Bruce-
It says I am not a member with sufficient permission and thus can not access the page.

Ok lets try this again. Here's the link:

http://www.gamefishin.com/commission-transcript.htm

Bruce,

Is it the transcript of the meeting, or the minutes?

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. Elkrun, WDFW's preference survey done a couple of years ago put the percentage of steelhead fishermen that advocate releasing all wild steelhead at over 60%.

Transcript.

Cool...could you shoot me one via e-mail...the other one I got today wouldn't open.

Thanks!

Todd

*edit: nevermind...I see you turned it back into a link. Thanks!*

You're right, there are other factors. The point I was trying to make was that with all other problems fixed (pristine habitat, no dams, no sportsmen) the runs would still decline as long as the tribes are free to net pretty much at will.

I agree fully Dans S. Using others actions to justify your own just doesn't cut it. Hey Jacob, take it form an old man. "Wait broke the bridge".

Good golly Jacob, We all know that the nets are bad, but unless you have about 20 million dollars for a protracted court case you would likely lose, we need to find OTHER solutions. WDFW has lost EVERY case (around 100) they have that deals with tribal fishing rights. What some people don't understand is that when the treaties were signed it was not the white man giving the tribes rights, it was the tribes extending privileges to the white man.

This is a cut and paste from my post on Gamefishin board.

Bruce, thanks for getting the complete transcript up. For us fish junkies and government junkies, it's a great read! What is most interesting is that the Commission seemed to cover most (if not all) of the issues that we have seen debated on the various boards. I read about:

Foregone opportunity

Lack of public involvement

Trend lines showing wild steelhead going downhill

Quite frankly, after reading this transcript, I am strangely comforted. It appears that the Commission is quite representative of the Sports Fishing Community. The moratorium passed on a very narrow margin and the discussion showed a real debate on the issue. My guess is that if any one of us were sitting on the Commission deciding this issue, our views would not be nearly as black and white as we seem to be on the various boards.

Now we get to see what the next moves are. I have seen (on PP) a number of letters from organizations about this ruling. One has the most possible import - a letter from the Quilleute Tribal Council. In the letter, they did not say what they were going to do only that they were evaluating their options. We shall see what happens next.

Once again Bruce you have done a service to us all in getting the transcript up. Facts are sometimes hard to find in a heated debate like this. The transcript gives us a rare insight into how the Commission made this decision. I for one appreciate getting that look.

Thanks Bruce!

Way too much typing for me to do!

Thanks for taking the time to retype it.


Cowlitzfisherman

This may surely be the single most damaging statement that was said
about how the Commission made its decision! Read it, and read it
closely, then spin-spin-away!

Ron Ozment states, Van Gytenbeek reply: You can say what you want about this process, and put whatever spin
you want to on it, but when Commissioner Van Gytenbeek said:

"I wouldn't have felt good about asking if there was a proper legal way
to bring it forward."

That said it all!!! You really don't have be an
attorney, or have a law degree to understand what he said!

This was draft #5, if it means something else; it sure would have been
edited long before now!

Now what do you suppose that means?

Lets not forget, the Commission had brought up not one, but two
separate moratoriums for a vote that was not published in their agenda.
There were 2 completely different proposals that came up for a vote that
were not made public, and were done without pubic notice or comment. One
was for a moratorium from April 1 of this year until March 31, 2009
which was voted down. And then a "second moratorium" was brought to the
floor for a vote, and that one passed. That's "two separate" moratoriums
that the public was not informed or notified of.
No public comment was taken on either issue before the Commission acted.
Neither of those 2 proposals were in the proposed "2004-05 rule package"
that were sent to the Commission for their approval.

Once the general public reads these minutes, I believe there will be
outrage about how this process was allowed to happen. The issue about
saving WSR will become second place to the issue about how an
inappropriate process was allowed to proceed, and how the 2 proposed
moratoriums managed to slip by the legal process.

When government circumvents due process and law and procedure order,
people become quickly outraged. There are only a few people on fishing
boards, and look what already happen here. I believe that once this
issue becomes known to the public, we will see that happen there also.
It doesn't matter if you were for WSR or not, this issue has become much
bigger than just that.

The transcript speaks for itself.

Hairlip

Everybody is gonna cut and paste their little snipits of the transcript to defend their position... whatever...

After reading the entire transcript all I have to say is that I would not want to be one of the commisioners faced with that desicion...

You either stop harvest in the hopes that they will continue to stay above escapement
-or-
You are forever labled the commisioner that allowed wild steelhead to fall below the brink of disaster....

To much pressure for me...

