WDFW did not request funding for a 2027 Skagit-Sauk season

Chris DeLeone said:
No, I don't think so, I think Kelly Cunningham said this in a TEAMS/zoom meeting or in a meeting with the team that works under him. The statement fits his managerial approach ........................... "not real effective"
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Is there a witness I could talk to about that?
 
BriGuy said:
If you know the date and subject of the meeting, you could submit a public records request for a recording, if there was one made.
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The state has gotten themselves in some trouble becuase they use teams and in doing so the written messages sent during these meeting are supposed to kept. I know that other government agencies either don't use teams or turn off that messaging feature.

What Cunningham said is something that I have heard before in bad budget times. It's a product of the system. The politicians are the ones who hold the purse strings. If a constituency speaks up for a program/ department, it's far more likely to be funded. In the short term, it's helpfully that the public "feels the pain" of a program/ departments budget woes as that may make them contact their rep's. Over time, I think the tactic wears on the public and makes them far less intersted in aiding the department. That is sort of where WDFW is IMO.

WDFW has to make choices as to what programs and fisheries it will fund. I think that they have chosen against the Skagit steelhead season because they see it as a fishery that they may be able to get the fiserhmen to lobby for increased funding to support it. No one is going to write any letters if the lower river spring king fishery goes away. Even the river sockeye fishery won't generate any activism. The steelhead fishery has TU lobbying for it in conjunction with their quicksilver portfolio and has a group of epople who have already gone out of their way to lobby for it historically. IMO, the passion people have for this fishery works against it within the current funding paradigm.

My thought is that Skagit fishermen either have to lobby for funding directly, or make the case that the department should use money now directed at spring kings fishing and in-river sockeye fishing for it. The question becomes do you think you can lobby the legistlature for funding or persuade the department to change their priorities?

I guess it is time to write an e-mail. Well, two actually.
 
charles sullivan said:
What Cunningham said is something that I have heard before in bad budget times. It's a product of the system. The politicians are the ones who hold the purse strings. If a constituency speaks up for a program/ department, it's far more likely to be funded. In the short term, it's helpfully that the public "feels the pain" of a program/ departments budget woes as that may make them contact their rep's. Over time, I think the tactic wears on the public and makes them far less intersted in aiding the department. That is sort of where WDFW is IMO.
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If this "feel the pain" comment was actually said, I would like to look the fucker in the eyes and ask him "What the fuck did we do?"

WDFW should be advocating for us, not punishing us.
 
_WW_ said:
If this "feel the pain" comment was actually said, I would like to look the fucker in the eyes and ask him "What the fuck did we do?"

WDFW should be advocating for us, not punishing us.
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I understand what you are saying. My belief is that we have been "feeling the pain" for a hell of a long time. It's a shitty statement.

When you fell the pain for long enough it turns to fatigue. That's where we are at. The pain no longer motivates me like it once did. It's become fatigue.
 
My plan now is to invest as much effort in obeying the rules as they put into funding the season.
 
It would be illuminating to see a time lapse map of salmon and steelhead fishing opportunity in Washington 1970 to the present (freshwater and saltwater).
 
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