SAN DIEGO - District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said Tuesday that her office made a mistake when it barred a North County Times reporter from attending a news conference she conducted on Monday.

The newspaper's reporters will not be barred from future news conferences, Dumanis said.

"We are back on track," the district attorney said during a meeting with Dan McSwain, the newspaper's acting editor.

McSwain said he is convinced that the issue stemmed from a misunderstanding.

"District attorney Bonnie Dumanis is not out to blacklist us," said McSwain, who is also the managing editor for news.

Times reporter Teri Figueroa was kept out of a news conference Monday at which Dumanis issued a public health alert regarding the sale and purchase of drugs without prescriptions.

McSwain said that by keeping a reporter from the news conference, the district attorney's office limited access to important health information for the newspaper's North County and Web site readers.

The decision to bar the reporter from the news conference stemmed from a disagreement over publication of a May 10 story involving the theft of palm trees at MiraCosta College.

Dumanis and her spokesman, Paul Levikow, had urged the newspaper on May 9 not to publish that story, saying it violated an agreement Levikow had reached with David Garrick, the Times reporter covering that case.

The story reported that theft charges had been filed against a former MiraCosta professor. The newspaper published the story after McSwain decided the agreement with Levikow was limited to a plea bargain, which was not detailed in the story.

On the day the story appeared, the professor was arraigned and pleaded guilty to grand theft as part of that plea agreement.

McSwain said Dumanis still does not agree with his decision to publish the MiraCosta story and Tuesday's meeting provided each a chance to air their positions and move on.

- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.