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Blueberry festival organizer threatens Brooksville council member with lawsuit

 
Michael Heard’s lawyer: “legal remedies” will be sought.
Michael Heard’s lawyer: “legal remedies” will be sought.
Published Feb. 26, 2015

BROOKSVILLE — A lawyer for Florida Blueberry Festival organizer Michael Heard has sent a letter warning Brooksville City Council member Betty Erhard to stop making "defamatory" statements about Heard or face a possible libel suit.

"Mrs. Heard has been provided two separate reports of communications you have made accusing Mrs. Heard of financial wrongdoing and/or crimes related to the Blueberry Festival," said the letter to Erhard, sent Feb. 11 from Brooksville lawyer Darryl Johnston.

"If my client hears of any further defamatory statements attributed to you, my client will aggressively pursue all legal remedies available, including compensatory and punitive damages."

The letter does not give the circumstances of the offending statements. But Heard said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times that the letter is about two emails from Erhard. Heard did not say to whom Erhard had sent the emails.

Erhard denied accusing Heard of wrongdoing and said she sent only one email that could be interpreted as critical. That was in response to an email to several council members questioning the festival's finances from activist Dennis Purdy.

"I was just commenting, 'Wow,' " Erhard said.

She also had provided a copy of a followup email to Purdy recommending he forward questions about festival finances to the County Commission.

She suspects Heard's real issue was with questions about the festival that Erhard asked at the Feb. 2 council meeting.

"I, frankly, wonder if this is not a letter of intimidation," Erhard said.

If so, it will not keep her from requesting information about the festival's spending — questions that are appropriate, she said, considering the amount of tax money Heard's organization has received over the past four years.

"It's about accountability," Erhard said.

At the meeting, Erhard asked Heard about the ownership of the festival — run by the nonprofit Florida Blueberry Festival Inc. — and when Heard expected it to stop requiring city funds.

"At some point you should wean off asking the city for money because (the festival) is sustaining itself," Erhard said at the meeting.

She was the only one of four council members present to vote against Heard's request for a $20,000 cash grant and about $15,000 worth of in-kind donations, including office space in City Hall and city employee labor.

The county also has agreed to contribute to the fourth annual festival, April 11-12 in downtown Brooksville. It will absorb $41,000 in permitting and other costs associated with closing state-maintained streets and has awarded the festival $12,500 in cash grants.

Heard said she had no problem with Erhard's questions at the meeting.

"What I do have an issue with is what she said afterward, that I was not doing things above board," she said.

Heard's letter from her lawyer, however, said the questions at the meeting were an issue because they might be a sign of Erhard's true feelings about the festival.

"It is hoped that the (defamatory) statements attributed to you were not made, but given the recent questions from you at a February city council meeting, it appears more likely that defamatory statements were made," the letter said.

Heard said a cash request from the city is appropriate because it goes to pay for cable TV advertising that helps to market the city.

She said at the meeting that Erhard was welcome to look at the festival's financial reports and last week made a similar offer to the Times.

But in response to a request from the Times for information, including gate receipts and revenue from vendors and sponsors for the 2014 festival, Heard wrote that the festival's board of directors would have to vote to release the information.

She also said in an interview last week that community members have not requested such details from other nonprofit organizations that stage events in the city.

"I feel that I am being persecuted continually," Heard said.

"I don't want to be scrutinized and picked on because I am doing something really good for this community."

Contact Dan DeWitt at ddewitt@tampabay.com.