Friday, May 2, 2008 - New servers are in! Click-in for more info!
VoyForums

[ VoyUser Login optional ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 03:22:39 04/28/04 Wed
Author: Don Johnson
Subject: SB 69 Special Interest Board of Fish Members

SB 69 Special Interest Board of Fish Members
IP: 24.237.250.150
Posted on April 28, 2004 at 05:13:53 AM by Don Johnson

SB 69 Special Interest Board Members

I see Senator Wagoner has been up to no good by sponsoring SB 69
which is a Board of Fisheries Conflicts of Interest Bill. I ask that you reject SB 69.

SB 69 attempts to get us to desire to have persons and groups with special interests sitting
on our Alaska Boards. SB 69 actually desires to allow board of fish members to have personal
or financial interests in the public issues they will be voting on.
This attempt to allow conflict of interest within our Alaska boards is a very large part of the reason
we have so much contention when our Alaskan boards make decisions for the public.
I believe the Alaskan general public sees these special interest board members as not
representing them or the common good. I believe drafters of SB 69 are
not working for the common public good but instead for special interest groups.

Take a look at the special interests sitting on the Kenai River Special Management Area Board.
I have been observing KRSMA board members come and go for years and there is one thing which most
of them appear to have in common, most of them are Special Interest Bureaucrats, SIB.
I define a SIB as a person who is very good at talking, ax grinding and avoiding the common good.
Anyone can be a SIB they just need to be more interested in their own personal agenda than the common good.

When I go into a KRSMA meeting I expect to see about 17 board members actively grinding an equal
number of "special interest axes". I expect to see sparks flying everywhere as each board members
attempts conceal their true hidden & personal agenda while they work to "make the world a better place".
The annual agenda appears to be to locate a group of people who stand between them and whatever
they want. These board members then target the group if it is not well represented on the KRSMA.
The board then declares open season on them.
All the freshly sharpened axes then become sound science "management tools" as they attempt to
manage away "to a galaxy far far away..." at the unfortunate target group

Many times these special interest board members work very hard to make sure
that they are the only ones able to do the things everyone would like to do. My point is that
anyone can manipulate an issue to work in their favor but that is what special interest board members do.
They grab only the sound science on their side of an issue and make-believe the sound science on the
other side does not exist. Sometimes it really does not even matter what the truth of an issue is,
most of Alaska's special interests board members are working so hard to discover what is good for
themselves that they have little chance of locating the public good.
I claim that many special interest board members place their own personal agendas before the public good.
I claim that many of these members have huge personal special interest axes to grind and many times
those axes are much more important than the public good.
If Alaska wants to look for the truth on an issue it need only put together a working group
"without special interest axes to grind". This is no doubt impossible because Alaska currently
believes that only people with a special interests qualify to decide Alaska's big issues.
This incorrect belief forces a real catch 22 situation. This desire to have only special interests decide
our big public issues produces so much personal ax grinding that most of the time the public good
takes a back seat.

Alaska deliberately does not place special interests like cops or criminals on its juries because it
believe's them to reduce the chances of justice. Alaska also currently allows special interests
like river bank owners, sport fishermen and gill netters on its State boards
"to increase the chances of justice"? Does this make any sense to you?
It makes very little sense to me. I suggest that we do the opposite of what SB 69 desires.
I suggest that we remove all special interest board members from our State Boards
and give justice and our natural resources a chance.

SB 69 will be having a teleconferences on April 28, Wednesday, 8:30am.
THE PURPOSE OF SB 69 is to require members of the board to participate in issues that come
before the board even though the members have a personal or financial interest in the matter by
virtue of their participation in a fishery.

We will have a chance to say what we think about having special interest bureaucrates
on our Alaska Board of Fish. I request that you reject SB 69 and instead remove all special interest
board members from the Alaska Board of Fish and place open minded persons on that Board.
I would like to see the Board of Fish ran like our current jury system.
Place the information and the evidence before them and allow them to make the same type of
decision a jury makes.
If we can afford to trust a jury with our very lives, I think we might also be able to trust a
Board of Fish Jury with managing a natural resource.


Thank you.

Don Johnson
Soldotna, Alaska 99669

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 2.94, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2008 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.