BENTON COUNTY — County Judge David Bisbee made the news again.

This time the issue is that he used his own company, Valley Homes, to remodel the County Assessor’s and County Collector’s office in Rogers. The job cost the county $15,433 - $1,000 less than the only other bid we know of. Bisbee claims that he’s handing that particular remodeling company off to an employee and won’t see any of the money from the deal. Columnist John Brummett seems quite eager to excuse the episode as not a problem of Bisbee’s ethics, but rather his tendency to be “bossy.”

It amazes me the things that John Brummett can get worked up about and the things he attempts to excuse or write off. Judge Bisbee may be bossy, but lots of county judges are bossy without self-dealing, which is exactly what this is. When Bisbee hires his own company torenovate county offices using taxpayer dollars he is self-dealing, plain and simple. Brummett’s efforts to change the charge to the less-serious offense of “being bossy” is a poor attempt at a white-wash. This is not a personality issue, it’s a criminal issue. It’s a corruption issue, and this is not the first time Bisbee has been faced with such issues.

The fact that they got another bid that was a little higher before the self-dealing began is little more than a fig-leaf. This county is full of builders, remodelers and subcontractors hungry for work. Contractor supply centers are closing down because thingsare so bad in the building business right now. I know what I am talking about because I work at one of them myself (National Home Center Bentonville). Does anyone expect us to believe that the county judge made a serious effort to get someone else to bid the job before finding that his own firm offered the lowest price? Such a fairy tale is an insult to the intelligence of the voters in this county.

There is no way to justify what Dave Bisbee has done, but Brummett does try mightily to redirect attention. He even gets into the feud Bisbee has with now U.S. Senate candidate Gilbert Baker. Baker is one of a host of Republicans running for the chance to replace the exceedingly unpopular Blanche Lincoln. Baker, though head of the Republican Party at the time, split the central Arkansas state senators off from the northwest Arkansas senators to deny Bisbee a chance to be President Pro Tem of the Senate. The job went to the Democrat Baker cut a deal with rather than fellow Republican Bisbee. For his role in that bit of treachery (and perhaps some other episodes where Senator Baker has displayed some trickery), Brummett calls Baker a “back-stabbing little runt.”

Character aside, Brummett’s comment about Baker’s build is uncalled for. So is the unequal treatment of bad behavior.

Editor’s note: Mark Moore is the lead writer for an Internet blog on matters pertaining to Arkansas culture and government, Arkansas Watch, and on Tuesday nights is the host of an Internet-based radio program, The Guide for the Perplexed. He works at National Home Center, Bentonville, selling furniture and writes a weekly column for The Times of Northeast Benton County.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 01/20/2010