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President Message



State Board Presidents Message for February by Ron Garner

New Governor Ferguson, we have not opportunity to talk with yet. But we need to talk with him on the WDFW Commission.

The recent Ruckelshaus report called the commission “dysfunctional.”
In the report it gave three options to address the WDFW governance structure:

Option 1: Maintain the status quo.
Option 2: Establish WDFW as a cabinet agency.
Option 3: Maintain the Commission, but address multiple significant Issues with comprehensive, simultaneous reforms.
In 1995, Referendum 45 was established and voted in. It was to make a WDFW commission, giving the public a voice to natural resources. The commission gets direct control over the director. No governor wants a fish and wildlife director out of their immediate control. Inslee purposely started appointing commissioners that do not fit in the WDFW mandate. By design, he made them dysfunctional. The commission process is not broken. Its mandate has not being followed to maximize hunting and fishing, Some of his appointees won’t follow this. Anti-hatchery and animal rights groups have lobbied the previous governor’s office to stop hunting, close hatcheries, and cut hatchery production.

The curve ball that Inslee did at the 11th hour was to appoint an eastern Washington person that is wolf friendly and reappoint Tim Regan to the commission. It’s no secret that we have three previous commissioners that are being worked over by the anti-groups. Tim is one. Molly Linville was not reappointed per ours, hunters, and tribal request. We also requested that Jim Anderson be reappointed. He is in limbo currently. We also requested for Wayne Clifford to be appointed. Wayne was not appointed as he was told he was "too hunting and too fishing!" This admits that the commission is being changed via the previous governor’s office to make it dysfunctional.

We just met with the new Senate Natural Resources and Agricultural committee chair to discuss this. After our meeting he was meeting with Governor Ferguson to discuss this. We asked him to take our request to the governor to recall the two new appointments, reappoint Jim Anderson and Molly Linville, and install Wayne Clifford. This also reflects the tribal letters. That is was not right for Inslee to drop this into their laps as it puts them in a bad spot and if they do status quo its going to start a huge fire. Also we want option three to keep the commission and fix it back to its original form. But could not live with it in its current form.

We do not have any confirmation of where this is going to go at this point. Please stay tuned as this could get ugly and we might have not choice but to go to war. We are trying to do the peaceful route first and give the governor his chance to do the right thing. If they keep the two commissioners, then they own the problem.

I want to leave you with, that we do have and had some exceptional commissioners, that have been working with us, but this Inslee action was to shift the commission vote away from fishing and hunting.

·       Ron Garner President PSA