VENICE -- George Hunt hopes to accomplish in a court of law what seemed impossible during his final years as Venice's city manager: muzzling John Patten.
Patten, 48, the part journalist, part blogger whom city pols often accuse of playing fast and loose with facts, built a Web site, veniceflorida.com, on relentless criticism and humor-laced coverage of Venice City Hall during Hunt's tenure as city manager.
But since Hunt filed suit against Patten in Sarasota County Circuit Court last week accusing him of defamation, slander and conspiracy, Patten's site has gone uncharacteristically quiet, linking to local news stories but abstaining from publishing any of his own stories that often enraged local officials.
Patten has even delayed publishing what he said would be an exposé of the former director of the Venice Housing Authority.
"Publication delayed due to some legal distractions that you may have heard about," his Web site said.
That's a sign, says Hunt, that his case has legs.
"He's been pestering me for six years," Hunt said. "I didn't file this lawsuit lightly. I only filed it when I felt I had a real good shot at winning."
In 2004, Hunt stepped down after 12 years as city manager amid criticism of his job performance and a federal investigation into the city's illegal waste-water dumping into Curry Creek in 2001.
The announcement prompted Patter to declare "Hallelujah!" on veniceflorida.com.
Now a community manager for Barefoot Bay, a Florida east coast manufactured home community, Hunt was recently turned down for the city manager position in Fernandina Beach.
The lawsuit accuses Patten, along with Sylvia Parish, a Barefoot Bay resident who has criticized Hunt's performance, of sabotaging his job search with phone calls and e-mails to Fernandina Beach commissioners that spread lies and exaggerations about his role in the city's waste-water dumping scandal.
Though Venice settled the EPA charges in December, a grand jury now is convened to consider bringing charges against individual executives and supervisors.
Hunt said he is not a target of the grand jury's investigation, a claim that Venice City Attorney Bob Anderson recently said is true.
In the suit, Hunt accuses Patten of calling and e-mailing commissioners at Fernandina Beach and board members at Barefoot Bay to say that Hunt is a target of the grand jury and to spread misinformation.
"I think he ink he crossed the line there," said Hunt. "It's one thing to have an Internet site and to put things up on it ... It's another thing entirely for him to call folks up and talk with them personally and tell them all this garbage that just isn't true."
Patten said any contact he had with officials was only to ask questions and request information, such as a copy of the résumé Hunt sent to Fernandina Beach. Patten said he acted in the capacity of journalist, not saboteur.
"I have never stated that Hunt would be arrested or will be arrested," Patten said. "Any phone calls that I made, and any correspondence that I had with other officials has been in the capacity of trying to acquire information."
The case is one of many that is raising questions about the extent to which journalists' protections and rights should carry over into the blogosphere, where anyone with a computer, an Internet connection and an opinion can hope to find an audience.
The courts have set the bar high for public officials who hope to sue journalists for libel, said David Kline, co-author of "Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture."
Whether those same protections will be afforded to the world of bloggers, for now, remains unclear.
"It's a challenge. When you give tens of millions of people a voice and an audience for the first time in human history there's going to be a lot of ranting," Kline said.
"Ultimately, bloggers are going to have to be held to the same standards, perhaps not of journalists, but of anybody in the United States. Anybody can be sued if they unreasonably, viciously, deliberately and with malice lie about other people and damage their economic prospects."
But the cost of defending himself against the lawsuit could prove a heavy burden for Patten, who said his Web site brings in around $600 per month in ad revenues. Patten's only other source of income comes from working as a free-lance computer tech.
He is soliciting donations on the site for what he expects will be a "war of attrition." But the suit has so troubled him that he didn't sleep all weekend, he said.
Venice Mayor Dean Calamaras, for one, isn't shedding any tears for Patten.
Calamaras, whose picture Patten once juxtaposed on his Web site with a picture of Mayor Quimby from "The Simpsons," said he considered a similar suit himself.
"That's the whole problem with Patten: He doesn't go after you on issues, he goes after you with the intent to destroy with you," said Calamaras, who called Patten's work "cyberstalking." "He's done that rather savagely, and now he's going to pay for it."
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