This story was on this forum awhile back but George adds some interesting points to it. Enjoy!, Jp
I like the term "officious nuisances"....it fits well.
He's a dangerous recidivist. Ha!
Looks like the Board is under review for bullying.
Many cities have already been schooled on the problems with red light camera systems and have stopped using them.
IT is always entretaining to see beauacrats being schooled.
It is right because I say it is has always been fighting words.
REPENT ALL YE WHO ARE "BOTTLENECKERS"!
The primary reason for protected title statutes is to prevent the unlicensed from offering or providing services that require a license while giving their clients the impression they are qualified.
I may be wrong, but Jarlson wasn't trying to offer services to anyone. He wasn't running a scam or trying to attract business to offer engineering services.
Yes, by the letter of the law, he violated it by stating that he is an engineer. But, IMO, since he was trying to publicly bring attention to a problem he detected (apparently because he is qualified in every way but holding a license) for others in the appropriate positions to correct, the Board violated the spirit of the law.
In this case, "officious nuisances" seems an apt description.
The term, "officious nuisances" is misapplied in this case. It is easy to blame the individual Board members for levying the fine. However, IMO the "officious nuisances" are the engineering and land surveying professional societies in Oregon that most likely pushed the specific language in the statutes. While some may feel that the Board members should have nullified a bad statute, they are most likely volunteer professionals (and possible public members) tasked with enforcing the statutes. I doubt that the State of Oregon's legal counsel assigned to the Board informed them that they have the power to nullify anything they don't like.
my $0.02
Gene, your intuition on the boards legal council is very keen, I believe. Jp
An Oregonian of my acquaintance, not a licensed surveyor, borrowed some equipment one weekend to survey the boundary of his church's property. I believe this was more in the manner of practicing with the equipment than it was to actually advance any project. In the course of the work he told one of the adjoiners that he was a surveyor. The neighbor made a complaint and OSBEELS fined him.
OSBEELS regulates Engineers, Land Surveyors, Photogrammetrists, and Geologist. The Engineers outnumber the others 10 to 1. So if the laws of Oregon are a bit more stringent than you care for blame the Engineers.
Gene Kooper, post: 432504, member: 9850 wrote: The term, "officious nuisances" is misapplied in this case. It is easy to blame the individual Board members for levying the fine. However, IMO the "officious nuisances" are the engineering and land surveying professional societies in Oregon that most likely pushed the specific language in the statutes. While some may feel that the Board members should have nullified a bad statute, they are most likely volunteer professionals (and possible public members) tasked with enforcing the statutes. I doubt that the State of Oregon's legal counsel assigned to the Board informed them that they have the power to nullify anything they don't like.
my $0.02
I disagree Gene,
IMO, there is a good reason for the statutes that protect certain titles in that it provides a clear statute to cite when trying to prevent the unlicensed and unqualified from passing themselves off as a licensed and qualified professional service provider.
The problem, IMO, is that it is nearly impossible to write a perfect law that fully and clearly reflects the spirit of the law without leaving open the possibility of abuse of the law, either by over-enforcement by the agency, or by working through the loop holes by unscrupulous practitioners. Generally, it would seem better to have laws that are written a little on the tight side, thus leaving open the possibility of agency misuse, but attempting to appoint, and hoping that the appointed are such that are able to exercise reasonable judgment to enforce the spirit of the law rather than looking for instances where they can fit an action into the letter of the law and call it a violation.
The bottleneckers is a perfect fit to many of the boards. That is exactly how I see them.
I find it ridiculous that a person cannot say they are an engineer if they don't have a PE even if they have completed a BS in engineering degree, or a masters, or even a PhD. This weekend I was talking to a friend of mine from Mexico. Both he and his wife are mechanical engineers. In Mexico, you take an engineering exam to graduate. Once you do that, you are officially an engineer. Should be the same here. I consider myself to be a civil engineer, even though I do not have a PE and I do not practice as a PE.
I agree with John. If you have the education and graduated... you have the title. The problem is when someone is doing the work and claims to be a professional. Like the example from Mark. I see no problem with someone using the equipment (to learn or do whatever), but when asked, simply say "I am surveying" or "calculating." If asked are you licensed, state the fact. I know everyone does some type of surveying/engineering while working on their and other peoples property. The issue should be about when being paid or reimbursed for the work.
Here is the article if, like me, you've read too many things at WP can't read any more until you pay.
Scotland, post: 432523, member: 559 wrote: I agree with John. If you have the education and graduated... you have the title.
I argued that very point in another post about this. I'm not a licensed surveyor, but when a casual acquaintance asks me what I do for a living I don't tell them I'm a ditch digger.
Evan,
I agree that legislation can be a very coarse and blunt instrument. Many years ago, I served on the PLSC (Professional Land Surveyors of Colorado) Legislative Committee. One of the first pieces of legislation that I was involved with dealt with a requirement that a surveyor must do "something" within 90 days. Legislation had been recently passed, but it needed a fix. An "and" had been inserted instead of an "or" and the legislation read that the surveyor MUST wait 90 days before they could do the "required" thing.
I am not knowledgeable, nor do I have any experience with the CA Board. It may be that the statutes allow the Board members to exercise professional judgement in situations where an objective-based requirement has been breached. Based on my knowledge and experience in Colorado, our Board does not have that discretion. Perhaps they should! For example, if a complaint is filed that a surveyor did not do a required thing within the statutory time frame and the facts bear that out, the Board will almost invariably make a finding against the licensee. Their discretion lies in the severity of the sanction.
In the previous thread (and here too by John Hamilton) it was argued that the generic use of "engineer" or "surveyor" should not be a sanctionable offense. I've seen several examples where legislation was passed to forbid unlicensed individuals from certain activities (for example, defining geodetic control surveying as the practice of land surveying). I do not see that the public health, safety and welfare is breached if someone says they are an engineer or surveyor. To me, it is no different than someone saying they are a mathematician, economist, geodesist, geographer, etc. It is merely a statement of their formal training and/or occupation. I'm not saying that professional state societies are bad, but often overly restrictive language in the statutes is a direct result of their legislative activities.
An aside: Back when I first got involved with the PLSC, I attended one of their Board of Directors meetings. A gentleman with a shiny new PLS license stood up and wanted the Board to propose legislation that would implement a moratorium on licensure until there was a demonstrated need for new licensees. He actually had the moxy to state that there were too many licensees and that it was bad for business!
Where I hold a Board as responsible is in the promulgation of rules that implement and further define the scope of the statutes. The members of the Board, esp. the professional members must exercise professional judgement in their rule-making authority.
[Tongue Firmly in Cheek]
I noticed that there were a couple of speakers at the 2017 PLSO conference from California. I believe that they are only licensed in CA. Their biographies did not state that they were surveyors! Should I ever be asked to give a talk in Oregon I will follow that lead and make sure to not include in my bio that I am a geological engineer (BS degree), hydrogeologist (graduate degree), that I conduct satellite image processing (my main work), or surveyor (the occasional job I get to locate the lines of someone's patented mining claim).
[/Tongue Firmly in Cheek]
