Baywolf,
Are the Lacey police OK with people going inside the Center and not just hanging out on the sidewalk and parking lot? I'm interested in whether a public agency can keep members of the public out of the public building during their meeting. Seems like a key point to me.
I thought this was cleared up a long time ago. The tribes are sovereign nations. Is a meeting between WA state and a Canadian delegation open to public? or does Canada have the right to say: "we don't want US citizens in the meeting, only government reps?"
Both the Canadian government and the state government in this hypothetical are both public entities, but its the sovereignty issue that I think allows one party to request the meeting to be closed on a legal basis. Can I walk into the White house (a public building, paid with tax dollars) when our Pres ( a publicly elected representative) plans to meet with the North Korean goober? I would expect they could legally hold me out. Am I wrong, can't they also restrict the press from entering too? From this thread, I don't really see what the gain is? Unless its attention, which from the protest a few years ago...what did we get from that? Was the non-fishing public swayed by that protest at all?
link:
http://www.king5.com/article/tech/scienc...shing/175301227 The tribes are sovereign not foreign. Big distinction there. Do you need a passport to go on the reservation? Do tribal members vote in elections, hold public office, give campaign donations?
People often confuse sovereign as meaning they are a foreign government. They are actually wards of the Federal Government. To clear this up, we called the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and asked about "Gov't to Gov't meetings" They said that title is unique by state, and there is no precedence for prohibiting the public in these meeting. To the contrary, they ENCOURAGE the public to attend because if fosters TRUST!
Also, the AAG assigned to the WDFW agrees that there is NO LEAGLE reason these meetings are closed to the public. They just can't force the co-managers to participate if they open the meetings. However, the co-managers are in fact, forcing US to participate without public oversight!
Have we done this in the past, sort of. There was a rally at NOAA during the breakdown of negotiations over Coho fishing. Did it work, sort of. It brought the attention of the public and got everyone back to the table. Did it end the secret meetings, NO..so we just have to keep fighting.
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