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MR. ADAMS: And what was the policy prior to that? <br /> <br /> MR. DRUTAR: There was no written policy, which comes into some of the problem—not to get too far into the discipline thing, but some of the problem with the discipline thing was there’s no policy written anywhere, no one’s said anything to me, it wasn’t in my interview. Like all right, we’re going to write a policy that now makes you not in compliance even though you’re doing the same thing you’ve always done and were never told otherwise until now. <br /> <br /> MR. ADAMS: As a part of the—as a part of what you wrote us, part of your statement, you indicated that it appeared, at least to you, that there was an inconsistent application of this policy because others appeared to be, other assessors appeared to be, also having worked as real estate agents. <br /> <br /> MR. DRUTAR: Yes, sir. So we have another assessor who has a license as a real estate agent, but he hasn’t closed any transactions. Now that doesn’t mean he’s not representing buyers and sellers and just hasn’t brought a deal that closed. But we don’t know. The important thing on that is he also has a license as a real estate appraiser, and he is a part-owner of Bloom Appraisals. Bloom Appraisals represents people actively at their tax appeals against Real Property Tax. His wife—his wife literally writes appraisals that get used, very similar to this hearing, where people are appealing their property tax. <br /> <br /> MR. ADAMS: And you know this how? <br /> <br /> MR. DRUTAR: I’ve seen the appraisal with his wife’s name on it. I know he’s an owner in Bloom Appraisals. His supervisors know it as well. They did insert another—to get into that policy, they did insert a part in there that says your spouse has—or household, brother, sister, mother, father, household member, which is the word in here—may do these things but you may not. That, from what I understand, goes directly against the Code of Ethics, which says your financial interests and that of your household member—brother, father, mother, sister, it makes it kind of messy—are exactly the same. They’ve actually created two separate classes on their own to say yes, your mother, your sister, your wife can, but you cannot. And we refer to it—I’m not going to give you his name, but his name—exception to the policy, because it seems to be so crafted. It almost looks gerrymandered to take me out of compliance and remain him in compliance. He does work quite closely with the administrators. But it seems to be directly against the County Code, where—he actually has money in his bank account that he and his wife earned as owners of this company, representing people against the department he works for. That’s okay. I work as a real estate agent. That’s not okay. <br /> <br /> MR. ADAMS: Thank you. If I was going to—there’s a variety of decisions here, obviously. If one of the decisions--assuming one of the decisions is to continue on, I would be uncomfortable making any decision without having, on the merits of this, without having some type of communication with the department, and understanding what their policy is. <br /> <br /> MR. BALSIS: Arne, you have a comment?