Weekend Commission Meetings

A lot of guys have told me they can't participate in the Commission meetings because for the most part, they are held on weekdays, when most people have to work. That might explain why I have seen the same ol' crowd all the time. So I'm just curious, if the Commission held their meetings on the weekends, would more of you attend?

Come on Sportsmen. We've had 160 views and 31 responses. At least give an opinion. Thanks

None of the parameters of your question affect me as I attend both on weekdays and on weekends. Most of the WDFW and commission meetings I attend are on the weekend but some are on Fridays and adviser's meetings are during the week at dinnertime but we make adjustments to attend. My opinion is that it doesn't matter when the meetings are held, some say weekends and time off are too valuable to them to give up, others say weekdays are an issue. Can't have it both ways, I don't think attendance would fluctuate much since the meetings seem to be split pretty evenly between weekdays and weekends. I think most fishermen believe that the issues are too complex for an easy solution, that the slide downwards is inevitable, so low numbers at meetings are the result. Bob R

One aspect of the meeting time is staff time. Rules require that they be compensated for work. Plus, at least since the mid 00's WDFW was rather anal on the requirement that you work 8 hours a day, M-F and needed written permission to deviate. At all. Plus, you were limited to 40 hours per week. Written approval to do more or just do less M-F so you can work the weekend.

I don't like "comp time"

There are meetings, NOF, Commission, and probably some others that I'm not aware of. These should be built into the position/contact...sometimes different positions call for employees to be at meetings "outside" the normal work day.


I chuckle at some of the upper State meetings....more WDFW personnel, than people from the public....I'm sure they are all vital to the meeting at hand, mmmmmm I wonder???????

I'm retired, so time is not so important....I go to meetings cause I like to know what's going on....I've been to Willapa Bay NOF meetings, just to watch the fire works, I've not fished Willapa Bay, ever.

I was a State Employee, Teacher, for my adult working life....there were many duties that we were expected to do...game duties, club duties, bus duties, Junior/Senior proms, teachers meetings....no comp time, no extra pay... at least not during the years 1968-1997.

Whether you like comp time or exchange time or overtime or standby is your personal choice. But Federal law requires it for many levels of the workforce. If you want to hold WDFW staff to 40 hours a week, period, then fine. They will either need to hire a whole lot more staff or accomplish a whole lot less.

Likely they would do both!

Basically, that is their problem to figure out, not ours.
WTF? Do we have to do everything?
If you are going to hold public meetings with time set aside for public comment, then it is only logical to hold them when the greatest number of people might be able to attend.

That's why it won't happen. It's too obvious. Plus, they can counter with "you can reach us by email."

Not only that but the pace at which the department moves to enact anything new is glacial at best. Unless of course it is to enact another emergency closure. This bureaucratic pace is the direct opposite of what most of the world is used to. I know it is for me. My former job as a construction superintendent was way different. When I gave a "suggestion" shyte happened right the F now.

So, I guess what I'm hearing is that it's pretty much useless to attend these meetings. I know the public NOF meetings are a waste of time. They use them to check the box that they allowed the public to participate, but when the doors close at the Tribal NOF it's another story indeed.

So, where does this leave the nearly 700 thousand citizens that buy licenses yearly? Are we just discounted and have to go along with whatever the fish mafia, commission and department want?

No, attending the Commission meetings is not useless as simply attending indicates that the public is watching and listening. While overcoming bureaucratic inertia is a seemingly impossible task attending the meetings and testifying is a critical function and has even more impact when done en mass relative to a particular issue. Now, relative to the week-day versus week-end dilemma it is obvious there are limitations on all parties; citizens, Staff and Commissioners.

I believe the Commission is doing a fairly good job all things considered. If you are interested in an upcoming issue before the Commission and you cannot attend there is generally a link to Staff presentations posted to the meeting agenda (see the Commission web page) and an email address is available for comments to the Commission as a group. Is that as effective as being there in person? Probably not but it does allow for input which may support testimony by others.

What I would like to see is additional time on the agenda for public comment. Specifically, an opportunity first thing each morning and then again after lunch and especially on Saturday such that citizens willing to make a longer drive on a non work day for their three minutes of fame do not have to be there by 8:00 A.M.

Even if I felt that attending meetings wouldn't do anything to help I would still attend as I could be wrong about the ineffectiveness of attending and then I would be fulfilling my own wrong belief. That's how I feel about climate change, even if you don't believe it you could be wrong. And what can it hurt to move in a positive direction rather then doing nothing or worse yet, continuing to move in a negative direction? Bob R

Three minutes does fly by....Not many ever finish before the 3 minutes are up....

I'd like to be able to question ANY WDFW staff that are there !!!!!!!!

How about accountability???? I'd like to see job performance evaluations, by the public, just like many companies are doing currently.....Comcast, Ford, Toyota, LG, and others, these companies actual want to know how their employees are doing...….I'm thinking that there could be some WDFW changes if public evaluations were a part of the yearly contract.....

