The beginning of the Board of Fisheries meeting

I’m writing this as the Board of Fisheries (BOF) meeting for the Upper Cook Inlet is happening in Anchorage. So far, things have been a bit chaotic, including one board member sick with Covid 19 and unable to attend, another member, in the San Diego, California area, recovering from a broken pelvis, and the Commissioner of ADF&G called away to Juneau for budget hearings.

As of Monday evening, the member with covid probably won’t be healthy enough to physically attend the meeting until possibly this coming weekend. The meeting is scheduled to end next Tuesday. The broken bone member is hoping to be cleared to fly by this coming Wednesday evening and could be at the meeting on Thursday morning. The board chairperson has stated that he would hold off on proposal deliberations until at least one of the missing board members can physically attend the meeting.

While commissioners missing meetings isn’t a new thing, one of the major objectives of this meeting is revising the late run Kenai king salmon management plan. The board is looking for some guidance and advice in performing this task and was counting on the commissioner to provide this direction. Barring Juneau travel problems, the commissioner is expected to be present at the meeting possibly as early as Tuesday morning, but who knows? Travel to and from Juneau is not dependable this time of year.

One of the board members present holds a Northern District commercial set net permit and actively fishes it for part of his annual income. There are several proposals pending which would affect the Northern District set net fishers’ ability to fish. In addition, Central District drift fishers’ have several more proposals pending.

This is important since the salmon must pass through the Central District drift net fishery area to reach the Northern District. Any actions taken on these various proposals could be either direct conflicts of interest or, at best, perceived conflicts of interest. The chairperson ruled the set net member couldn’t participate in a large number of proposals.

The board spent over an hour on the opening day of the meeting reviewing this member’s potential conflicts. The member stated that he was recusing himself from participating in about a dozen Northern District set net proposals. This recusal was challenged by another board member who felt that there were many more proposals which the set net member shouldn’t participate in because, at best, a perception of conflict of interest existed.

The back-and-forth discussion by all board members revolved around how significant or insignificant these potential changes would be on income for the set net member. When all was said and done, the board voted (4-2) to allow the set net member to participate fully in all proposals except the ones he had originally recused himself from.

The key in this whole discussion was the word “insignificant.” I went through a similar “interrogation” during my time on the BOF for the Upper Cook Inlet meeting. At the time, my mother-in-law owned a Cook Inlet set net permit. However, the permit hadn’t been fished in fifteen years. My mother-in-law wanted to keep the permit because it was one of the original Cook Inlet permits issued back in the day and she was very proud that it was her permit.

I was originally conflicted out on forty-nine proposals because she owned the permit. I challenged the recusals using the argument of significant or insignificant effect on either the income of fishing the permit or the value of the permit itself. I found information showing how other factors had much more bearing on the value of the fish each year. Board actions on any given fishery were an exceedingly small part in influencing the income an individual would make from that fishery.

When I asked for a vote of board members on whether I could participate, the outcome was 6-0 to overrule the chairperson’s original ruling and allow me to fully participate in discussions and deliberations. I ended up being conflicted out on one proposal which was dealt with by the board voting to take no action before I had a chance to walk to the back of the room to get a cup of coffee!

One other item of significance also occurred. During public testimony, eight members of the Mat-Su Borough Fish and Wildlife Commission and borough staff testified in a block, each on a different topic. Several folks, including some members of the BOF, told us we did an impressive job. That was nice to hear.