So as I noted here earlier today, it turns out that Senator Norm Coleman’s home was renovated with the help of “Shari Wilsey, an interior designer. Wilsey, along with her husband Roger, are longtime friends of the Coleman’s and financial contributors to the Senator’s campaigns.The Wilsey’s even hosted a fundraiser for Senator Coleman during the Republican National Convention at their Summit Ave mansion, just blocks from the Coleman’s.”
Here’s a bit more: Shari Wilsey has been pals with Norm’s wife, Laurie “Blo & Go” Coleman, since high school, according to a past Star Tribune story. And Wilsey attended Coleman’s 2003 senate inauguration. And back in 2000, when he was mayor of St. Paul, Coleman booted several members of the Heritage Preservation Commission (after they opposed a development project he favored, according to the Star Tribune), and appointed replacements, including Wilsey.
As widely noted here and elsewhere, Coleman rented his Washington “crash pad” from a friend, Jeff Larson, whose consulting firm has been paid more than $1 million by Coleman’s P.A.C. And Coleman’s senate office in St. Paul hired Larson’s wife as a “casework supervisor,” and paid her more than $100,000. And Coleman’s wife is employed by Minneapolis-based Hays Companies, whose executives, spouses and employees have contributed more than $20,700 to Coleman’s campaigns. I’m not even going to go into the widely noted case of another very close friend of Coleman’s, Nasser Kazeminy.
And now another friend handles Coleman’s home renovation. (See the Coleman family’s kitchen, which was part of the renovation project, here.). How can Coleman have so many financial entanglements with his political supporters? At minimum, he’s guilty of extraordinarily poor judgment.
