Document text
Ex-county official's ethics case dismissed By DANI DODGE The state ethics commission Friday dismissed its case against former Jackson County building official Dale Bohannan. Bohannan said he was pleased with the news. "This is what I expected all along," Bohannan said. Bohannan now runs the Medford office of the Clair Company, a firm that does building code consulting and inspections. Southern Oregon Militia liaison officer Carl Worden filed a complaint against Bohannan and another building department employee in October. The other employee, associate building official Pat DeBenedetti, was found guilty of five ethics violations last month. Worden alleged that the building officials had conflicts of interest because they worked for the county at the same time they were doing private building inspections for several local cities. Investigators with the state Government Standards and Practices Commission investigated whether Bohannan and DeBenedetti were doing their private work during county time. The commission ruled that DeBenedetti had used the county's phone and pager for his private inspection business while on county time: It was fairly easy to determine because DeBenedetti was doing work for the city of Rogue River, which is a long distance call - records of those calls were available. The commission didn't rule on Bohannan's case last month because it hadn't received his personal phone records. When Bohannan didn't supply them, the commission subpoenaed the records from AT&T. But the telephone company couldn't get the records to the commission in time for the meeting Friday. The commission couldn't further delay Bohannan's case. "We ran out of time," said Pat Hearn, the executive director of the commission. "We couldn't hold it up anymore. The whole point is so the accused public official isn't left dangling in the breeze for perpetuity." Hearn said he has no idea whether getting the phone records would have made a difference in the commission's ruling. When asked why he didn't turn over the phone records, Bohannan replied: "It's simply a matter of I don't think my own personal phone records would matter one way or another." And investigators also found ample evidence that Bohannan had actually taken vacation time to do some of his inspections in Eagle Point by looking at county records. "The records indicate that in 2000, Mr. Bohannan took vacation time off from the county on 30 different days ranging from two to eight hours," the investigator's report states. "The records also indicate that no more than two days vacation time was taken consecutively." In 2000, Bohannan took vacation hours on 12 different days and in 1998 on 19 different days. He also always used his personal vehicle rather than taking a county car, and never charged the county for mileage. Worden said despite the ruling, he still believes the report shows flaws in the way the county runs its affairs. After receiving complaints from employees about building officials working for cities on county time, County Administrator Sue Slack shifted the officials work hours to earlier in the day: 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. That way they could do private work in the late afternoon. "Mr. Bohannan was allowed to leave at 3 p.m. each day," Worden said. "He was not available to the Jackson County public, and no one seems to know what duties he performed when he arrived at 6:30 a.m." But, Bohannan answered that in the report. "Contractors start at 6 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. ... and want to talk to an inspector about the previous day's inspections, order concrete materials and resources," Bohannan told an investigator. "And I feel very strongly that we need to facilitate those kind of services so that we meet their needs and requirements." Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.