Administrative Hearing Officer Support Service

At your Association Spring Conference it was announced that the Department of Pesticide Regulation’s (DPR’s) Pesticide Enforcement Branch (ENF) had contracted with recently retired county agricultural commissioner (CAC) Jerry Benincasa to provide administrative hearing officer support service to all CACs.

Jerry has a wide range of hearing officer experience within the CAC system, both in the scope (complexity of the issues) and numbers of cases heard. Many CACs have expressed concern about the increasing difficulty to provide hearing officer support either for themselves or to each other. For these reasons, DPR would like to support CAC hearing officer needs by providing hearing officer services through Jerry upon your request.

Attached for your reference is a Hearing Officer Checklist to be used as you see fit.

Additionally, ENF expects Jerry to assist in evaluating hearings, identifying hearing officer and advocate training needs and providing guidance with case preparation.

To request his services you may either contact Jerry directly by phone at (209) 533-0116, or by e-mail at Jerryben@pacbell.net, or you may contact me and I will forward your request to him.

Sincerely,