Help choose next G&F Commissioner

[audsley]

Az Game & Fish Commissioner Bob Hernbrode's term expires at the end of this year. Governor Brewer needs to fill the vacancy by either re-appointing Commissioner Hernbrode to a second term or by appointing a replacement. This is for what has traditionally been southern Arizona's commission seat.

 

Az Sportsmen for Wildlife is hosting a forum for Game & Fish Commission applicants next Tuesday evening, November 3, at the PSE plant (archery equipment manufacturer) at 2727 N. Fairview in Tucson. The event is scheduled for 5:30 to 8 p.m. Candidates will introduce themselves and give their responses to some previously provided questions. If time allows candidates may be asked questions from the floor.

 

Upon arriving all attendees will be given a ballot. At the conclusion of the forum, attendees will be asked to turn in the ballots listing their first, second and third choices for commissioner. Ballots will be secret. Obviously this vote is not binding on the governor's selection, but it is AzSFW's intention to tell the governor how the attending sportsmen ranked the candidates.

 

This forum is open to all licensed hunters and anglers in Arizona. Feel free to bring a fellow hunter or angler. Your voter registration card is your hunting or fishing license.

 

The candidates are:

 

Greg Lucero, Democrat

Santa Cruz County Manager

 

Ted H. Noon, Republican, Pima County (Arivaca)

Assistant State Veterinarian

 

Donnelly Andrew Dybus, Independent, Tucson

Attorney at Buchalter Nemer

 

John Harris, Independent

Police Chief, Town of Sahuarita

 

Jack Williams, Independent, Sierra Vista

Retired Graham County Attorney

 

Bob Hernbrode, Democrat, Tucson

Retired wildlife biologist seeking re-appointment to a second term

 

I'm hoping some of you who post on this forum will take the time to come down and meet the candidates as well as some of your fellow sportsmen who are active in conservation work. You might even catch a glimpse of CMC.

 

PSE is located on the west side of Fairview between Grant and Glenn. Do not use the south entrance near the pro shop and archery range as it will probably be locked. Go to the north parking lot entrance and come into the second big building from the north, entering that building from the breezeway at the north end of the building.

[.270]

question- why do the candidates always have to have some sort of political or professional affilliation? i see these guys are all either politically employed, reitired from politics or some other form of gov't employment. why don't you guys come up with some guy with no political or professional affilliation that is just concerned about Az. wildlife? why's it always hafta be political? is that some rule? the single biggest problem with the azgfd commission is that it is a political appointment. those considered for appointment always have some sort of political slant or aspiration. the ones doing the appointing dang sure do. and they always make decisions based on political pressure. wildlife do not have any political leanings. they can't tell if they get shot by a republican or a democrat. our wildlife is dependent on people. things have been changed and "managed" too much to just let nature take it's course. we have to step in now and give things a nudge. why make it political? if you guys actually have some input then input someone who isn't a puppet. i'd bet there will be a dozen folks at this meeting that will be much better candidates than anyone on this list. Lark.

[billrquimby]

Lark:

 

The laws that established the commission were designed originally to REDUCE political pressure on wildlife management decisions.

 

They mandate that no more than three of the five commissioners may be from the same political party, and that each must reside in a different county. Terms are staggered to reduce the possibility that a single governor will dominate the panel. Although a standing governor can fire the entire commission, such action requires a reason and a hearing.

 

This is not true in all other states.

 

Although you don't like having commissioners appointed by a politician, sportsmen are so drastically outnumbered that we sure don't want our commissioners to be elected by a vote of all Arizona citizens.

 

 

Bill Quimby

 

 

 

[Snapshot]

question- why do the candidates always have to have some sort of political or professional affilliation? i see these guys are all either politically employed, reitired from politics or some other form of gov't employment. why don't you guys come up with some guy with no political or professional affilliation that is just concerned about Az. wildlife? why's it always hafta be political? is that some rule? the single biggest problem with the azgfd commission is that it is a political appointment. those considered for appointment always have some sort of political slant or aspiration. the ones doing the appointing dang sure do. and they always make decisions based on political pressure. wildlife do not have any political leanings. they can't tell if they get shot by a republican or a democrat. our wildlife is dependent on people. things have been changed and "managed" too much to just let nature take it's course. we have to step in now and give things a nudge. why make it political? if you guys actually have some input then input someone who isn't a puppet. i'd bet there will be a dozen folks at this meeting that will be much better candidates than anyone on this list. Lark.

 

 

I agree 100%

 

[natureboyfloyd]

What are the important things to look for in this position?

Thanks for the heads up.

[audsley]

Important things to look for? There are different opinions. I'll give you mine.

 

Knowledge about wildlife is listed in the statute as an eligibility requirement. Lots of ways to get that. And anyone can study up, get some coaching and sound like they know something.

