October 17

Good morning Mr. Boos,

This photo taken at one your presentations is being circulated widely among residents in
southeast Utah and on the Navajo Nation in advance of San Juan County's special election.

Can you confirm the date, place, and organization that sponsored the event?

Care to comment for publication, possibly in the Canyon Country Zephyr, on your intent in using
it?

Did you confirm the source of the post?

Thanks,
Bill Keshlear

October 17

I’m driving to Window Rock at the moment and won’t be back in the office until next week. I’ll
send you the entire PowerPoint presentation at that point, if you like.

October 23

Good morning,

Hope you made it back to Durango safely.

Just checking on the PPT slides.

Thanks,
Bill

October 23
Good morning.

Apologies. I also had a colonoscopy on Monday afternoon with the prep over the weekend. If
you’ve ever done one of those, it tends to be a little distracting. I’m still getting caught up.

A copy of the PowerPoint is attached. It tends to be more of a memory aid for me during a
presentation, so some of the slides may seem a little obscure.

Are you following the change of form of government referendum in SJC? That, coupled with the
San Juan Record article about the proposed tax increase caused by litigation costs over the last
few years, has me a little worried. If the referendum passes, it’s sure to generate more litigation.
Frankly, my colleagues and I have been researching legal issues that will need to be pursued if
the referendum passes. I suppose it’s up to the taxpayers in SJC if that’s how they want to spend
their money, but their approach to these matters, which have never had any legal support, have
cost them dearly. It seems irrational to me, but that it is the problem with pursuing litigation for
purely ideological goals.

October 23

Yes, I've had a colonscopy. I am due for another. Fun.

Thanks for sending the PPT show along. When and where did you first present it? Sometime
after July? Before that? What's the story behind the racist slide? Who is Jackie Shumway? Did
you verify authorship? How did you get it? What was your intent in using it? Why has it begun
to circulate now?

Since you've begun to research the change-of-government issue, does that mean you and/or your
firm have been retained in case this first stage is successful then successful at the next stage. By
whom? Are you involved in the campaign to defeat it?

Thanks again,
Bill

October 24

Good morning –

I’m just glad that I’m on a 10-year schedule for my next procedure.
I’m sometimes asked to give presentations on the voting rights issues in San Juan County. The
PowerPoint is mostly just a device for me to jog my memory when I’m speaking. It’s been
around for a while in various forms, over three years I think, with periodic updates. Sometimes
I’m asked for copies and send them along, as I did for you. I think the posting you asked about
first appeared after one of Judge Shelby’s rulings in 2015, perhaps his denial of the County’s
motion to dismiss in March(?) 2015. Because we had a Section 2 claim (under the Voting Rights
Act) and had to put on evidence of the history of racial discrimination in the County to prove that
claim, it’s the sort of thing we collected and stored away. (It’s been nearly 5 years ago and I
don’t remember the circumstances of how we obtained it.) We never looked into it more deeply,
as Judge Shelby rendered the Section 2 claims moot by ruling that the County had violated the
Equal Protection Clause. It’s useful in my presentations, as are the Facebook comments
following the decision in Laws v. Grayeyes, to show the context of the redistricting case and that
racism in the County is not merely a thing of the remote past. And I have no idea why it is
circulating now. I was a bit taken aback when a physician I work with in Arizona sent me a copy
recently.

As to the current proposition to change the form of government in San Juan County, I’m not
representing anyone and we haven’t been retained. I’m mostly keeping busy on issues for other
clients at the moment, including a very interesting issue of jurisdiction in Indian gaming. That
said, I’ve kept a distant eye on the change in form of government issue and chatted with my
colleagues about it. I imagine, depending on the outcome of the election, if we’re asked to
provide assistance, that’s what we’ll do and we don’t want to come into it completely cold. But
the only on-going work I have in SJC is the appeal in Laws v. Grayeyes, which will take the Utah
Supreme Court another year or more to resolve. If I am retained to work on the proposition or
any other voting rights matter in the County (there are at least two that come to mind), I’ll let you
know. And I’m not involved in any campaign either in favor of or against the proposition.

Regards, Steve

October 25

BTW: The Facebook post you're using in the presentations to document racism in San Juan
County is a fake. The real Jackie Shumway, who says she's a retired nurse who does not live
Utah and knows no one in Utah, is the target of a vicious backlash. She has no idea why.

What are your thoughts?

