Public meeting set on issuing Idaho wolf hunt tags set Jan. 25 in Boise

This was announced today.

PUBLIC MEETING NOTICE

Pursuant to Idaho Code Section 67-2343, notice is hereby given of an open public meeting of the Idaho Fish and Game Commission.

DATE OF NOTICE:    January 23, 2007
DATE OF MEETING:    January 25, 2007 at 1:30 p.m.
PLACE OF MEETING:    Idaho Department of Fish and Game
600 S. Walnut
Boise, Idaho 83707

PERSONS ATTENDING:
Commissioners
Director
Staff

PURPOSE OF MEETING/AGENDA:    Executive Session: Idaho Code 67-2345 (1) (b) Personnel.
Open Meeting: discussion on proposed tag fee structure related to hunting wolves.

Individuals with disabilities may request meeting accommodations by contacting the Director’s office at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game directly at 208-334-5159 or through the Idaho Relay Service at 1-800-377-2529 (TDD).

25 thoughts on “Public meeting set on issuing Idaho wolf hunt tags set Jan. 25 in Boise

  1. Not only lame (but unsurprising) about the short notice, but isn’t this a bit premature?

  2. Yes, I indeed know that Otter’s office got many phone calls after his little public tirade.
    I won’t be able to go. That is why they gave such short notice.

  3. interesting..seems the Govenrment offices are as lillie white as always .. doing things at the last minute so that the people have no voice in the matter..

  4. I’ve lost track. Is Huffaker still there finishing up as IDFG Director? Is there an interim Acting Director? Or is Cal Groen already in charge?

    In these days of high technology, there is no reason that in a sprawling state like this – where it takes 8 hours or more to drive north-south, 5 or so to get to Idaho Falls from Boise (and not to mention an investment of – depending what vehicle you drive – well over a hundred dollars and at a minumum a day of time – that these meetings can’t be at least speaker-phoned if not fed in some kind of video to IDFG offices or other state building outposts in this farflung state.

    And I kind of recall from the last time I paid attention to the IDFG dead of winter two day notice meetings (circa 2002 in the days of the hare-brained APHIS sage grouse predator killing mania – where badgers, ravens, coyotes, your dog – needed to die in a trapping, snaring, aerial gunning, maybe M-44 use so-called “study” across Idaho so that ranchers would not have to change grzing practices on public lands) that IDFG can at least hook up a speaker phone to various IDFG offices across the state.

    It could even be part of reducing Idaho’s carbon emission footprint on the planet in honor of Al Gore’s visit and part of a general penance to make up for the churlish reporting.

    You know, instead of a wolf advocate from Pocatello having to spend 10 hours round trip in a car to have a voice in this … link ’em up over the new video features of the InterNETS (yes, I used InterNETS as the pall of last nights Bush blathering still lingers). OOPs – that’s right – Larry Craig, Butch Otter and others are still enraged that Al Gore invented the InterNETS! Plus, we wouldn’t want any animal lovers in, say, Pennsylvania listening in in real time and hearing or seeing the IDFG Commission in action and canceling their condo rental in Sun Valley, or their float trip down the Middle Fork Salmon River …

  5. Nice rant. It’s called caffeine kt, please ingest some for your sake.

    While the 48 hour notice can definitely be looked at as an ploy to keep participant numbers down, IDFG did follow state law:

    TITLE 67 STATE GOVERNMENT AND STATE AFFAIRS
    CHAPTER 23
    MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS
    67-2343. NOTICE OF MEETINGS. (1) Regular meetings. No less than a five(5) calendar day meeting notice shall be given unless otherwise provided by statute. Provided however, that any public agency that holds meetings at
    regular intervals of at least once per calendar month scheduled in advance over the course of the year may satisfy this meeting notice by giving meeting
    notices at least once each year of its regular meeting schedule. A forty-eight (48) hour agenda notice shall be required in advance of each regular meeting,
    however, additional agenda items may be added after completion of the agenda up to and including the hour of the meeting, provided that a good faith effort is made to include in the notice all agenda items known at the time to be
    probable items of discussion. The notice requirement for meetings and agendas shall be satisfied by posting such notices and agendas in a prominent place at the principal office of the public agency, or if no such office exists, at the building where the meeting is to be held.
    (2) Special meetings. No special meeting shall be held without at least a twenty-four (24) hour meeting and agenda notice, unless an emergency exists. An emergency is a situation involving injury or damage to persons or property,
    or immediate financial loss, or the likelihood of such injury, damage or loss, when the notice requirements of this section would make such notice impracticable, or increase the likelihood or severity of such injury, damage
    or loss, and the reason for the emergency is stated at the outset of the meeting. The notice required under this section shall include at a minimum the meeting date, time, place and name of the public agency calling for the
    meeting. The secretary or other designee of each public agency shall maintain a list of the news media requesting notification of meetings and shall make a
    good faith effort to provide advance notification to them of the time and place of each meeting.
    (3) Executive sessions. If an executive session only will be held, a twenty-four (24) hour meeting and agenda notice shall be given according to the notice provisions stated in subsection (2) of this section and shall state
    the reason and the specific provision of law authorizing the executive
    session.

