Crowd expected for Fish and Game vote

Frontiersman

WASILLA — Controversy spilling over from an Anchorage election will likely cause a large turnout Wednesday when eight volunteers are appointed to the Matanuska Valley Fish and Game Advisory Committee.

The committee is one of 82 statewide tasked with making recommendations to the Alaska Boards of Fisheries and Game on fish and wildlife management. The committees are designed to give the public a forum to talk about the issues facing the boards, and then for residents on the committee to make recommendations to the boards, Matanuska Valley Advisory Committee chairman Tony Russ said.

But, Russ said, the committees’ resolutions are simply opinions the boards listen to when making management decisions, no different than the opinions of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game or the general public.

Yet, deciding who forms the committees’ opinions took a contentious turn last week when opposing user groups fought for the eight open seats on the Anchorage advisory committee.

The fight was roughly split into two groups — the consumptive hunters, fishers and trappers, and the non-consumptive conservationists. Each group circulated a list of candidates they were hoping to see appointed.

All eight candidates elected to the Anchorage committee were on the consumptive list, beating out those supported by the non-consumptive users by a margin of almost 2 to 1.

Conservationists cried foul, as the voting process was relatively lackadaisical. Ballots were not numbered, and identification was not checked for legitimacy. Election officials said they checked the ballots to make sure there were no repeat voters, but more than 10 percent of the voters listed addresses outside the municipality of Anchorage.

But, Russ said, anyone living inside the eight management units of Southcentral Alaska is allowed to vote for the members of any of the advisory committees in the region. The process was designed like that because the advisory committees make recommendations on management decisions statewide, and even local management decisions can have regional impacts.

As such, Russ said he expects a big turnout Wednesday at the election for the Matanuska Valley Advisory Committee. Eight seats are up for appointment, he said, and anyone interested can run. The candidates will be giving two to three minutes to make a pitch before voters cast their ballots. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the Wasilla High School theater.

Russ said it is unfortunate the battle has been phrased in the way it has. Consumptive users actually spend the vast majority of their time in the outdoors doing non-consumptive activities, and advisory committees work for conserving healthy stocks of fish and wildlife even if none of the conservation candidates get appointed. If the Anchorage election wasn’t so adversarial, perhaps some of the conservation candidates would have been appointed, he said.

“We want a wide spectrum of interests on the advisory committees,” Russ said. “The big picture is to manage populations of fish and wildlife so they are healthier. That’s the most important thing of course.”

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.

If you go

The election for the Matanuska Valley Fish and Game Advisory Committee is Wednesday starting at 7 p.m. in the Wasilla High School theater.