October 25
When you say the posting is a fake, do you mean it was never posted on “Blanding’s 24/7 Yard
Sale” or that it was posted with a made up name?

October 25

"Blanding's 24/7 Yard Sale" is real FB site. Jackie Shumway is a real person.

The FB account of the real Jackie Shumway was hacked. Somebody hid behind Shumway's
identity and posted the slur on "Blanding's 24/7 Yard Sale." The administrator of the site,
apparently a Utah real estate agent, took the post down as soon as Shumway told her about it.

There are pieces of the puzzle I have not been able to figure out. But one thing's clear: the real
Jackie Shumway has been victimized.

_____________

October 25

Interesting. When was the post taken down? I’m not especially tech savvy, but is there anyway
of knowing how the account was hacked or who did it?

I’m not drawing any conclusions, but it sounds as though all that’s known at the moment is that
the post did actually appear on “Blanding’s 24/7 Yard Sale”, it was in the form used in my
PowerPoint, it was posted through Ms. Shumway’s account on that site, and she says she was
hacked and didn’t post it. Is that an accurate summary?

_____________

October 25

I was hoping you and your young tech savvy researchers could answer those details.

But your summary is accurate. I'd add one important detail: Shumway has become an innocent
victim in San Juan County's political nastiness.

Based on this sketchy information, will you continue to use the slide to illustrate racism in the
county?
October 25

No one here is that tech savvy, not even the youngsters. Our law firm email went down for three
hours yesterday and that brought work to a standstill. Still, it’s better than the days of Selectric
typewriters and relying on the Postal Service.

No one has invited me to give any talks in the near term, so I’ll give the issue some thought. I’m
not sure what this new information means (certainly, the principle of Occam’s razor suggests a
different conclusion than the one you mention, but maybe a rule laid down by a 14th century
philosopher doesn’t apply in the age of the internet) and I might simply add an explanation akin
to the summary that you agree is accurate, allowing listeners to draw their own conclusions.

November 1

Just to clarify several points:

 Occam's Razor is related to principles of parsimony (When explanations conflict, the

simplest is usually closer to the truth) – which, if I'm interpreting your comment
correctly, suggests to you the FB slur likely was written by someone named Jackie
Shumway.
 You've have used the racist slide in presentations since 2015 and have never confirmed
the authenticity of the author.
 You decline to commit to not using it. You believe that it accurately characterizes the
degree of racism that exists in San Juan County.

If you met Jackie Shumway in person, what would you tell her?

Thanks for your comments. I plan to write something up and publish before Tuesday's special
election.

November 1
I think your points mischaracterize or misunderstand comments I have made. I’ll take each one
in turn.

1. There are a number of facts about the slide that are objectively true. These are: 1) the slide was
posted on-line in early 2015, not long after Judge Shelby ruled against the County on its motion
to dismiss in the redistricting case; 2) the image of the slide in my possession is an accurate copy
of the 2015 posting; 3) the slide was posted using the account of Jackie Shumway; 4) the slide
was posted by someone with access to Jackie Shumway’s FB password; and 5) Jackie Shumway
now says she did not make the post and that her FB account was “hacked.” These facts suggest
to me that someone using Jackie Shumway’s account with access to her FB password posted the
slide. Beyond that, I draw no conclusions, including the authorship of the slide.

2. The slide was brought to my attention in 2015 and was set aside with other factual evidence
that might be used in proving a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Because that
claim eventually became moot, we did no further investigation of the slide. I’m not sure when I
first used the slide in a presentation, but it was long after 2015.

3. As I recall, what I said is that I haven’t been asked to give any presentations on issues in San
Juan County and would give thought to the future use of the slide should I ever be asked. If I did
use it, it would include an explanation of the five points that I set forth above. Insofar as the
meaning of the slide, it would be absurdly simplistic to conclude that “it accurately characterizes
the degree of racism that exists in San Juan County.” The slide, at best, is one piece of that
puzzle, that needs to be considered along with a great deal of other evidence, such as the FB
comments denigrating Navajo cultural beliefs that came forth in the wake of the decision in
Laws v. Grayeyes.

I’m not sure I’d have anything to “tell” Jackie Shumway, but I would have some questions, such
as who had access to her FB password in early 2015. The answer to that question would allow
you to narrow the range of people who might have actually posted the slide. Have you asked
those questions?

Regards, Steve