Attorney backs off probe of purchasing department

An investigation into the county's purchasing department has come to an end, with no violations of the state's Sunshine Law found.
Last month, Brooksville attorney Robert Morris alerted the county he was investigating a client's claim the purchasing department violated the law by failing to properly post or advertise meetings to acquire and retain professional services.
After Assistant County Attorney Jon Jouben found no violation of the Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, Morris kicked the matter up to the state attorney's office.
But on Thursday, Morris said he was advised by the state attorney's office it would not pursue the matter. Instead, Morris said he will provide the county with recommendations to help improve public access to the procedure to make sure it runs smoother in the future.
All this started in October when Morris sent a letter to County Administrator David Hamilton citing a laundry list of alleged violations, including what he said was failure by Purchasing Director Jim Gantt or someone on his staff of improperly posting or advertising meetings to acquire and retain professional services.
In Morris' letter, he recommended the immediate dismissal of the person or persons responsible for violating state law "whether such violation was an oversight or willful."
Morris said failure to recognize and understand the applicable law "calls into question the abilities of the employee or employees to properly execute their duties."
Morris recommends all ongoing, existing and pending contracts be immediately dismissed.
From the start, Gantt vigorously denied all such allegations and maintains he followed the county's advertising procedures to the letter. He believes Morris's charges originated from a disgruntled engineering firm that failed to get a contract on a county project.
"We furnished the county attorney's office with every piece of paper we had to verify we followed the proper procedures as required by the Sunshine Law and then we forwarded (those) documents to the state attorney's office," Gantt said.