Citrus County Administrator Brad Thorpe said Wednesday he was disappointed with the methods employed by a local newspaper reporter in the course of the reporter's gathering of information about a story involving a lawsuit against the county.

The newspaper ran a story on Wednesday in which senior Citrus County Chronicle reporter Mike Wright said that a county resident had filed a lawsuit against the county over its decision to proceed with Port Citrus, and that the commissioners had even violated the state's Sunshine Law.

In a news release on Wednesday, the county did not refer to Wright by name, but merely as a "Chronicle reporter."

The county asserts that "the reporter" had approached county commissioners about a lawsuit against the county that "the reporter" apparently knew about, but about which the commissioners did not.

Thorpe said "the reporter" had "ambushed" the commissioners on Tuesday to solicit comment, when the commissioners knew nothing of the case. The county had still not been served with a lawsuit as of midday Wednesday, the news release said.

"The reporter said in the story appearing Wednesday morning that Robert Schweickert, Jr. had filed suit against the county in regard to the Port Citrus issue, alleging that the county administrator and the commissioners had violated the Sunshine Law," the news release said.

County officials reject that claim out of hand, the news release said, "and are confident there was no such Sunshine Law violation." What troubles Thorpe and the commissioners was the way in which the story was developed.

County Attorney Richard Wesch says Schweickert requested, by e-mail late afternoon on Tuesday, that the county waive "service of process," but that Schweickert did not indicate the nature of the lawsuit.

The county’s complaint was that commissioners and county administration should have been given sufficient time to review a complaint before being asked to comment on the record, Thorpe said.