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February 27, 2004County tries to put a lid on whistleblower infoEx-worker says 911 funds were mismanagedByRecord-Eagle staff writer KALKASKA - Attorneys defending Kalkaska County want to keep a lid on information sought by a former dispatcher who said she was fired for blowing the whistle on funds allegedly misappropriated by sheriff's department officials. The county's attorneys filed a protective order motion that would bar the public and media from reviewing deposition testimony in a lawsuit filed by former 911 dispatcher Margaret Bull, as well as anything the department turns over to her attorneys during the lawsuit discovery period. Bull's attorney expressed disbelief at the county's maneuver. "I've never in my career seen a request to keep everything in a file ... confidential," said Enrico Schaefer, Bull's attorney. "The First Amendment gives not only right to free speech, but gives access to the press to court files." Christopher Cooke, an attorney representing the county, said the order seeks to protect personal information about county employees who aren't named in the suit. He acknowledged his request for a protective order seeks broader protection, but he termed that a "precaution." Bull said she was fired in August after questioning how Kalkaska County's 911 central dispatch center is staffed and how 911 surcharge money is spent. Bull's allegations prompted a state agency to study whether the sheriff's department improperly diverted some of the $400,000 collected annually from county residents' monthly phone bills to pay for 911 services. Sheriff's officials said money wasn't misappropriated and have defended Bull's termination. Schaefer said he does not understand what the sheriff's department or its attorneys want to keep from public view. "I assume they're trying to hide anything that would be damning to the sheriff's department or the 911 system," Schaefer said. "You wouldn't ask for something so extreme and so unprecedented unless you anticipated that there was some very negative, unflattering information out there." Cooke alleges that Bull has tried to air her allegations in the press rather than in court, and disagreed with Schaefer's take on their request. "For Mr. Schaefer to imply that we're trying to hide anything is an absolute distortion from the facts in this case, where we believe the county is absolutely blameless," Cooke said. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for March 9 before Circuit Court Judge Dennis Murphy. The lawsuit names Kalkaska County, Sheriff Nelson Cannon, Undersheriff Billy Spencer and Lt. Bruce Gualtiere. Spencer, who is heading the sheriff's department while Cannon is serving with the Michigan Army National Guard in Cuba, would not comment, saying he was unfamiliar with the protective order request.
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