County Blogger Counseled

BROOKSVILLE - Assistant County Attorney Kent Weissinger said his Web site - which has garnered much media attention recently - will be "on break" for a few days.

In fact, it might take a permanent break.

Weissinger told Hernando Today Friday he will be out of town for a few days next week. During that time, he plans to decide whether to resume Hernando NewsSource.com.

"The future of the site is uncertain," Weissinger said in an e-mail. "Until the media attention to the site, it was simply a pleasurable hobby."

That hobby has become something of a controversy.

Back-to-back articles published May 28-29 in Hernando Today revealed that taxpayers are spending about $782,000 in salaries and benefits for five attorneys and four support staffers.

In addition, Hernando Today revealed that Weissinger was being paid 100 percent through the utilities department, a fact that took some county commissioners by surprise. A local civic activist even called for an immediate audit of the legal office.

Those two articles created a firestorm of reader comments to Hernando Today's electronic Web site. One blogger in particular - flarrfan - was active on the comment boards.

During those two days, Wednesday and Thursday, flarrfan made nine comments.

Since then, flarrfan has been outed as Weissinger and questions have been raised as to how much newspaper commenting and blogging to his own site - HernandoNewsSource.com.- has been done during work time and on taxpayer-funded computers.

County Attorney Garth Coller, Weissinger's boss, looked into the matter and determined only one blog comment was made during work hours.

Coller said he has counseled Weissinger and received assurances he will confine his blogging to after-hours.

"If there is a violation of any policies, they will be dealt with and they will be dealt with quickly," Coller told Hernando Today on Wednesday.

Coller spoke in detail of Weissinger's blogging activity during Tuesday's county commission meeting and during a telephone interview with Hernando Today.

Coller said he cannot offer a personal opinion of the appropriateness of Weissinger's Internet activity. He said he wants to avoid a potential legal quagmire associated with a person's First Amendment rights.

Instead, Coller cited a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision safeguarding a public employee's freedom of speech.

As for what Weissinger does during his off-hours, that is up to him, Coller said.

Coller said his staffers frequently access certain Internet sites during the work day because it assists them in their job.

But because of this latest blogging controversy, one action has already been taken: Weissinger has been denied access to two of his hosted Web sites while at work.

Technology Services Director Garry Allen said his department blocked access at Weissinger's own request. Furthermore, no other county employee will be able to access the site from work.

What Flarrfan Said

Hernando Today did some checking and found flarrfan made 37 comments to the newspaper's electronic site between Sept. 23, 2007, and June 3, 2008. Several of the comments took either a reporter or editor to task for allegedly printing quotes out of context or harboring hidden agendas.

One particular comment from flarrfan, recorded June 2, 2008, includes a sexually offensive description of a newspaper reporter.

On June 3, 2008, he impugned the integrity of Hernando Today editors.

When told of the offensive comments, Coller said there is nothing he could do if Weissinger is posting on his own time and expressing his free speech rights. Coller said he could also find no violations of the county's Technology Use policy that governs Internet use.

The policy states that employees "conduct themselves in a professional manner."

Unacceptable uses include: discriminatory or harassing language; defamatory, abusive, threatening, profane or offensive language, racial and/or sexual slurs or jokes.

Also, the policy states there is to be no "identity masking," which means no e-mail or other electronic communication may be sent which "attempts to hide the identity of the sender or represents the sender as someone else."

The policy also prohibits the person misrepresents the user's affiliation with Hernando County.

Violation of the policy can range from internal disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.

Weissinger's Response

Weissinger, who chooses only to communicate to a Hernando Today reporter via e-mail, responded Friday to a series of questions put to him about his blogging and Web site posting comments.

In his e-mail response, Weissinger said he has not "blogged" during work hours.

"There have been a few occasions in the past where I posted brief comments to newspaper sites about matters of media interest," Weissinger wrote. "These were done before or after work hours, on break or at lunch time."

Weissinger admitted accessing his Web site once from his work computer - on May 19. That was the first day slated for the new courthouse security system.

"As I recall, I arrived early that day, having noted on my site that confusion was expected," Weissinger said. "Instead, the security was not implemented. I spent approximately three minutes updating the site to reflect that. I finished doing so within a few minutes of eight o'clock."

Weissinger said the future of his Web site is now uncertain, and he will make a decision soon about keeping it going.

"Until the media attention to the site, it was simply a pleasurable hobby," he said.

Weissinger said he started his new site "as a lark" and envisioned it as being a local version of the "Drudge Report," which is a national news portal providing links to media stories.

He said he spent six years doing radio and television news before going to law school.

Weissinger said he doesn't see his blogging and commenting as a conflict of interest "as there is no special private gain from my hobby activities."

"I am ethically bound by Florida Bar lawyer rules not to divulge client confidences or other matters which I become aware of as a result of my legal employment," he said. "I could be disbarred for doing so."

As for the perceived sexually offensive comment, "from what I hear, the comment apparently offended (the reporter)," Weissinger said. "How it may have been perceived by others is something I would not presume to judge."

Reaction

County Commissioner Rose Rocco said she doesn't have a problem with Weissinger posting from home or off company time.

But she would not condone it during work hours "because he's doing it on the government's time.

"He's not being paid to blog from the office," she added.

Deputy County Administrator Larry Jennings said he met with Weissinger when he learned of his blogging activity.

"We haven't looked into it as yet," Jennings said. "But we see it as a first step for the department head to make sure the utilization was consistent with the county's policies. Department heads are generally the first line of defense in enforcing rules."

Human Resources Director Jerry Haines said there has been no letter of censure or any kind of counseling letter inserted into Weissinger's personnel file.