For critics of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, Jason Evers – well, we suppose we should call him “John Doe” now – is the gift that keeps on giving.
Evers/Doe is the former Bend regional manager of the OLCC who was exiled to Nyssa, a tiny town near the Idaho border, after behaving like a tinpot dictator toward bar and restaurant proprietors here. His career then continued its downward trajectory. At this writing, he’s sitting in a jail cell in Idaho.
It appears that TMWCHJE (The Man Who Called Himself Jason Evers) adopted the identity of a 3-year-old Ohio boy who was murdered 28 years ago. The fraud came to light when the U.S. State Department checked statements he made on a passport application against Ohio state records.
At this point nobody knows who “Evers” really is or why he adopted a phony identity. It would be interesting to find out. People who change their identities usually do it because they did something under their true identity that they want to hide.
But there are other questions that more urgently need answers – one of them being how the OLCC hired “Evers” in the first place and how it let him get away with his charade for so long. Did anybody do more than glance at his resumé? Were any red flags raised – or ignored?
Maybe we can cut the OLCC a little slack on that particular screw-up; after all, “Evers” apparently adopted his phony identity 14 years ago and has been fooling everybody ever since. If he hadn’t applied for a passport he might never have been caught.
We’re less inclined to go easy on the OLCC for the way it handled “Evers” before his identity problem came to light. He’s been causing trouble for the agency and those it regulates for a long time.
“Evers” first displayed his overzealous (some would say “tyrannical”) tendencies during his initial stint as an OLCC inspector in Bend. Charges he brought against two establishments here were proven to be lies by the evidence of surveillance cameras.
Did the OLCC fire “Evers,” or at least demote him? Nope. It promoted him to regional manager in Bend. And it kept on defending him against increasingly furious complaints from bar and restaurant owners. It took the intervention of the state Justice Department to finally get him out of here. Even then, the OLCC didn’t fire him, although some might consider assignment to Nyssa a worse fate.
Throughout the whole “Evers” fiasco, the OLCC displayed a combination of bureaucratic complacency and arrogance that is intolerable in a public agency. Instead of listening to legitimate complaints, it reflexively closed ranks to protect one of its own.
It’s safe to assume (we hope) that after this latest revelation “Evers” will no longer be working for the OLCC. But one rogue OLCC agent isn’t the real problem. The real problem is a rogue agency.
So with the hope of knocking some sense into the OLCC, we’re applying THE BOOT to the anatomical area where its brains appear to reside.
This article appears in May 6-12, 2010.
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Sounds like OLCC took some pointers from the Cathlic Church.
Now why the slam on Nyssa? Trying to be cute? Not necessary.
Well I think the OLCC should have to reverse any violations that John Doe ever reported and reverse the fines. If I were a business that was inspected by him I would be checking into what I could get out of the olcc for not doing there job and running the proper background check.
This may seem too simple, but why not submit his photo and physical description to “America’s Most Wanted” to see if they will post him on their nationwide viewed TV show? Surely someone must know this fellow and his past.
Based on the latest revelations by the OLCC, it appears that the background checks are not as stringent as those of law enforcemnet officials. Evers is purportedly 32 years old–this means he would have had to do this while in or just out of high school. The adoption of identities of deceased children and infants was fairly common at one point–but the requirement that children get social security numbers as infants has made it more difficult, supposedly. If this clown could do it, we have to assume terrorists are probaby doing it as well. The first WTC bombing was seventeen years ago.
At least some data base tripped him up–but he gat away with it in a highly visible position and at the center of controversy for a long long time.
Amazing–
(And I didn’t read anything that could be perceived as a slam on Nyssa!)
My real name is………….. DB Cooper Jr.
WOW!!! Looks like we have a real “whodunnit” here in Bend, the town that wants to be a big shot city. Just goes to prove my feelings that all government, whether it be Federal, State or local is run by a bunch of nitwits and crooks.
Boreaucratic complacency and arrogance is not only tolerable in our current city and state agencies, it is the perfect recipe for career enhancement and job self-preservation.
Why, can you imagine the fallout and cascade effect if these useless hacks and drones were to take out one of their own?
Like cutting off your own arm!
It’s amusing to see the reflex reaction of the anti-government “teabaggers” whenever even the faint savor of incompetence by a public agency wafts upon the breeze. These geniuses roll out the same generalized cannards about “gummint inkompitinz” etc. ad nauseum. As if they invented the criticism. (sigh) Perhaps they would like to PRIVATIZE the OLCC? Hmmm, now that’s a concept. No possibility of collusion and corruption there, eh teabaggers? Hell, let’s privatize everything! It worked so well with Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, did it not? (Naturally, the teabaggers know nothing of the history of this imbroglio–FNMA starting as a Depression-era agency that for almost 40 years was so effective and efficient that the bank lobby moaned and whined until it was privatized along with its newly hatched Tweedle-Dee twin, Freddie Mac. The rest of the story is as we know it today–a monument to the honesty & efficacy of Private Enterprise!! Hooray!!)