One of the interesting aspects of this transcript is the revelation (shocking though it is!) that the Commissioners had been talking about this outside of a formal meeting. Now, how does that fit in with our "public meeting issues"? The reality of course is that is Standard Operating Procedure for every Government entity. Most of the heavy lifting and discussion occurs outside the realm of a public meeting so that the Commissioneers, Council members, Legislators can speak frankly and bluntly without it being recorded. Probably not what the Public Meetings rules wanted, but a workable solution nonetheless. Here is my take on the Feb. 6th meeting.

1. The Commission had the Sportfishing Rules on the Agenda for a long time prior to the Feb. 6th meeting. They also indicated that Public Testimony would not be taken at the Feb. 6th meeting. By looking at this transcript, it appears that they only heard from one member of the audience and did not take testimony from him.

2. It appears (by comments by the Commissioners) that the Commission had been heavily lobbied by interested parties about WSR. IMHO, this was due to the fact that WDFW had chosen not to forward the request for WSR on to the Commission in this cycle of Rules Changes. Nothing wrong at all about undertaking that lobbying effort, whether you were for or against WSR.

3. I can find no indication that the Commission is prohibited from talking about any specific rule proposal and acting upon it. Clearly, as early as Dec. of 2003 (if not earlier) anyone that cared to would have found out that there were several requests for WSR forwarded to the Commission. Just because WDFW chose not to forward that proposal for Commission action does not prevent the Commission from acting upon it.

4. Having said all of this, I believe (as a layman, not a lawyer) that the Commission acted legally. Another part of my editorial opinion - I think the Commission was blindsided by the Region 5 request to petition NMFS to have a higher allowable impact on ESA listed Steelhead in the Springer season and that may have played a role in this action as well. It could have been as simple as the Commission saying "The Commission runs WDFW - not the other way around."

CFM, I'm not going to engage in another pis*ing contest with you. I have learned my lesson. Please do not take my lack of responding to you as an indication that I think you are right. I will leave it to other, very worthy folks to respond to you if they feel that it is appropriate.