So, let's take a few things into consideration here.

1. Kelly Susewind was brought in to fill a vacancy that was left when James Unsworth made an "unscheduled" departure (got fired). Although the press made it sound like it was due to the killing of fawns at a rehab center, I can tell you uncategorically that it was due to the fiasco of the Ten Year Chinook Mngt. Plan. A plan that Ron Warren and others crafted and agreed to with the Tribes under Unsworth's watch completely without the Commission even knowing about it. Larry Carpenter was livid and was a key player in Unsworth's removal.

2. Susewind was brought on board as an outsider, and without a larger pedigree in Resource management. Many thought he was somewhat under qualified to say the least. But, we all wanted some fresh thinking and understood that we need a change.

3. The Department is having sever budget issues. It's no secret that part of the reason the latest fee hike failed was due to an all out revolt from the dirty masses (us) since the hike was right at the same time the Commission just made a bone head decision to allow gill nets back into the Columbia. But the anger and frustration that welled up runs much deeper and has been simmering for a long time.

4. Now, we have two lawsuits that are on-going that are taking time and money on both sides, to litigate alleged violations of the Open Meetings Act and the Administrative Procedures Act for stuff that has been going on under Ron Warrens leadership, and this year with Director Susewind's apparent blessing.

So, this begs the questions. How can Director Susewind put out an internal memo which states such inconsistencies as having such a large budget shortfall, yet creating two new FTE's which are both exceptionally high paying positions? Creating more layers of bureaucracy seldom results in better management results.

Then there is the case of appointing (promoting) Ron Warren into one of those lucrative positions! For Christ Sake, this guy is neck deep in crap. He managed to be instrumental in having his prior boss fired and now has two lawsuits over process's that he directly oversees! This on top of the fact that many, many of the dirty masses don't trust the guy as far as they can throw him.

Clearly, Director Susewind is floundering in his role, and leaning on the likes of Ron Warren to keep him afloat. But, unless Kelly takes some smart pills really soon, he is probably destined to the same fate Jim Unsworth found.

Perhaps the Director can visit the field, talk to the dirty masses and get some real world input. He has a couple of choices as I see it. Continue to sit in his bubble and pet Warren on the head, or take a long hard walk outside and breath the stench from what WDFW has done and really start to fix things.