 

Some feel all G&F commissioners should be hunters. Others want to see active membership in conservation groups like RMEF, ADBSS, SCI and similar organizations. However, I've heard that years before I was paying much attention, governors were appointing people from business and political circles who had hunted very little if at all and had little knowledge about hunting, and that these people gradually learned to appreciate and respect hunters for our contributions. Eventually they became highly effective spokespeople for sportsmen and wildlife because of their connections and status in other circles. Or so I've been told. (Where's Bill Quimby when you need him? He was there and could probably corroborate or refute this.)

 

A hunter who speaks out on behalf of hunters is perceived by the press, public and other public officials as speaking for his own interests. But a non-hunter speaking out for hunting doesn't have that baggage and might have more credibility.

 

This could be a moot point this time around because most if not all the applicants I know of are hunters. But I don't think you want to base your vote on who is the most avid hunter. I've known some avid hunters I wouldn't want anywhere near the commission. I've also known some casual hunters I think might make excellent commissioners.

 

Unless you're a rich guy who is happy to buy his way into exclusive hunting areas, look for someone who respects the idea of public lands hunting and hunting opportunities for all.

 

Commissioners have to deal with inter-agency relations. Forest Service, BLM, US Fish & Wildlife and the state land dept., for example. Someone who understands what makes government agencies tick the way they do will be more effective than one who makes a show of telling govt. agencies what they should be doing.

 

Commissioners also have to understand the impacts of proposed federal and state legislation and whether to support or oppose such legislation. Recent examples are bills creating federal wilderness designations, the American Wildlife Heritage Act that would give the forest service and BLM increased authority over wildlife, and a recent Grijalva-co-sponsored bill that would allow tens of thousands of feral horses and burros to spread over our public lands tearing the heck out of the place. Commissioners need to know which bills to support or oppose, and what is the best strategy for advancing or slaying them.

 

Commissioners may also have to make decisions about the many lawsuits being filed against AGFD and other agencies these days. They get guidance from the attorneys assigned by the attorney general, but commissioners need to know how to push the buttons to make those attorneys perform. Sometimes state-furnished attorneys seem inclined to pursue low-risk, low-effort options when giving the department legal advice. (Just my opinion.) That might be in the best interests of the state's salaried attorneys, but not necessarily for wildlife or for sportsmen. Sometimes the commission needs to play a little offense.

 

Obviously there's a lot of legal and political calculating required, but you also want someone who deeply cares about hunting and wildlife, and is willing to fight for it. Ideally I'd like a Justice John Roberts wearing a coonskin cap and itching to whip his weight in mountain lions.

 

But something else is needed too. Hunting needs a Great Communicator, someone who fully grasps North American Conservation ideology and can take to the bully pulpit with it, inspiring others and persuading skeptics. If you haven't already seen Shane Mahoney's "third wave" speech to Dallas Safari Club on Youtube, you need to google it and watch. Arizona needs its own plain-speaking verion of Shane Mahoney on the commission being followed around by the press. Someone interesting enough to compete for media attention with Sheriff Joe.

 

Today's outdoorsman is on the brink of extinction and barely realizes it. Public attitudes are shifting toward the belief that humans should simply leave wildlife alone. That goes for biologists as well as sportsmen. In his recent essay "The Myth of Eden" Shane Mahoney wrote "For many people who have not had our (hunters) experiences, the notion that man should withdraw from nature (or only passively engage it as a voyeur) will resonate as a sort of 'return to Eden' vision... Driven by an understandable love and fascination for wild creatures - but with life experiences that have no connection to the birth-and-death drama of the planet's natural systems - many in the public will simply wish that animals remain untouched."

 

The American sportsmen's ideology and accomplishmdnts are superior to that of the restriction-loving preservationist. Now we need a messianic messenger who can jumpstart efforts to get our story to the rest of America.

[Jessedr]

I'm with 270 on this.

[.270]

bill, i understand the process intimatley. i just wonder why all the choices are always political. always. jack husted is the only guy i can remember that wasn't a 100% total politcal favor. had a good friend, well actually several, who were commissioners. the one guy, won't mention his name, had to change his political registration from republican to democrat so symington could nominate him. what good did that do? he didn't change his views just because he re-registered. look at this list here. politicians, every one of em. why not nominate you or amanda or just some guy that is a straight shooter and has some real knowledge and experience with Az and it's flaura and fauna? why's it always gotta be a dang politician? we get too many decisions that depend on political pressure and not what is best for Az. wildlife. the commission isn't supposed to be there to represent hunters or anglers or politicians. they are supposed to be there to represent the things that can't represent themselves, the wildlife. they have no say. the azgfd and the commission is supposed to do what is the absolute best for Az's wildlife and if they do what is best and if those decisions allow hunters and anglers the opportunity to take game and fish then things are working ok. the wildlife is supposed to come first. but it doesn't. it comes about 3rd or 4th. first is money. sell as many tags as possible to finance whatever. won't even go into it, but it isn't managed very well. second is political pressure. from whichever way the wind blows. then sportsmen. then even the opinions of anti's are added in there. then maybe after all this, the wildlife is taken into consideration. but the best welfare of the wildlife isn't. from what i can see, they are like livestock to the azgfd. sell as many of em as you can to make money. anyway, i'll get off the soap box, but i wanna know why every dang one of the guys on the list are politically connected and why every dang commissioner in the last 40 years has been. i'll bet there is at least one right now that has never shot an animal in their life. Lark.

