News - Local News

POSTED: Tuesday, Jun. 23, 2009

Whatcom County still in legal fight with former employee

Whatcom County officials are still in court with a former employee who has made the largest public-records request in the history of the county government.

And Bob Hungerschafer has started filing requests with the county once again, according to county officials.

"Bob has essentially waged battle through the filing of public disclosure requests," said Dan Gibson, assistant chief deputy prosecutor.

The battle through records requests is part of a war the county is fighting with Hungerschafer, a former Whatcom County Internet technology specialist, over a resignation agreement he signed to avoid officially being fired in late 2004. In that agreement, Hungerschafer agreed to not file any "lawsuit, claim, charges or complaints" against the county based on his past employment, according to the document, which was included in a lawsuit filed by the county in Superior Court.

In April 2005, Hungerschafer filed unfair labor practices charges with the state, so the county sued, asking the court to dismiss the state charges, to force Hungerschafer to not file any other charges, and to pay attorney fees due to breach of contract.

That case is ongoing. While it's a Whatcom County Superior Court case, a Skagit County judge is hearing the issue. In early June, the judge ruled in favor of the county on one legal motion, and, according to Gibson, Hungerschafer began the public records blasts again.

Since the June hearing, the former employee, who was convicted in 2005 of intercepting a county employee's phone voice-mail messages, has filed 10 records requests. The most recent was filed Wednesday, June 17.

He has made 29 requests so far in 2009, and the county has received 96 total from Hungerschafer in the last four years, according to the public records manager Mark Burnfield. Hungerschafer accounts for nearly one-fourth of all requests the county has received this year, Burnfield said.

The requests often cast a wide net, with Hungerschafer, for example, seeking every document a jurisdiction has that includes any reference to him. Sometimes he has sought records for every document with his wife's name, too. Recently, Hungerschafer has sought city of Bellingham police records about him, as well as 911 phone call recordings.

County officials and those in other jurisdictions say the problem with Hungerschafer's requests is that they aren't clear on what he wants. But they've tried, county officials argue. Gibson estimates that since 2005, the county has made available more than 15,000 pages of documents to him.

Hungerschafer says the county is still stonewalling and not providing some information. He also says the county is making it difficult for him to access documents - he has requested county e-mails in electronic format on CD, but the county is requiring him to print them out - and that officials are forcing him to word the requests "so convolutedly because of the responses I get," he said.

Gibson has another explanation.

'There's no evidence of conspiracy, so you're looking for a needle in a haystack that doesn't exist," he said.

Hungerschafer is undeterred. He's still trying to obtain the information because, he said, he's trying to be a public watchdog, and to get information for the trial.

"I'm looking for 'dirty hands' kind of stuff," he said.