Judge decides there's truth to MLPA cover up

Robert Fletcher, a former DFG Deputy Director and past president of the Sportfishing Association of California, had his day in court Thursday, this time as a member of the South Coast Regional Stakeholders Working Group fed up with his brush with a Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI) process which he claimed was anything but open and transparent. And Judge Patrick Marlette of the Sacramento County Superior Court agreed with him.

Marlette ordered both the Science Advisory Team (SAT) and the Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) to turn over records of all communications and background documents for decisions made during the South Coast MLPAI project to create a new array of marine protected areas along the Southern California coastline. In a 16-page decision, the judge gave the bodies 10 days to comply with the order.

Perhaps even more important for future legal battles, the judge said both the SAT and the BRTF were governmental subsets of California's Resources Agendy and not merely citizen advisory panels. As such they must answer to state regulations such as the Public Records Act and Bagley-Keene open meeting requirements.

"Clearly the court wasn't sold by the arguments of the attorney general representative that the BRTF and SAT were advisory and therefore not subject to a Public Records Request," said Fletcher. "It was a big win for recreational anglers in that we have the opportunity to get communications we've been wanting that will show we think that this is not the clean and transparent process they'd like us to believe. This is obviously the first step in process of gradually peeling the blinkers off the process and making the world realize what an unequal and biased process it is."

This in stark contrast to statements made during this past week's special session of the Fish and Game Commission when a vote by commissioners to extend comment on environmental documents only 15 days ensured the South Coast process continue to be fast tracked to approval during the upcoming Dec. 15 meeting in Santa Barbara. This is the last scheduled commission meeting while Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will still be in the seat of power.

The unanimous decision included the vote of Jim Baylis, who had only been a commissioner for one day. He was appointed when the governor removed Mike Sutsos after a mere 18 days on the panel. A vote by Sutsos in favor of the special hearing drew Schwarzenegger's apparent ire.

The California Fish and Game Commission is the only agency with the power to close state waters to fishing, and has already approved MLPAI closures in both the Central Coast and the North Central Coast encompassing hundreds of square miles of public water formerly open to recreational and commercial fishing. The commission vote to approve the North Central Coast also involved political maneuvering by the governor's office, as Don Benninghoven, at the time chair of the BRTF, was named to the panel the day before the vote to provide the majority needed to approve the package he created.

While funds for the iniative process itself are provided through a partnership between the Resources Agency and the private Resources Legacy Foundation Fund (a communal front for charitable trusts), California has little money of its own and currently no budget to draw on to implement and enforce the MLPA.

Faced with a lack of funds and manpower hours in its sister agency, the Department of Fish and Game, for the first time the commission chose only go forward with regulatory language for a South Coast proposal known as the Integrated Preferred Alternative (IPA) that was put together behind closed doors by the BRTF and unveiled at the 11th hour of the process. As a result, the Fish and Game Commission can only approve the IPA package at the Dec. 15 meeting without incurring the delays the governor's office so obviously won't allow. So much for process.

During the first hearings since the IPA was forwarded to the commission and ever since, pro-closure commissioners have scoffed at claims that the process was flawed and denied that actions of the BRTF were subject to governmental oversight. One commissioner has gone so far as to infer that those he termed as obstructionists were in fact liars when they claimed the process was driven by a backroom agenda.

Commissioner Richard Rogers, in particular, was videotaped in open session categorically denying that the BRTF fell under the auspices of Bagley-Keene. Judge Marlette's decision clearly indicates to the contrary, but the tight time lines to bring suit on the basis of Bagley-Keene have already expired.

According to sources in attendance at the hearing, the Attorney General's office indicated it would not appeal Thursday's decision requiring the BRTF and the SAT to turn over all records, so it's now a question of how cooperative the agencies involved will be when it comes to meeting the court order. And what will be found when those records become public.

Meanwhile, the fishermen who have felt powerless in the face of the MLPAI juggernaut got to celebrate a victory.

"We were thrilled by the decision," noted Fletcher. "One point I think is important is that in these PRA cases, the court routinely has a 1 or 2 page decision. The court was so interested in the arguments, the judge really got into the decision and issued a 16-page decision in our favor."

Fletcher acted as plaintiff in association with the United Anglers of Southern California Ocean Access Protection Fund. UASC, a member of the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO), which includes such groups as the American Sportfishing Association, established the Ocean Access Protection Fund to provide the financial support necessary to maintain legal challenges involving the MLPA as well as future threats to recreational access to ocean and coastal waters. Contributors may donate to the fund through the website, www.OceanAccessProtectionFund.org