shell-shocked,” said Kolomitz, who said he found out about Ritter’s accusations when reporters called him only minutes before the news conference. “I didn’t understand how or why this was happening.”

A day after he learned he would not face criminal charges for writing the checks, Kolomitz spoke for the first time at length Thursday of the allegations Ritter made about him and how his relationship with the governor turned sour so quickly.

At the same time, the governor’s office renewed and escalated the battle with Kolomitz, with Ritter’s chief of staff, Jim Carpenter, calling the man many say is responsible for Ritter’s election a “vindictive, disgruntled, and p—– off” person who has “all kinds of wild allegations.”

The disintegration of the Ritter/Kolomitz partnership began in the latter stages of the ultimately successful campaign. Kolomitz said he still doesn’t know why the governor was ready to believe the worst about him.

In retrospect, Kolomitz and his partner, Sheila MacDonald, who was the campaign’s political director, said they have grappled with pinpointing a time when things may have gone wrong. They note two events in October 2006, where Kolomitz admonished both staff and Ritter family members, as perhaps the beginning of problems with the future governor.

Comments

17 thoughts on “Kolomitz, Ritter Engage in Giant Pissing Match

    1. He was doing the Governor’s personal bidding, so is there more? This is like Karl Rove flipping on Bush.

      I was titillated by the rumored sexual liaisons reference. It doesn’t sound like Mr. Kolomitz refuted them, just warned the candidate.

      For that warning to happen there must have been many indications to many people that something unnatural was afoot.

      Last item, Kolomitz seems to have his calendar intact. These days most of us have that tied into our computer … any information that DPS has located the long stolen computer?

  1. I wouldn’t be so quick to pile on Kolomitz and take the Carpenter line. We don’t know the whole story and my take is that many “insiders” are pretty sure that Kolomitz got railroaded.  

  2. We may not know everything but based on what has been published, Mr. Kolomitz’s story doesn’t make sense, especially when one factors in facts about this story that were made public in April when the story broke.

    First, Mr. Kolomitz’s statements that his relationship with Gov. Ritter soured because he called in a female staffer during the campaign in October 2006 and the same month admonished Gov. Ritter’s son about how he handled a political rally seemed to be more of a diversion than reality.  Even assuming these two admonishments occurred, Gov. Ritter continued to involve Mr. Kolomitz in his campaign, the inaugural and after he became Governor.  If these two events were so important and harmful to his relationship with the governor then why did the Governor continue to have a professional relationship with him, including listening to Mr. Kolomitz’s advice to veto HB 1072, the most important legislative/political decision the Governor made during his first legislative session during his first year in office. That doesn’t sound like a sour relationship at all.  Further, because the executive offices cannot be utilized for political purposes, the governor used Mr. Kolomitz’s office to raise funds for the Democratic National Convention and for political outreach.  Again, this doesn’t sound like a sour relationship at all.

    All of the above is a diversion because it fails to explain why he took the money, not just from the Inauguaral bank account, but also from the campaign account. He paid himself $10,000 more than he was entitled to out of the campaign account.  He paid himself $83,250 out of the inaugural account and now says the Governor promised him verbally that he was to be paid $7,500 per month to work on various projects.  If this is true, then he should be able to produce invoices that specifically list the services he provided each month and which, like anyone elso who provides services, justifies their pay for the each month.

    None of this makes sense. He pays himself $10,000 more than he was owed out of the campaign account and $83,250 out of the inaugural account and then when exposed, he immediately pays it all back but now contends he was owed the money.  When someone is truly owed $93,250 then don’t give it back.  They end-up in court.

    Mr. Kolomitz’s assertion the Governor promised to pay him $7,500 per month doesn’t make sense. In essence, he is saying the Governor set him up.  That just doesn’t make sense.  Why in the world would the Governor do that. He still sought advice from Mr. Kolomitz on very important issues (HB 1072), so it make no sense that he would do that.

    And finally, except for Mr. Kolomitz’s assertion that there was a verbal agreement that he be paid after the inauguration, there isn’t one stitch of evidence to support that and it just doesn’t seem to be true based on the fact he had already paid himself $10,000 more than he was entitled to out of the campaign account. He was already withdrawing money he wasn’t entitled to.

    1. Kolomitz was overpaid $37,500 during April-August 2006.  The $27,000 offset that brought the restitution payment down to $10,000 occurred in late 2007–over a year later.  While Kolomitz has offered an explaination for the $83,000 overpayment from the Ritter Inaugural, he has never offered an explaination for the $37,500 overpayment during 2006–a time when Ritter was working hard for every dollar he raised.  

      BTW, Crummy ignored these facts in her latest story, chosing instead to report the overpayments as a he said/he said dispute between Ritter and Kolomitz.  What a hack to ignore the facts in this manner!  

      Hey Bob Ewegen: try to defend your hack reporter.  We all need a laugh.

       

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