Norfolk Daily News

Wednesday – June 4, 2008

Your View

NORFOLK — Responding to Jerry Stock’s letter of May 21, we, too, thought there seemed to be a negative bias toward Tom Schommer in the Daily News coverage of the mayor’s race.

So, we wrote to the editor of the Daily News, asking him about this and he responded immediately, explaining the sequence of events and the Daily News’ response to them. We were reassured that, indeed, the Daily News is working hard to deliver the news to Norfolkans in as timely and balanced a manner as is humanly possible.

In checking further, we talked with Mr. Schommer about the facts pertaining to the Daily News articles’ clear implications that the Schommer camp encouraged a third candidate to enter the mayoral race so that there would be, as Mr. Sweigard has put it, “a contested race.”

We think the problem is in part with those of us who support Mr. Schommer:
1. We did not get our letters to the editor in before the oft-publicized deadline.
2. Those who may have responded to Mr. Sweigard’s questions about how to get into the race did not come forward and tell “the rest of the story” as it were.
3. Mr. Sweigard has not come forward to explain why he didn’t go to city hall to ask his questions about how to enter the race and why, instead, he approached some of Mr. Schommer’s team who responded politely and innocently, answering Mr. Sweigard’s questions and steering him to the proper office to file.

But we also think the Daily News could have dug deeper into the actual facts of the situation because it seems the writer had drawn his own conclusions and wrote accordingly.

That’s because the facts are quite different from the impression left by the article and headlines.

It would almost seem as if Mr. Schommer and his campaign team were “set up,” if you will.

Of course, this is simply a speculative statement based only on appearances — much as the Daily News article was somewhat incomplete. In reality, it never made much sense to us that so much was made of a third candidate. It was “much ado over nothing” — as if implying the Schommer camp encouraging this third candidate clandestinely was the only thing that could be found to perhaps cast doubt on Mr. Schommer’s character.

We encourage Mr. Schommer in his campaign on to November that he continue in his principled, honest and open, non-vitriolic style of campaigning.

To us, Mr. Schommer demonstrates clearly he is a man of highest integrity who has the best interests of Norfolk foremost on his mind — someone who would serve Norfolk and its citizens well as the next mayor.
WALT BRITES