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Airport ethics probe finds no fault Investigator recommends dismissal of complaint against one administrator By CHRIS BRISTOL A state ethics investigator has recommended dismissal of a complaint against one of three Medford airport administrators accused of possible ethics violations. Airport office supervisor Craig Baldwin used a maintenance employee in the summer of 1997 to fix the heat pump at his home, but the employee voluntarily did the work on his own time using his own tools, according to a report dated April 11. "There is no evidence that Mr. Baldwin directed Mr. Dushane to fix his heat pump," ethics investigator Alan Priest wrote. As a result, Priest recommended the Oregon Government Standards and Practices Commission dismiss an ethics complaint filed by Carl Worden, an Eagle Point financial consultant and a spokesman for the watchdog Southern Oregon Militia. The ethics commission won't act on the report until its next meeting in Salem on June 2. Worden was furious with the investigator's recommendation. "He obviously gained financially in this case," Worden complained, referring to Baldwin. "He didn't have to lay out the money for a commercial repairman like the rest of us, and that's unethical." Normally the report would not be released until the commission's next meeting. Because he filed the original complaint, however, Worden got a copy Tuesday. He faxed a copy to the Mail Tribune. Baldwin was not aware of the investigator's findings until he was contacted Tuesday at work. He said ethics staff told him the investigation was complete but wouldn't tell him anything else. "I like that," he said of the investigator's recommendation. Worden also has filed complaints against airport Director Bern Case and operations supervisor Robert Russell. The investigations of both administrators are still under way, according to ethics staff. "I can't wait to see that report that comes out on Bern Case and Robert Russell," Worden said. "I'm not gonna call it whitewashing, but the convoluted logic..." The commission last week dismissed a countercomplaint against whistleblower Dawn Neff, the former airport secretary whose allegations of misconduct triggered an internal Jackson County audit last summer that led to Worden's complaints. Neff alleged that Case helped his wife operate an aviation-related business on county time and that maintenance crews fixed pipes at Case's home. She also complained that airport employees were paid for hours they didn't work and that Russell used limited hangar space to store personal belongings. The county audit concluded a "pattern of poor judgments" on the part of airport management that included sloppy payroll accounting, questionable use of staff for personal projects and misuse of public property. According to the investigator's report, maintenance employee David Dushane took 2 hours off from his duties at the airport to repair the heat pump/air conditioning unit at Baldwin's home. Baldwin paid Dushane with cash. Dushane said he volunteered to do the work after overhearing Baldwin telling others in the office about having to wait two weeks for repairs. Temperatures at the time were in the 90s, and the Baldwin family included four small children and a newborn. Dushane said he filled out a "vacation deduct slip" for the time he took off. He said his supervisor, Russell, wadded it up and threw it away. Russell vaguely recalled the episode, according to the report. He said Dushane's slip was for 30 minutes, which he considered too negligible to bother with since Dushane had unofficially accrued offsetting compensatory time. In a brief interview Tuesday with the Mail Tribune, Baldwin repeated his assertion that Dushane's labor was voluntary. As for the ethics investigation, he pronounced himself "relieved." "You kind of sit back and let them do their job," he added. "You hope they do their job correctly and come out with the right result." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA