Kelso bugged by bugging charges She says political foes are trying to distract her from issues By Ray Barrington News-Chronicle Brown County Executive Carol Kelso might be wondering why she ever left the peace and quiet of Madison for her current job. Kelso was involved in another controversy Friday when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's political columnists, Cary Spivak and Dan Bice, related allegations that Kelso had her office "debugged" - swept for listening devices - at a cost of $3,000 and then tried to hide the bill by listing it as services rendered for corporation counsel John Jacques. "What is so secret about the county executive's office?" Sup. Pat Collins asked the Journal Sentinel columnists. Kelso, for her part, said the bill was for a complete security check occasioned by a leak of information in a personnel case. Under state law, such cases can be considered confidential. Kelso said she was discussing the matter with an attorney in her Northern Building office. Somehow, some of the information leaked out, and she was investigating the security breach. "I had to list the bill the way I did because it was an employee matter," Kelso told The News-Chronicle. No "bugs" were found. She said the sweep covered a variety of areas. "It included e-mails, what was shredded, what we lock up and don't lock up, basic kinds of things," she said. Kelso suggested there were motives behind Collins' questioning other than concern about the spending of county money. "I think we have a couple of supervisors who really want for me to focus on things other than my job," Kelso said. "My job is to look at the budget, the services we provide, and maintain the budget with the fall in the revenue we're receiving. The tax-and-spend supervisors want me to think about other things. I'll concentrate on the job I was elected to do." Earlier in the week, Kelso had been accused of "regime building," by Sup. Mary Marquardt because of appointments Kelso had made. "It's the politics of personal destruction," Kelso said. "I'm somewhat surprised. I've been in the capital for many years and I've never seen the politics of personal destruction taken to this level. "It shows that the people out there who feel we should be taxing and spending are very angry," she said. Kelso was also the target of rumors shortly after taking office in April that she had spent heavily on new furniture for her office. "That's funny, because we had a meeting today and everybody was at different heights because the chairs were all different," Kelso said. But there has been one change recently, and Kelso was willing to discuss it: "I just got a new phone," she said.