[azoutlaw]

Get rid of that idiot and get someone new. I have been going back and forth with him on some stuff via email and he is a complete moron. There has to be someone else better for the job.

[audsley]

I hardly know what to say about .270's remarks.

 

He points to Jack Husted as the only commissioner whose appointment was not "a 100% political favor." While Husted is well-qualified and so far promises to be one of our better commissioners, it's hard to make a case that he's the sole, shining example of a non-political appointee. He's served as a town councilman in Eager, ran unsuccessfully for Apache County board of supervisors in 2008, was a delegate to the Republican national convention and has been chairman of the state transportation board, a governor-appointed position. This probably amounts to more prior government service than all the other commissioners combined. But politics and wildlife advocacy are not mutually exclusive. He's also an avid hunter, has been a reserve G&F officer and has shown astuteness about the political forces currently working to re-shape Arizona's wildlife and land use policy in ways most of us wouldn't like.

 

My knowledge of the current applicants is uneven and very incomplete. I know much more about some than others. However, I can tell you that the list .270 doesn't approve of contains the following:

 

- At least two avid Coues hunters who have hunted southern Arizona all their lives, have taken trophy Coues and have sons they'd like to keep this tradition alive for.

 

- One avid bowhunter who has been active with sportsmen conservation groups over the years, having once served as president of the Az Desert Bighorn Sheep Society.

 

- One individual who has volunteered hundreds of hours advocating for hunter access. This includes working to keep landowners from closing access roads to national forest and BLM lands and advocating for sportsmen in travel management and forest plans. This is hardly the work of a glory hound, but rather is behind-the-scenes effort most sportsmen aren't even aware of.

 

I suggest that rather than dismiss the applicants for having performed too much public service, both appointed and elected, that folks like .270 take the trouble to show up next Tuesday and get the basis for an informed opinion. Then share your impressions on this forum. You might find that while there could be one or two duds, there are probably at least three or four really good men competing for one position.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[.270]

well, i know jack pretty good. we both served together as republican precinct committee members in RV at one time. he used to own the local pizza joint. was a town councilman, all that stuff. ran for county supv, etc, etc. and he is also a sportsman. i've had him check my license and kills numerous times over the years while he was on the azgfd posse or whatever it is. he has a real interest in wildlife and i'm confidant he'll do what he thinks is best, not what the rest o' the good ol' boys say is best. i'm sure his poltical ties had a lot to do with his appointment, but he's the only guy on the current commission that i have any confidence in to do what is right no matter what kinda heck he catches over it. again, wildlife has to come first and it "NEVER" does.

 

look at the list:

 

town manager= politician.

police chief= politician

retired county attorney= politician

assistant state vetrinarian= political appointee

retired wildlife bioligist and sitting member= i have to put this one as a political job too. don't know where he was a bioligist, but i'd guess for the azgfd, therefore he has a lot of built in bias.

attorney= attorney.

 

is there not one person in this state who isn't politically affilliated or is being paid back as a political favor who is qualified to be on the commission? these guys might be the best thing since homemade soap, but i see politicians who are being repaid for something. they might be absolutely qualified and have the best interest of Az. wildlife at heart, but there has to be at least one guy in this state who isn't a politcian or isn't politically connected that isn't at least as qualified or even more. i refuse to believe that there. isn't one non-degreed, non-affilliated, non-biased sportsman in this state that isn't completely and totally qualified to be on the commission and who would make an excellent commissioner. every time a list comes out it is the same thing with different names. attorneys, doctors, politicians, people who have never had a hunting license and have never hunted or fished in their lives. like i said before, one good friend who was on the commission hadn't hunted enough to even know what it's about. had to change political parties in order to get the appointment. and he was a good guy. i really liked him and valued his friendship, had a great family, an all around good guy. but there ain't anyway he was even remotely qualified to be on the commission. look at the jokers we've had in past 20 or 30 years. some rancher woman from down by tucson. she said and did some of the stupidest things i've heard of. the whole commission that sat around and let uso pull it's tricks and i feel was perfecly happy with the outcome until the sportsmen in the state threatened complete anarchy. we have the one hugger on there now that the state refused to seat so mr naplitano did it with some executive order. this bunch we have now that had the divine inspiration to do away with 25% of lion season for 99% of the hunters because a few guys said they didn't want to run their dogs in the summer. then don't run em, don't screw the rest of us out of 25% of the season. the same buncha guys that sat around and let the rocky bighorns get far enough south to get in the same herds with desert sheep. it goes on and on. politics first, wildlife maybe 3rd or 4th, if it's conveniient. again, these might be great guys, but they aren't being considered becasue of that. it's political. Lark.

