It's Time the Commission Answer's a Few Questions!

Secrets in fishery management are wrong! Thousands of constituents demand the commission to take some action to bring real, honest transparency to our co-management. Yet, what have they done? What efforts have been done recently to solve this impasse? It’s time the Commission is held accountable to the citizens for answers.

We’ve sent this letter to Commission Chairmen Larry Carpenter, which asks three important questions. Once Chair Carpenter responds, we will post his reply.

We encourage everyone to contact Chair Carpenter and copy your legislators and the Governor. Let know that these secret meetings have gone on too long. It’s time for the Commission to explain to all of us, publicly, why we still don’t have transparency in our fisheries management.

We also ask that you post this letter on all your social media sites, email it to your friends, ask them to get it out and encourage them to contact the Commission, the Governor and their legislators as well.

Here is the letter that we sent to Commission Chair Carpenter. It is now up to him to be transparent with the citizens of this state. We await his response.

___________________LETTER TO CHAIR CARPENTER____
WDFW Chair Carpenter

cc:
Governor Jay Inslee
WDFW Commissioners
WDFW Director Susewind

Chair Carpenter,

We are writing this open letter to raise, once again, the continuing issue of your prohibition to full and open access to the North of Falcon harvest sharing agreement meetings between the Department, under the auspices of the Commission, with the Tribal Co-managers.

Washington’s Fish and Wildlife resources belong to ALL residents and should be available for equal access by residents and non-residents pursuant to State statutes, regulations and court rulings as appropriate.

Recently we sent letters to the Commission and to Vice Chair Shawn Yanity of the NWIFC imploring both sides to find a resolution to the prohibition of non-tribal/non-governmental persons in attending harvest sharing discussions between the Department and Tribal fishery managers as part of the North of Falcon process.

Our insistence on opening these trust killing, closed door meetings should come as no surprise to you or the other Commission members, since it was the Commission that, in 2017, voiced support in having these meetings open.

Since that time, we have been patient yet firm that the public has a right to full transparency in matters of public trust and have been waiting on you to find a solution to this issue.

To date, what we’ve seen appears to be continuing avoidance of any real effort to bring these harvest management discussions into an open public format. What we feel we’re seeing is a strategic effort on the part of the Department and the Commission to provide an appearance of improved transparency, but with little substance.

Recently, the Department “Live Streamed” the North of Falcon forecast meeting via TVW that helped provide general information which is critical to understanding the plight of our salmon and an early overview of the potential 2020 salmon seasons. We find it interesting and somewhat disingenuous that the Department could live stream this information but won’t provide the same consideration to us for Tribal/Department harvest sharing meetings.

For years now, we have heard that meetings with the Co-managers are “Government to Government”, however, that in itself does not prohibit public observation. We know that citizens observers have been permitted to attend some harvest sharing meetings in the past, so what has changed? You’ve also told us that, although the Department and the Commission want to have these meetings open, the Tribal Co-managers won’t agree to it.

We would like your timely response to the following questions:

Why can’t the major Co-manager/Department harvest sharing discussions be broadcast live, as was just done for the forecast meeting?
What recent efforts have you undertaken to resolve the issue of having no citizen observers in these harvest sharing negotiations?
Who is responsible for the continued prohibition of citizen(s) from attending these harvest sharing negotiations as observers?

Without these questions answered there is much confusion amongst the general public, with many believing that the tribal co-managers are the ones preventing these meetings from being open and transparent.

By restricting the public access to the decision process that results in harvest sharing agreements, it removes the ability of the people to insure that conservation and recovery are paramount. Rather you are sending the message that we are to “just trust” the decisions from the very parties that oppose full public disclosure.

Your leadership is needed on this issue, and addressing the above questions and concerns, will help alleviate some of this public consternation.

As we stated, this is an open letter which will be published and provided to the over eight thousand petition supporters as well as emails and posting on a multitude of social media sites.

We are anticipating a timely reply from you to these questions. We will be sharing your response, so the citizens of this state can understand how fish and wildlife management is being handled with the Co-managers.

We look forward to your quick reply.

Please reply to:

Washington Citizen Sportsmen
OpenNOF@Gmail.com


On behalf of over eight thousand
Washington Citizen Sportsmen and Sportswomen