By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Yachats fire chief Frankie Petrick has agreed to settle claims by the Oregon Ethics Commission that in three instances she used her position for financial gain.
But the commission was not able to substantiate an allegation that Petrick received a tractor from her ex-husband after he sold land to the Yachats Rural Fire Protection District in 2015 for its new station.
The negotiated settlement had Petrick returning $1,750 to the South Lincoln Ambulance Co. for cash gifts she received in 2015-2018 and admitting that she used fire district personnel to help move cattle on her ranch and to move furniture from her son’s apartment.
The settlement concludes investigations that started last May and is expected to be approved Friday by the commission when it meets in Salem.
In return for ending its investigation, the commission and Petrick agreed that if the issue would have gone to a contested case hearing the agency would have been able to establish “a preponderance of evidence” that there were three violations of Oregon law. Instead, Petrick returned the money – which ranged from $100 to $575 a year — and the commission will her issue a “letter of education.”
Oregon Ethics Commission:Petrick letter of education
The settlement brings to an end 18 months of turmoil inside the department after firefighters voted to unionize in 2018 and the district initially struggled to contain construction costs of its new station. Then in May, firefighter Kyle Drewry, who helped lead the union effort, filed the complaint against Petrick with the ethics commission.
The district’s firefighters have since petitioned to withdraw from the union; results of that vote are pending.
The fire board also dealt last fall with a newly-elected board member who lied about her employment and education qualifications in the Lincoln County voters pamphlet. The board member, A’Lyce Ruberg, resigned in November.
Petrick is the district’s longtime volunteer fire chief and paid administrator. But she is also secretary – her ex-husband Steve Hamilton of Yachats is president – of the nonprofit South Lincoln Ambulance Co., which was formed in 1966. For decades the fire district has contracted with South Lincoln to provide ambulance service.
In 2015 the district paid Hamilton and his brother $413,000 for six acres of land they owned along U.S. Highway 101 in order to build a new main station.
In his complaint, Drewry said he obtained a copy of a telephone text message between Hamilton’s wife and another person saying Petrick got the tractor as a “thank you” for helping with the sale of the land.
Hamilton denied that allegation last year to YachatsNews.com, saying he bought the tractor more than 15 years ago and that it was shared among neighboring ranchers.
Commission investigators were unable to determine who owned the tractor because of the lack of paperwork on it.
But in looking into that allegation, investigators last fall uncovered annual cash gifts from the ambulance company to fire district employees and volunteers, including Petrick. Although the fire board approved the gifts, as the fire district’s administrator it was Petrick who determined who got them and the amounts.
Oregon law prohibits public officials from soliciting or receiving gifts of more than $50 a year from “any source that could be reasonably known to have a legislative or administrative interest.”
The commission said that because of agreements between the fire district and South Lincoln Ambulance, the ambulance company – and therefore Patrick — had a legislative or administrative interest in her decisions as district administrator.
After learning of the investigation in November, Petrick reimbursed South Lincoln Ambulance $1,750 for the gifts she received in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
The ambulance company gave gifts again in December to staff and volunteers – but not to Petrick.
The commission said the gift issue involving the ambulance company was a technical violation of the law. If the ambulance company wanted to include Petrick in the awards, it simply needed to first give the money to the fire district and let the fire board award the gifts.
In her settlement agreement, Petrick admitted to two lesser violations of Oregon law – that on one or more occasions she used district employees and vehicles to slow or block traffic on Yachats River Road so she could move cattle between farm pastures, and that on one occasion she asked district employees to help move furniture from her son’s apartment into a moving truck.