  6. Eric T, thanks for the Westlaw help but I am thinking maybe kt wasn’t actually arguing that the meeting was illegal. I believe kt’s point was that issues of enormous public controversy may deserve more than two day’s notice and may call for extra efforts on the part of government officials.

    Just ’cause there’s a law doesn’t make it right. We all learned that in Nuremburg.

  7. Westlaw?

    kt is usually more coherent in her posts, and I wasn’t trying to put her down in any way. In other words, it was a joke. kt provides very good insight to BLM issues.

    My post wasn’t pointed at kt or anyone in particular. The conspiracy theory angle is present in all the posts. This is Idaho and it is how business is done. I merely posted the relevant statute in the press release.

    Comparing Nuremburg to a public meeting re: wolves in Idaho is a little over the top don’t you think?

  8. Ain’t this a bit premature?

    First the FWS has to delist. Then FWS will get sued for not following NEPA and modifying the Recovery Plan. That will take a good year to get the revision done. Then when the revision is complete, they have go through the delisting process again, complete with public hearings, etc. That is another year. Then more lawsuits, etc,etc. A new Administration, etc, etc. Realistically, I don’t see delisting complete for at least 3 years.

  9. I’m most offended at the suggestion that I had not ingested enough caffeine – as a matter of fact, those run-on sentences are a result of just a tad too much. Not the rest of it …

    My point was that it makes sense for this jumping the gun on wolf tags meeting, and all public meetings held in Idaho, to be voice-video-something streamed over the Internet. There must be Tech Geeks out there who would leap at the chance to volunteer to help IDFG bring public outreach fully into the Internet age. AND, having myself put tens of thousands of miles on a vehicle driving the freeway stretch between Twin Falls and Boise alone, that this sprawling state needs to think seriously about how it does business and ways to minimize the pollution and global warming footprint of public meetings and policy making. For example, see HB 666 on wwpblog in sidebar Link here. Now, where is the real world equivalent of that Bill???

    If, say, someone drives from Bonners Ferry to Boise and back one time to attend a Commission meeting – they are likely spend as much in gas and vehicle wear and tear, plus putting many pounds of greenhouses gases into the air, as they would ever get in some hare-brained Otter tax cut proposal.

  10. whether the rediculously quick announcement of the public meeting is legal or not the intention of the law is undercut by the loss of legitimacy which inevitably results from such a knee-jerk move. I hope FWS takes note of the egregiously perverted excersize of this process – i hope that it matters.

    it may be a ‘conspiracy theory’ to point out the politically opportunistic implications of such a hastened/perverted process – but that is the inevitable result of the very disregard for maintaining a perceived legitimacy which i mentioned before.

  11. I believe I’ll just amble on over to that little necktie party with a voice activated tape recorder in my saddle bags.;>)

  12. Bureaucracy and sense, NOW that is funny right there!

    All valid points, however that is not the system with which we are given to work with here in Idaho. It is still an open meeting. You can still submit comments.

    Look at this way, the antis are in the same boat as the pros. Both sides have the same problem with short notice meetings.

  13. Dude– the antis are running the government.

    Of course they don’t have the same problem with short notice meetings. The short notice meetings work to their advantage — that’s why they are using them.

    You are right that this is the system we are given to work in, but the point is not to understand the system, the point is to change it so it is just. Exposing the people who take advantage of this system for political ends is one way to do that — giving them a free pass because they acted within the law is not.

  14. There are photos of one of Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s predator killing fiascoes from the past at:

    http://www.westernwatersheds.org/facts_photos/egghunt/egghunt.htm

    Check out the photos on the right hand side of the link. Realistic, eh???

