Black shaped pest panel

House speaker aimed to shift the makeup of the board that oversees his son's business

Since becoming House speaker, Jim Black has taken a strong, pro-industry interest in the state committee that regulates his son's pest control business.

The Structural Pest Control Committee, one of more than 400 state boards, regulates exterminators and products used to kill termites. It has tremendous power over the livelihood of Black's son, Jon Black, who owns Black Pest Control, an extermination business in Charlotte passed on to him by his father.

Documents that Jim Black recently provided to a federal grand jury, interviews and other records indicate that Black has:

* Put into law that the speaker's appointee to the pest committee must come from the industry.

* Persuaded Gov. Mike Easley to put two members on the board.

* Succeeded, for a short time, in adding another industry member to the board.

On two occasions, correspondence shows that Meredith Norris, a top aide to Black, tried to address his son's concerns about the committee's makeup.

Most recently, in December 2004, a Black staffer asked whether he could help Jon Black add "balance" to the committee, just as it was about to vote on reapproving a termite treatment that Black Pest Control uses for new homes.

The nine-member committee now includes three seats for people in the pest control industry. The others are an entomologist, an epidemiologist, an agriculture department employee and three at-large members. Black and Senate leader Marc Basnight each control one seat, and Easley has three appointees. The agriculture commissioner controls two seats.

Black, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, and his son did not respond to interview requests. At a news conference last month, Black said he did not help his son.

"We chose -- we chose -- not to do that," Black said. "My son is a young, good-looking guy, and Meredith Norris was trying to help him."

Black's staff said he acted to try to remake a board that had too many bureaucrats and was too hard on exterminators.

It is unclear how Black's latest actions have affected the committee's work or his son's business, and there is no indication that he broke any law. But some worry that Black's moves might make it more difficult for homeowners to get a fair hearing on matters such as improper termite treatments. The committee handles consumer complaints and disciplines exterminators who do inferior or dangerous work.

"The whole thing is just gross," said Fawn Pattison, executive director of the Agricultural Resources Center, which seeks pesticide-use limits.

She and Larry King, chairman of Common Cause North Carolina's state governing board, said Black's efforts to change the committee amount to a conflict of interest. "One wonders how much influence the son has as compared to the rest of us who are affected by the pest control board," King said.

Federal subpoenas

Federal authorities may be trying to answer that question.

Federal subpoenas served on Black's office in October list Jon Black and his business as "relevant parties" in a criminal investigation of the state lottery's creation; the work of Norris, a lobbyist who had been the speaker's unpaid political director; the video poker industry; and other subjects.

This is not the first time Black's involvement in committee matters has drawn fire. In 2000, he defended four job cuts in the pest control division made by House budget writers after the committee fined his son's business for improper pesticide use.

Black said at the time that the division was performing fewer inspections so it didn't need as many inspectors. Agriculture department officials who oversee the division said staff turnover led to the reduction in inspections. They said they suspected the cuts were retaliatory.