I'm okay with the Commission meetings the way they are now. Commissioners are volunteering time, as well.

After I was hurt in the service I also volunteered much time. I became a Certified Aquatic Education Instructor to help teach kids about fishes and the importance of the riparian zone.

Change is slow.

For sure, do your best and hang the rest.

if you think corporate performance evaluations would provide accountability... you've obviously never worked in a corporate setting or you were simply delusional about the purpose of them when you were working. many people perform well and are evaluated poorly in these settings and many people perform poorly and are evaluated well (weird how this seems to happen mostly in middle and upper management). the idea that crowdsourcing performance evaluations would somehow provide greater accountability to public officials is laughable. politicians already deal with this and its called elections. are you proposing that every WDFW staff member submit to public performance evaluations and then be terminated if they did not meet x-critera? I've seen creel checkers yelled at by similar minded people to you DrifterWA... on what planet does a young college grad counting fish dictate high level policy at the STATEWIDE level?

Transparency is what is needed and that is driven by public interest and the political will of the interested public (accountability). The mechanisms exist to enact change but the reality is that sportfishing is a privileged activity and is on the decline in the PNW. Sportfisherman may have to take a hit in order to join a powerful enough coalition to enact the change that is better for all interested parties. Moving the commission meetings to the weekend is a great idea for us folks who work during the week and is a pathway to achieving greater transparency and putting more public pressure on public officials. Let us not hold one type of institution up as if it represents some sort of gold standard when many of the issues you are worried about are problems in all institutions regardless of type. I

blenny:

Whoa, Let me give you an example of what I'm taking about...…

I purchased a 2018 vehicle in December....

Ford motor company sent me different evaluation/accountability emails asking general questions, they wanted rating 1 - 5, on different areas that Ford Motor felt were important...…


Sales and Service were two of the areas that Ford wanted ratings on, I had issues with the vehicle and had to be taken to service more than once...I got a "rating email" for each time.

WDFW has many areas that do not deal with the public directly...then no evaluation would be necessary....


I could see a public evaluation of hatchery staff, if there was a major fish kill. We had a major fish kill, there was going to be follow up, to find out "what happen"....I've seen nothing!!!!


Don't be so defensive.... WDFW wants increase funding, from the taxpayers...they should be held accountable for the services provided.

How would you evaluate this performance?

Run is estimated to come in high and fisheries are scheduled. An update is done and the run has dropped. Lots less harvestable. NI Fisheries closed as share has been more than taken. Indian fishery continues and later updates show the run is not as bad as thought; there are now a few fish left for NI, in the river. Too few to open for more than part of day, so it is kept closed. Final accounting of catch and escapement shows that there were a few more, enough to (maybe) squeeze in a day on the river. Instead, this handful of fish spawned and gave a small "over escapement". Given the more mixed nature of the first NI fishery, those fish could have been taken in a last day outside.

Did staff screw it up?

We’ve asked (demanded) transparency and accountability, both from the department and the Commission. The truth of the matter is, they are masters at playing us against ourselves. The reason Unsworth was let go was not because of what he allowed to happen with the Chinook management plan. Being negotiated and agreed to behind the backs
of the Commissioners, it was because the department slaughtered deer that were in the care of a rehab org that showed up IN MASS and used the media to bring the issue to the attention of everyone.

My thought of having weekend Commission meeting was in hopes of having people show up IN MASS, but the reality is that recreational fishermen are too fragmented to all push in one direction. The arguments posted in these threads sort of prove that point.

We ALMOST did it with our campaign to allow a video camera into the tribal/state north of falcon meetings. But when it came time to put action to words, well...everybody was too busy. Funny, the press showed up, the activists didn’t.

Nope, on a scale of 1 to 5, they get a 5..... Commission # 1 goal is conservation ….. in the current fish world, IMO, fish on the spawning bed beats MSY

I got to agree. MSY is a major part of what is troubling us all. Bob R

a couple of things:

1. inflation is a thing and its hilarious that people don't understand that it MIGHT cost more money in 2019 than it did in 1970 to raise fish, maintain hatcheries that were made around that time and pay staff living wages. even as it stands a fishing license is a great deal I spent $70 bucks and have caught over 50lbs of salmon and steelhead. the bulk of which is chinook which retails for $40-60 a pound- I've got $1000 dollars of chinook in my fridge. i would gladly pay double or triple price as it stands.

2. hatchery staff accidentally killing fish is unfortunate but these things are old and mistakes happen. how much taxpayer money would it take to do a "fact finding mission" to review and terminate the evil WDFW workers? oh I guess we dont want to use taxpayer money to improve the hatcheries because... no taxes!

3. Ford got a taxpayer funded 9 BILLION dollar line of credit because it was barely afloat after becoming less and less competitive in the 2000s to foreign manufacturers who made better products. who was held accountable there?

WDFW has problems and most of them are with tenured upper level management. I think its a terrible idea to enact the kind of "accountability" you're suggesting.