That's why you are "Piper" and not "Commissioner Piper"

I could just hear the Chair now " Piper" Piper down!

,


Translated to english that means,


" I dont care if you've proven a point or not, I still wont listen"

:rolleyes:

You might as well try to convince grandpa
to vote democrat....


edit...

hopefully this precious "process" you all are griping that wasn't followed will be held up by another process called "appeals" long enough for the fish to actually recover...

Fish won't recover until the nets come out.

OZMENT:....and have to again, talk about the public process and , think, the disservice that we’re doing to the public, the disservice we’re dong the staff, and ultimately the disservice that we’re going to be doing on ourselves. I can tell you right now that this whole discussion in the course of this afternoon, to me, has transcended form the policy issues to an issue of principle. And I am extremely upset with where this is going.

Wow did Ozment see this coming or what!!

You make some really good points Hairlip.

Now let's see who the spin doctors will be to attract your comments. Now that Bruce has made all the transcripts available to read, everyone can ask Todd or any other member what they think of the transcribe records of the meeting. To darn bad we didn't have those transcripts before Bob had to shut down the "other" thread.

There is much to talk about, and I am glad to see that you have taken the time to read that transcript. I hear that its been sent out to the press, and several hunting and fishing publications to review. It's about time that the sport fishermen get an opportunity to see why some rules that make no sense to many get put into our fish and game rules.

I have noticed that the ones who where carrying the sword have fallen back a pace or two once the real story became public. I am glad to see that we are all now talking about the "facts" instead of about a discussion of each other.

I see that Jerry has now stated

I wonder why Jerry or the other WSC members didn't come out and tell the board that on the first thread" Wild Steelhead Kill Outlawed in WA for 2 Yrs!" ? Seems to me that there were some 670 posts made before the thread was locked up, and I don't recall the fact that WSC ever admitted that they had meet with 7 of the 8 Commissioners. I could be wrong, so if someone wants to go back through all those posts, maybe that issue can be cleared up.

I wonder if WSC told the commissioners the facts that were stated by the well known and highly respected member "Smalma"? He just posted this on the thread "Best Organization?"
Would all of those Commissioners still have voted for WSR if they had been given that same information? Maybe that's why we were supposed to have an open and public comment period before any special agendas are slipped to a vote!



Good job!


Cowlitzfisherman

I'll have to agree that whatever anyone else's opinion might be on the legality of decision, it seems clear that at least several of the Commisioners believed they were acting outside of the prescribed legal and ethical guidelines.

The commissioners have had that information for 2 years Cow, they were well aware of the questionaire. If, when you read the transcript, your eyes and mind are open you can see that the commissioners that voted for the moritorium were concerned for the resource and also concerned about the public imput but they put their concern for the resource first.

In looking at our own statistics for the last couple of years, we continue to see what many of us refer to as the Washington or the Puget Sound fish curve, which can be applied to any state or province, which is basically high on the left and low on the right. We’re going downhill with these fish, and I just say when are we going to try to protect them and save what’s left. And that’s why I make the motion; I are about these fish. I think there’s enough fish for those who want to take a fish home, but as wild fish continue to diminish, when are we going to make a decision to save them?


In looking at our own statistics for the last couple of years, we continue to see what many of us refer to as the Washington or the Puget Sound fish curve, which can be applied to any state or province, which is basically high on the left and low on the right. We’re going downhill with these fish, and I just say when are we going to try to protect them and save what’s left. And that’s why I make the motion; I are about these fish. I think there’s enough fish for those who want to take a fish home, but as wild fish continue to diminish, when are we going to make a decision to save them?


Are we going to sit here and not say, “Lets turn; let’s take some action and turn this around,” or are we going to continue to go in that direction? I’d rather take the chance and err on the side of, again, the benefit of the doubt goes to the resource, and somebody jive years form now can tell me, “You didn’t need to do that, “ rather than answering to folks in five or ten years saying, “why didn’t you do something? You knew which way the graph was going” So, I’m there; the benefit of the doubt-close call- the benefit of the doubt goes to the resource. And I think that is such a priceless resource, and we have unknown valued of these genetic variations that we have no idea today how valuable they’ll be in the future. I’m not willing to take that-to wait any longer to take some action.


If we’re down to – I was no a privy to the meetings and discussions two years ago, but another fact that if we have gone form 16 rivers at that point down to 11 now, that’s further evidence hat these runs are continuing downward. I think it’s incumbent upon us a the Commission to step forward and take the lead, and say we are here to preserve and enhance our natural resource. And I can’t sit by and watch this go over the cliff and have none of us able to retrieve it.