Ethics board green-lights fishing for Oregon police officers in training

Oregon’s large campus that provides police officers with basic and specialized training can now allow fishing as well.

Each year hundreds of police trainees live in Marion County at the Oregon Public Safety Academy training facility’s 237-acre campus, which includes a pond with abundant fish. Despite many requests from trainees to fish the pond, state officials have been reluctant to allow fishing if it ran afoul of Oregon’s ethics laws.

Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards & Training Director Phil Castle expressed concern about allowing DPSST staff and trainees to fish the pond when the campus is closed to the public. But Castle also wanted to provide trainees with recreational opportunities between scheduled activities.

“Trainees (mostly law enforcement) don’t have a lot to do here when they are not studying,” he wrote to state ethics officials. “I think because the students are forced to be here that it might be acceptable for them to fish it.”

In a Jan. 2 response, the executive director of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission assured Castle that the decision about whether to allow public access to state agency facilities rests with each agency. Ron Bersin, in one of his last acts as OGEC executive director before his Jan. 22 retirement, wrote that nothing in Oregon’s ethics laws prevents the training facility from allowing staff or trainees to use the facility as long as they comply with other agency regulations.

“You have verified with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife that it would be legal as long as the individuals hold an active fishing license,” the executive director wrote.

If police officials were allowed to fish without a license, then it would be a potential ethics violation, as training facility staff and officers in training would be using their official positions to avoid paying for a required license.