By the voting, although relatively a small sample I grant it, it looks like a majority of constituents want a Saturday Commission meeting. Should we ask our new Chair of the Commission to start Saturday sessions? It would allow us more participation. Maybe they could include more public comment time?

Or is this all just pissing up a rope? What is your opinion?

As the Commissioners are compensated at the rate of $100.00 per day plus travel expenses, it may be to their liking to meet primarily on Saturdays, so as not to conflict or interfere with their weekday jobs or responsibilities...

Yes.

My experience with the Commission meetings and a review of their webpage (https://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings/2018/) for 2018 meetings confirms that their regular monthly sit-down meetings are at a minimum two consecutive days; Friday and Saturday. Friday is always a full agenda and Saturday is generally a half day.

Are you suggesting that they somehow shove all of Friday's agenda items into one Saturday?

Keep in mind that these are volunteers.

I reiterate my prior suggestion that there be two opportunities for general public input on Saturday; one first thing in the morning and a second after their scheduled agenda is completed.

I agree that the only way to fix this is denying the department a large amount of its budget. I don't agree that writing the Legislature and asking them to pull general funding is a worthwhile course of action. No Legislature is going to vote to reduce budgets based on demands of one stakeholder group when the money is legally earmarked to benefit three stakeholder groups. Unless we can somehow convince the Tribes and the NT commercials to join us in that request (not likely), it's a non-starter.

What we can and must do is stop buying licenses. That revenue, whatever percent of WDFW's budget it amounts to, represents 100% of our ability to shake up the status quo. If we ever exercised that potential, we'd see a major turnaround, very quickly, as soon as the other stakeholders found out production was being slashed due to the loss of sport revenues.

Unfortunately, not buying licenses requires us to stop fishing, so it's more than a little self-defeating, at least in the short term. It frustrates me to no end that WDFW's got us over the barrel, but until we prove sufficient resolve to make that sacrifice, over the barrel is where we'll stay, and circling the drain is what our opportunity to fish will continue doing.

Larry, I understand your point. I totally agree that it would be near impossible to put everything into a Saturday meeting. I agree that Saturday can be used for re-cap and lots of public comment. Maybe, instead of 3 minutes, give 5? I realize that Commissioners are volunteers, but they are also OUR pathway to WDFW and OUR voice! I'm frustrated with the way things are going, like the gill nets back in the Big C and the Skokomish crap, not to mention Point no point and so many others.

There has got to be a way to use the HUGE numbers of Sportfishermen other than the keywords on the fishing boards. We have been marginalized and relegated as non-important in our fisheries management. So many separate voices that have been so easily drowned out and turned at each other. I think the Commission and WDFW fear what an organized and focused Sports community could accomplish, if only...

I'm still scratching my head over the CR gillnet issue and specifically how what they have done is supported by the science.

As to the Skokomish I will opine that "negotiating" with the tribe has been and will continue to be futile as it tacitly provides them the upper hand. Obfuscate and win by default. The State (AG?) owes WDFW and the Commission an opinion of the merits of the Dept. of Interior's/Bureau of Indian Affairs (DOI) opinion as to the boundary. If the State's opinion is in conflict with DOI then open up the river and let the Feds take action.

As to PNP the process is ongoing with the USACE having acknowledged their tardiness in rendering a decision on the WDFW permit application.

It has become apparent to me that citizens interested in a particular issue need to become regular fixtures at the Commission meetings - three minutes is plenty of time to ask what progress has been made since the last inquiry. Tiresome? Absolutely! Frustrating? Absolutely! Effective? Better than the alternative where the issue slides off into oblivion.

Larry posted,

"It has become apparent to me that citizens interested in a particular issue need to become regular fixtures at the Commission meetings - three minutes is plenty of time to ask what progress has been made since the last inquiry. Tiresome? Absolutely! Frustrating? Absolutely! Effective? Better than the alternative where the issue slides off into oblivion."

and I'm repeating it because it is the one thing I have seen work. Occupy Skagit did not make headway with the Department until the grassroots group appeared at Commission meetings 3 times over 2 years. The first time we introduced ourselves, told them what we wanted and why it is the right thing. Second time we repeated what we wanted and why it is the right thing. Third time we repeated again and told the Commission that, although they told us we were going about this in the right way, we told them that the Department still had done nothing and had no plan to do anything, so we wanted a designated point of contact who would be repsonsible for providing regular progress reports. Then finally, gradually, progress began. All told it was still over a 5-year effort.

The take home message for me is that dogged, unrelenting persistence can be effective, despite the brush offs from the designated point of contact.

Sg

What is unfortunate is that we often end up performing as agents of the Commission; that is, monitoring and reporting back to the Commission on progress of issues to which the Commission has given direction to Staff.

I wrote "unfortunate" because while it is in our best interest to monitor progress it is also my perception that the Commission often fails to establish specific timelines for status reports and to maintain a "tickler file" to ensure that such reports are included on the appropriate agenda.

However, as the old adage goes, if you want it done right do it yourself. Stay involved and maintain your presence before the Commission.