Nice try, but you will call a man on the carpet who didnt know about the deal. I spoke to him. You can reference the defenders with all the vulgarity you want. Other than the number 3, its not relevant to my post to you. You have not said you talked to the right people and so I assume your 3 choices came from Blake. Your praise of the snomobilers is simple ignorance. I watched the dam video and they testified against the bill on the basis the fees they paid were higher than the discover card fee. A committee member acknowledge their complaint and supported their position. Your argument is not the same as the snomobilers, they pay a fee for entry. You pay a fee to take game and the access has been pretty much free. Absent the general funds, the depts had to raise fees or cut more services.

You want to ignore the math. You give nearly 700,000 anglers and hunters a "deal" on the prices of the pass and the budget will not balance out, therefore they take more away from something else. You cant prove the money would not come from hatchery closures anymore than I can prove it would. It would give them more ammo to dump the commission or merge the departments.
71,000,000 dollars divided by 30 is 2,366,667 discover pass sales. Subtract 700k X 23 bucks and you have to cover another 16,100,000 dollars in the budget. I suspect the user group in low income brackets is rather large these days.
Population, 2010 6,724,540 So they have to sell a discover pass to about 1 out of 3 people.

You ignore reality. If CCA had opposed it, the money would overrule the advocacy. What the hell were they suppose to say, yes? just close all the hatcheries to make up the difference? Once you lose the budget debate, the politicians can close, merge or dump any part of the dept it wants to. Only a fool would leave that choice up to Blake and a couple others.

The reality is, CCA never asked anyone whether members wanted them to negotiate fees for them. It was dumped in their laps. Based on the Columbia river fee, the increase in fishing licenses, it probably going to be part of the work they do. It does not change the math or how to balance the books. It affects our wallets or opportunity. The only difference is you want to hold them responsible in the face of 60 million dollar shortfall in the parks budget. They cant print the cash. You either surrender services or your members cash. I guess if you lost hatcheries on the Chehalis system, you might rethink the other 23 bucks. What a great choice that would be for a statewide org. Which chapters lose services and opportunity and still pay more for access to parks and DNR land. Oh, but we got a deal thanks to Brian, to bad the hatchery is shut down.

You wanted it your way. Loan money to a Burger king. There is noone in CCA more positioned than YOU to get what you wanted, from Blake. To bad you didnt talk about it when he stopped by for a beer and whatever events you attended together.

Originally Posted by Nwcid
I asked Brian Blake to run the bill. He did. He also garnered a lot of support, as did I, prior to the bill being drafted late last year. Lots of conversations behind the scenes, keeping things on track while other folks were saying "the bill is in trouble."

"I talked with Brian Blake today, and once the session is over we will have a meeting of a core group of people, including RanB, who will help shape the direction of the SBR bill. The goal is to do this in an organized manner, using all of the resources we can muster. As RanB said elsewhere, it is nice to know folks were working on the issue in other forums and media. Things don't just happen on the internet though."

"I did read what you wrote, and I don't want to get into a pissing match with you. Lots of people were a part of that, and it was acknowledged. What's the issue there? I'm not perfect, neither is RanB, nor you. We all make errors, I owned up to my error. Does that make me tainted for the rest of this process?"

Well now. Was it your error in going public, when nothing good comes from it? The only winner here is the guy sitting at home in the 19th district, laughing about the heat you brought down on the organization working to keep the commission intact, the fish in the hatchery and enough LEO to protect your next deer, while you were doing something else.

Frankly, I dont care who is right or wrong. It happened. You made it public and it wasnt necessary. Grow up. **

** Contingent on the premise you are not on vacation while some sick bastard hacked into your account. Which is possible here.