    This illustrates the lunacy that can result in this state when the livestock industry and Idaho Governor’s office (Kempthorne at the time) seek to kill predators. Yes, I know, I know – in the case of the Oh-so-realistic fake nests, it was to be APHIS Wildlife Services out injecting eggs with poison to kill ravens – along with all the other lethal APHIS actions to be unleashed on mammalian predators with IDFG’s blessings.

    And instead this time, it is supposedly hunters, particularly the Sportsmen for Hate, who somehow can’t find any elk, that are exerting political pressure to force IDFG to make hasty and premature decisions on wolf killing tags …

    But I am betting we can expect the same “Egg Hunt” scenario – where every IDFG biologist involved knew it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, could not speak their mind under penalty of firing, and politics, and especially the Long Shadow of the Public Lands Livestock Industry, drives decisionmaking.

    I also have a comment about Erik T’s perspective – the long-time extreme rightwing domination of this state and shallow and fauning media coverage of those same rightwing policies, has made many people, both inside and outside gov’t agencies, including in some conservation groups – lower expectations and hopes. It’s actually, I believe, been further fueled in recent years by some conservation groups who should be a voice for change being meek, silent or accepting of many public land abuses. Instead of trying to change the system, as demarcatedlandscapes suggests, in seeking to curry favor with these extreme rightwing politicians – especially on a series of quid pro quo land disposal and wilderness bills – they are furthering their enslavement to the system, and lowering the bar on expectations and discourse for everyone.

  15. TO KT – if “quid pro quo” land disposal in Custer County would protect over 319,000 acres of Wilderness in the White Clouds and also keep wolves alive, then bring it on! I know it’s hard losing sleep over giving away a few federal land acres in order to expand the Challis dump, the Challis gun range, the Clayton cemetery, fire station and water storage facility, plus a few acres for a fire station in Blaine County. Yah, Idaho is run by a bunch of rightwingers – so what else is new. Blame conservation groups who have tried to work with ’em for all the problems. Keep on the name calling – that helps a lot. Your solution is? And your long-term plan to achieve it?

  16. Alas, Jordan perhaps you don’t realize that CIEDRA would release 80,000 acres of BLM WSAs, and the Owyhee Initiative would have released 200,000 acres of BLM WSAs that have interim protections from development and new roading. Not to mention the disposal of more lands than you mention in CIEDRA and potentially 75,000 acres including critical sage grouse habitats (and I hope one day wolf habitats) in the Owyhee to be handed over to a tiny clique of some of the very worst public lands ranchers in the country.

    Bottom line: These qpq proposals ultimately diminish landscape-level protections and the chances of large interacting populations of iconic species – be they wolves or sage grouse – persisting relatively unpersecuted.

    My proposal: The status quo is much, much better than the sellout and selloff of public lands. Work (litigation, outreach to the public, stop giving creeps like Simpson a platform to appear statesman like from) to pressure agencies to enforce laws on the book – infinitely better than these sell your soul to the Simpson or Crapo for wilderness that diminishes the Wilderness Act deals.

    Bottomline: Stop being suckered into furthering the other side’s agenda, and lowering the bar for the rest of us.

  17. While defective, I think CIEDRA is one of the few opportunities for some conservation advancement in Idaho.

    I think to pass the bill it will be markedly better than last year because of the new Congress.

    All Idaho Wilderness bills have had compromises attached, and we can always ask the question, was too much given away? However, if we had listened to those who said the compromises were unacceptable, it is doubtful there would be any designated Wilderness in Idaho, instead of over 4-million acres.

    I think KT is right about Nevada’s “Wilderness bills,” but I’d give CIEDRA a chance. It is certainly something good-hearted, reasonable conservationists can disagree over and be pleasant about it.

  18. the green-cover for industry needs to be exposed more – not less. i look forward to a more explicitly relevant topic (they’ve been here in the past).

  19. People on this thread mention the expense of travelling to Boise to attend the meeting in person. If you are one of them you should look into if the expense incurred is tax deductible. It might be considering you are participating in the democratic system of government we have.

  20. I just wanted to go to show my support for the wolves of course.. There are those here with much more knowledge of wildlife than myself.
    Thanks for bringing that to my attention though Bill.

  21. So, the wolves are to be hunted and killed because they’re killing and eating the elk……..

    Funny, I thought that’s what wolves naturally did in the wild!

    Let’s see, the wolves are persecuted because they kill elk; they’re persecuted because they kill cattle.

    Just what are the wolves supposed to do? What are they supposed to eat?

    None of this makes sense to me.

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