Piecemakers drop lawsuit against county workers

Jennifer Kho

MESA VERDE -- The Piecemakers Country Store has dropped its lawsuit

against two county health department officers.

The Piecemakers filed the lawsuit in October against Karen Newe and

Bruce Freeman, two Orange County Health Care Agency officers who

inspected an October craft fair. In it, the group alleged the duo

harassed vendors, conducted “unreasonable searches and seizures” and

violated the Piecemakers’ civil rights.

A hearing scheduled in February was postponed, prompting an

out-of-court conference last month that led to the Piecemakers’ decision

to drop the case.

Store owner Marie Kolasinski said the group made the decision because

it could not ensure that any money awarded would come from the officers,

not the taxpayers via the Orange County Health Care Agency.

“We can’t touch them,” she said. “We’d have to start a lawsuit with

the health department and we could name them, but the taxpayers will end

up having to pay for it and it doesn’t really touch the people who are

guilty of harassing the people.

“We thought we’d just drop it and, hopefully, we’ll find some common

ground so we can work with them,” she said. “Hopefully, they will use the

law we’ve entrusted them with, not as a hammer over the heads of the

people, but to keep peace, law and order.”

Kolasinski wrote the claim, which demanded the employees’ removal from

the agency and also asked the department to have “any employee of OCHCA

that doesn’t serve the people fired” and to “rescind all codes that have

the face of acting like laws, but do nothing to better the health and

safety of the people.”

The Piecemakers Country Store, at 1720 Adams Ave., has been fighting

court battles with the health department since 1992 and was on probation

for three years for past health-code violations. Regular, unannounced

inspections were part of the probation terms. The store’s probation ended

in December.