Bay wolf,

Perhaps you could ask the Governor's office to respond in regards to Ms. Loomis' quote. Is the Governor's office working at NOF on behalf of 100% of WA citizens, or just the 2% who are treaty Indians? A gently reminder that 98% of WA citizens are not treaty Indians but also have interests in the outcome of NOF couldn't hurt.

FleaFlickr02,

Read Carcassman's post. The Governor does not appoint nor supervise the WDFW Director. The Commission is THE policy setting entity for WDFW. I agree it would be beneficial having the Governor on one's side in most discussions. The Governor may need reminding that he represents more than the 2% of citizens who happen to be treaty Indians.

Tug 3,

I too was - and continue to be - supportive of the consolidation of WDF and WDG (WDW). That is the right structure in terms of science and administrative efficiency. The reason a few gillnetters (actually I think its a few fish processing companies, cuz they are the ones with the $$$) are so successful is because they don't talk to the Commission or the Director. They speak with one voice as Carcassman indicates and talk to the Legislators who make the laws (WAC) and approve the budget of WDFW.

I do think that to be truly successful for the greatest number of WA citizens, the Department needs an overhaul of legislative WACs followed by structural modification within the Department to steer it in the direction where the amount of work on varying subjects is proportional to where the money for that subject comes from. I.E., that means very little effort would be spent on commercial fishing activities unless the commercial fishing sector ponied up a huge increase in Department funding. The Department operations model needs to be one that stops biting the very hand that feeds it.

Sg