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State to decide if ex-officials violated ethics County inspectors also worked for cities, prompting militia�s complaint By John Darling SALEM � The state will investigate a complaint by the Southern Oregon Militia that two former Jackson County building inspectors may have had a conflict of interest as full-time employees of the county when they also did building inspections for area cities. After a preliminary staff review, the Oregon Government Standards and Practices Commission ruled Friday there is cause to investigate former Jackson County building official Dale Bohannon and former associate building official Pat DeBennedetti. The ethics commission, an independent state agency, will interview witnesses, obtain documents and render a decision within 120 days as required by law, said commission director Pat Hearn. Bohannon said he�s held his county job and done inspections for other governments for 20 years. "The policies and procedures of Jackson County allowed us to do this," Bohannon said. "I very much look forward to an investigation and am anxious for the facts to come out." Militia liaison Carl Worden complained that Bohannon and DeBennedetti "flagrantly and blatantly" went to city inspections during their county job hours and earned incomes far in excess of what�s possible in after-hours work. Worden also alleges county administration knew of the violations. "It�s not going to be that difficult to prove," Worden said. "You can�t be doing that much work and not have it cut into your main job." The work hours of Bohannon and DeBennedetti ran from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., and "that allowed me more than enough time (to do the city inspections)," said Bohannon. DeBennedetti was unavailable for comment. "Carl Worden thinks there must be a conflict of interest because I held two jobs," said Bohannon. "This is not a big issue to me or to my life." The commission will attempt to establish whether "outside employment was separate and apart as to time worked and resources used, such as vehicles, phones and copy machines," said Hearn. Bohannon and DeBennedetti left their county jobs late last year to become building inspectors for Clair Co. in the Rogue Valley. In these roles, the two continue to do about 12 percent of the county�s inspections, Bohannon said. Their departure from county jobs had been considered for several years and had nothing to do with the militia complaint, Bohannon said. Retired Jackson County building inspector Ted Erwin said he complained about the moonlighting practices to present and past county administrators. Erwin said he and several department employees will talk to the commission, but he declined to talk further Friday because the commission has requested he not comment publicly until it has finished its interviews, he added. Joe Strahl, county director of Roads, Parks and Planning, said the county responded to the complaints by performing its own internal investigation and by consulting with the State Building Codes Division, but "we found very little to be concerned about." "We were assured that the work was not done on county time and that they had permission to do the work. Dale and Pat always did good work for the county, and we have no reason to believe they won�t come out OK on this," Strahl said. The militia is a private, nonviolent "watchdog" group with 800 members in Southern Oregon, Worden said. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.