 

 

[azpackhorse]

Hope to see some of you at this tonight

[billrquimby]

<<<<<<"Some feel all G&F commissioners should be hunters. Others want to see active membership in conservation groups like RMEF, ADBSS, SCI and similar organizations. However, I've heard that years before I was paying much attention, governors were appointing people from business and political circles who had hunted very little if at all and had little knowledge about hunting, and that these people gradually learned to appreciate and respect hunters for our contributions. Eventually they became highly effective spokespeople for sportsmen and wildlife because of their connections and status in other circles. Or so I've been told. (Where's Bill Quimby when you need him? He was there and could probably corroborate or refute this.)">>>>>>

 

Audsley: The time has long passed when sportsmen dictated who served on the commission. I covered nearly every commission meeting from 1967 to 1994, and came to feel that the most avid sportsmen often made the worst commissioners. They came to the panel with opinions and agendas and could not be budged, even with solid biological data. Early on, the Arizona Game Protective Association (soon to become the Arizona Wildlife Federation) controlled the appointment process through Bill Hardt, the chairman of the Arizona Senate Natural Resources Committee. No one got the appointment without the blessing of the AGPA/AWF and Hardt. That changed when Bruce Babbitt appointed Frances Werner and was able to get the appointment ratified. By then, the AWF's membership has slipped to only about 1,000 across the state.

 

Lark: Bob Hernbrode indeed has a degree in wildlife biology and, while he was employed by the Arizona Game and Fish Department, he rose to the position of regional game specialist for southern Arizona. He left that job and moved to Colorado, where he served in a variety of positions in the Division of Wildlife there. He is a hunter, but not a trophy hunter. (I have been told that when he was in Colorado, he shot a cow elk every year.) He was among those in AGFD who tried unsuccessfully to dump our permit-only, multiple-opening-day deer hunting system on its tenth anniversary. Wildlife managers loved the system, however. They rebelled and lobbied sportsmen, who pressured the commission to keep the system.

 

Talk about politics. We got deer permits because of just two men, even though there was no biological need to reduce hunting. Deer numbers and hunter success were stable, even growing in some areas of the state. Nonetheless, George Parker of Amado, an international big game hunter and a sometimes Coues deer guide, came unglued when he heard that Arizona had sold more than 100,000 deer tags in 1969. He called Bill Hardt and convinced him that we needed a five-year moratorium on all deer hunting. This happened at a time when AGFD employees had not had a pay raise in years. When AGFD Director Bob Jantzen showed up before Hardt's committee to ask for a raise (employee salaries are based on a percentage of the director's), Hardt hit him with the moratorium threat and Jantzen quickly folded. In exchange for his pay raise, he promised "to do something for the deer."

 

What Jantzen did was send a memo to his regional supervisors, asking for recommendations on how to reduce deer hunting by 30% close to Tucson and Phoenix. This meant permits, even though there was no indication that they were needed. What happened next were complaints from the wildlife managers of areas next to the targeted areas, saying they expected to be overrun with hunters. The impact was like knocking over a single domino in a long line of dominos -- the proposal the agency eventually took to the commission in 1970 called for permits in all units and a 30% reduction in deer hunting statewide.

 

Despite what some on this forum might say, money is not why the commission authorizes more tags. The fact that deer hunting has been reduced more than 60% from its 1969 level should be proof enough of that. After 27 years of closely following its actions, I would say exactly the opposite has been true. Time after time, I watched proposals to cut permits fly without question. Proposals to increase permits, even by only a few hundred, almost always resulted in heavy grilling by the commissioners of the regional people.

 

Would love to attend tonight's meeting, but I've been ill and my wife won't let me leave the house.

 

Bill Quimby

[cmc]

Lark... We're asking folks in a political office (Gov. and legislator) to approve of a person to sit on a commission.

 

So ya politics are involved and I don't see that changing any time soon. That is unless you get folks in those political positions release their power in appointment and approval to someone else. That would take... well... some political tactics.

 

Nice post BillQ.

 

cmc

[cmc]

Part 1 Shane Mahoney Speaks at Dallas Safari Club 2009 Convention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p6L_v2vFs0

 

Part 2 Shane Mahoney Speaks at 2009 Dallas Safari Club Drumbets Convention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUtF1x3S6Es...feature=related

 

enjoy...

 

cmc