Seahawksteelie,

Thanks for posting again. Yours have been the most thoughtful posts in this thread. I think we and everyone else posting here agrees that transparency and accountability should be top priorities at WDFW. Weird thing is, WDFW claims to value transparency, front and center, on the agency website. I asked the Commission to prohibit the Director and staff from using the term "transparency" in all agency correspondence and other printed matter until they stopped lying to us constituents. No action taken, and no surprise either, since taking action would be a confession that they've been lying to us.

I agree there are some straightforward actions the agency could take to increase its credibility with constituents manyfold, but those simple changes would be painful to the status quo. I understand though; the status quo is revered as though it were God.

!. Live up to the transparency value. How? Pretty simple. Any staff or the Director caught in a provable lie gets 30 days suspension without pay. You see, as it is now, lying pays just as well as truthing, and makes life easier even if you get caught. It's worth the risk since there is no penalty. If lying hurt economically, there would be a strong incentive to simply tell the truth, even if it were embarrassing. For example, when the Department says a particular restriction is necessary for conservation, yet a simple analysis shows little to no conservation will be achieved. Turns out the real reason is because the Tribe made them do it. Can't believe WDFW management is stupid enough to think some of us don't talk with tribal representatives about what happened and why.

2. Transparency would include accountability. Accountability is nigh on impossible as long as the Commission is OK with the Director and upper management lying to constituents. So the only way for there to be accountability is to cause the commissioners to squirm in their seats so badly they get hemorrhoids. Perhaps then they'd require accountability from the Director. If it's required of the Director, he'll require it from everyone downhill from his position.

3. Transparency means complying with the open public meetings act and no more behind closed door meetings with treaty tribes at NOF. That of course means no LOAF and no shirttail riding on the BIA ESA Section 7 permit for Puget Sound fishing, which leads to . . .

4. WDFW submits a plan to NMFS for a ESA 4(d) rule or section 10 permit for PS fisheries under its jurisdiction. It doesn't have to be convenient for NMFS, and NMFS might find it awkward explaining to a federal judge why it holds a state agency hostage to a tribal permit, giving tribes complete authority over non-treaty fishing that by law is under state jurisdiction. WDFW would do well to hire private attorneys for this case, since AAGs are already complicit in giving the tribes whatever they want.

5. There is no one "right" solution for the issue of declining steelhead on the north coast, Chehalis watershed, PS, or inland mid-Columbia runs. There are a lot of ways to achieve conservation objectives. A good start would be to spell out what the conservation objectives are. All we really know is that this season's goal on the north coast is to reduce recreational gear encounters with wild steelhead. WDFW did pick the one specific alternative that most easily, if not best, achieves that. For all that however, I think we deserve a thoughtful and quantitative explanation of the prospective benefits of this measure, compared and contrasted to the benefits of alternative measures. Something that the 4-point proposal fell far, far short of.