Good question Richard!

"$100.000, what the hell were you going to do with that pile of cash? I will tell you what "the hell" we were supposed to do with it. We, meaning the FOC at that time was orinigally formed to fight Tacoma Power and to make Tacoma meet its 1967 salmon mitigation agreement and to see that both Mayfield and Mossyrock Dams had fish ladders. The money was being saved to take on Tacoma Power when they applied for their "new operating" license. That was the "original purpose" why the Friends of the Cowlitz were established for in 1988. It was our only hope to assure that the mitigation agreements and fish passage issues would be met in their new license.

Tacoma spent well over 12.5 million dollars in getting their new operating license; our messily $135,000 wasn't even pocket change to Tacoma Power! I truly believed that we could have been able to truly change what was done in the 2000 Settlement Agreement IF we could have afforded to have "hired" more attorneys. The FOC only had one attorney who volunteered his time to help us fight Tacoma Power. He was good, but his time was his money, so you can see the writing on the wall. That's why we needed to guard that $100,000. egg!

On to the board issue. We had 16 BOD when the problem occurred. Only 3 knew that the funding issue was going to be brought up at that meeting (it was their little deal). It was not even on the Boards agenda for that night. It was one of those things that should have NEVER occurred! I would have not had any problem if all the FOC BOD had been informed that this issue was going to be brought before it so that each board member could voice their opinion on the issue. That did not happen!

It's kind of funny in a way, because the person who they sent the $2000 quite one week after receiving that $2000 donation and ran off with all of her accounting records that would have shown where that $2000 really went to. Last time I heard (about 6 years ago) the Attorney General and PDA were still trying to get a hold of those records.

Finally, in my opinion, your last statement; "the other side of the harvest issue. So it appears to my narrow little mind that you broke your own law about being uninformed." sound pretty lame to me and is nothing more than a "cop-out"! Do you really believe that it was everyone else's responsibility to make them be self "informed" so that it would relieve your group from their responsibility? That kind of sounds like the same crap that happen at the FOC board meeting 6 years ago doesn't it. I guest by going with your way of thinking; the other 7 board members that were not there that night should have also known that $2000 of their funds were going to be given away without notice.

One last thing, I was not the only "descending vote"; it was 7 to 2

Good luck with your group in the coming New Year!

Cowlitzfisherman <img border="0" alt="[santa]" title="" src="graemlins/santa.gif" />