"It should be clear, the reason you have not met us, nor seen us at these “public” meetings is we realized they are not the best forum to effect real change in the current climate."


This statement is more correct than you might realize.

All of us can ask for greater transparency, and seek more and better public involvement. But you won’t be any closer to where and how decisions are made.

Decisions are not made in public. They are not made in Commission meetings or public sessions or in any forum where you and I have access. Important decisions are made over the phone, in restaurants, in pubs and watering holes, over lunch, and in places where colleagues gather to discuss whatever issues they want to discuss. The purpose of these undisclosed (secret) discussions is to gauge the level of support from other Commissioners or agency leadership or from politicians or other folks whose opinion is considered important. The public meetings are for show. They are little more than theater to provide the appearance of transparency.

And I’m not just talking about natural resource management. It happens across the board. That includes the local school board, city council, board of directors, the legislature, and anywhere where important decisions are made by groups of people, including the F/W Commission.

By the time you and I get to the Commission meetings, all the decisions have been made. There may be opportunities to provide public input, but decisions are made when an individual member (Commission, Council, Board) convinces two of his/her colleagues to vote for whatever measure is being considered. That happens loooooong before the meeting has started.

I’m not saying public input is ignored. I’m saying that public input and participation only goes so far. The personal preferences of the individual Commission members, and their ability to convince other Commission members of their position is how decisions are made.

However, I will admit that NOF might be different. It’s possible that WDFW might not be able to work closely with the Tribal folks before NOF, given their historical animosity. So that when the NOF meetings start, nobody knows where the discussions will go, and where the disagreements will begin and end. It might get ugly. So there may be resistance, on both sides, to allow public participation when the outcome is highly uncertain.

But I encourage you to continue your quest, despite my somewhat jaded point of view.