Jury Selection Begins in Firing Case : Courts: Ex-county worker says he was terminated for exercising his free speech right in talking to a reporter.

Jury selection began Monday in the case of a former Orange County employee who claims he was fired for talking to a reporter for The Times after a 1990 state Senate hearing.

J. Michael Whittaker, 48, was an analyst with the Drug Abuse section of the county’s Health Care Agency when he was fired in March, 1991, four months after the hearing on state drug abuse programs.

Whittaker, of Laguna Niguel, said he was fired because he spoke to then-Times reporter Rose Ellen O’Connor after the hearing. Although he said he provided only statistics and was not quoted, he said one of his supervisors believed he was a “whistle-blower” who planned to leak information about what Whittaker believed was excess money in the program’s budget.

“I was fired for the fear of the whistle being blown,” Whittaker said Monday. He is suing for $274,000 on the grounds that he was terminated for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech.

But Norm Watkins, an attorney for the county, dismissed Whittaker’s charges. “If he’s claiming he got discharged for talking to the press, that’s nonsense,” Watkins said. “I’d like to see him prove it.”

Watkins said he will not have to bring up Whittaker’s employment record--good or bad--because “according to the county employee handbook, a probationary employee can be fired with or without cause.”

“I’m hoping that the court will throw out the case,” Watkins said, “after they realize there is no evidence to support it.” Watkins declined to say why Whittaker was fired.

In November, 1990, then-State Sen. John Seymour held a hearing at the County Hall of Administration to review the progress of the fight against drugs.

County officials at the hearing said that a projected $1.6-million cut in the county drug-abuse budget would devastate substance-abuse programs. Whittaker said on Monday that the agency feared that he would tell the press that the budget cut would actually have had no effect.

Whittaker insists that the drug abuse section at the time returned about $1.5 million annually to the federal government because internal bickering kept officials from using the money for local programs.

Although he never told O’Connor about it, Whittaker said he was later chastised by his supervisor for talking to the media. “The county is terrified of the press,” Whittaker said.

Whittaker conceded that his attorney may have a difficult time proving the county’s intent, however. He was fired in the 51st week of his 52-week probationary period as a county employee, four months after he spoke to O’Connor.

He explained the delay by saying that the agency could not afford to lose an analyst during a hiring freeze.