[zenspearo]

More enviro RSG pushing to keep External C. They are not taking this for granted, neither should we.

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Fellow stakeholders and BRTF members: (From Garth Murphy)

The new I-team recommendation on voting results for Arrays to move forward for evaluation should be rejected because the voting process was poorly designed by staff and is fatally flawed.

The use of elimination voting instead of positive voting, demanding that each voter vote 4 times instead of just once, mostly for arrays they did not support, resulted in the disenfranchisement of 29 of the RSG members who voted for External C. Though not quite half of the 64 member RSG group, this is a significant number to disenfranchise.

If a single positive vote per RSG member system had been applied to the five contesting arrays, and C had received 29 of the 64 votes it would have been at or near the top of the heap. If C had recieved just 13 votes it still would have made the cut. (the cutoff threshold number is 13 votes, 64 divided by 5.)
At 29 out of 256 votes, it appeared to trail in at last place, a flawed result of a flawed 4 votes per person system that heavily favors the majority.
*This flawed method of elimination voting is never used in elections. This was not a straw vote, ballots were handed out and filled in, with 4 choices demanded for count qualification.

Because so many of the stakeholders in Lapis groups were feeling disenfranchised by the end of the gem groups process leading up to the vote, 29 votes for C is a real possibility, but even if some of the 29 RSG members who voted for External C had voted for Lapis 1, say 12, none would have voted for Lapis 2, A or B and the other 35 votes would have been divided among those other three similar minimal fishery-industry promoted arrays. If C opposition was organized and gave 12 votes to two arrays and 11 to one, C still would have been one of the top four, and maybe at the top with 14 or 15 votes, depending on how the voting shuffled out.

What is certain is that C would never have been eliminated in a positive, one vote per member balllot.
Please do the math with various permutations. The results are the same. A, B, or Lapis 2, possibly even Lapis 1 would have been eliminated.

I believe that all 7 arrays should move forward to evaluation, and that first item of agenda at the next meeting of the RSG, after digesting the evaluations, should be a single vote per member, positive ballot for the array you want to use as a basis for the 3rd round. Then we will get a real idea of what the RSG members need and want to continue with. And no-one will be further disenfranchised by a single flawed vote.

I-team, am sorry I took so long to figure this out. I had always felt used by the vote, in that I was forced to vote for two or three arrays that were unacceptable to me, instead of the one I really identified with. This was the clue I chewed yesterday and on for a long night.

This is a critical decision for the BRTF and RSG moving forward. Please make the fair decision.

Garth Murphy, RSG member

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Hello BRTF, I-Team, and fellow RSG members, (From Jenn Feinberg)

After receiving Ken's memo today, I feel compelled to send this email and communicate my disappointment and frustration with the direction this process has taken.

On May 19th, at the beginning of Round 2, I explicitly and formally voiced a concern in plenary about the “worst-case scenario” in which none of the work groups come to common ground and develop one map. This situation would have resulted in six internal maps and three external maps. Knowing that these nine maps would then need to be winnowed to six through an elimination vote and understanding that five of these maps would likely be variations of FIC/FIN, I had serious concerns that there was no incentive for certain interest groups to compromise. Playing this scenario out, given the makeup of interests on the RSG, if each RSG member received six votes, five similar fishing maps and one map that reflected other interests on the RSG would have moved forward in Round 3.

We were all assured by Ken that maps that were very similar would NOT be forwarded to Round 3 and that any attempts to "game the system" would be thwarted. It was on this assurance that I headed into to Round 2, rolled up my sleeves, and got to the business of trying to meet the guidance provided to us by the BRTF: Meet the science guidelines. Meet DFG feasibility. Develop arrays with cross-interest support.

The results of Round 2 and the vote that followed left me dumbfounded. Not only were 2 maps, Lapis 2 and External A, essentially the same, but External B and Opal also included most of the same geographies as Lapis 2 and External A.

These replicate maps do not meet the science guidelines, some do not meet DFG feasibility, and none were developed with cross-interest support (coordination amongst recreational and commercial fishermen does not constitute cross-interest as the BRTF intended and many interests in Opal formally object that their map does not reflect their interests). Yet because the BRTF provided guidance that Round 2 should result in a total of six maps and because the merger of similar maps was not required, the RSG was required to take a vote that resulted in External Proposal C being eliminated. In addition to this vote being incredibly unfair given the imbalance in the makeup of the RSG, this vote was completely, 100% unnecessary. Had the BRTF guidance to not allow similar proposals to move forward been implemented, we would not be in our current situation.

The recommendation in Ken's memo to delete External Proposal C will force RSG members in Round 3 to compromise on a range of maps, none of which meet the science guidelines.

External Proposal C is the only map that comes close to meeting the SAT guidelines. It will provide important evaluative information from the SAT and serves as one of two "bookends" from which RSG members can choose ideas in our attempt to develop a compromised array. With External Proposal C eliminated, we no longer have a valuable range of alternatives from which to build our arrays. What we are left with is 4 maps that are basically equivalent to each other and two maps that have some cross-interest support but still need a lot of work.

After Round 1, the BRTF provided the following statement: "The BRTF recognizes that some Round 1 draft arrays developed by the SCRSG have been influenced by positional bargaining and, as a result, many MPA ideas have been replicated in multiple draft arrays and proposals: this replication results in multiple, similar proposals that do not reflect cross-interest support. Proposals that do not reflect cross-interest support will carry less weight in the MLPA Initiative process and may not carry forward to the final round of MPA proposal development."

This positional bargaining has continued in Round 2 and the results of this failure to negotiate can be seen in the outcome we have all been dealing with over the last week. If there is no incentive to come to the table, I believe many RSG members will simply not come to the table. The reason we were able to make as much progress as we did in Topaz was because we had the benefit of several fishermen who were working and negotiating in good faith. I am thankful for their genuine efforts and hope that there will be a mechanism for those of us who would like to continue working to be able to do so in a safe, fair, and balanced atmosphere.

While the results of Round 2 meet the BRTF guidance to "get to six maps," we failed to forward a range of arrays that meet the science guidelines and have cross-interest support. I fear that straw voting, failure to negotiate in good faith, and lack of enforcement of BRTF guidance will continue to prevent us from completing the job that we have all been selected to do. We need External C to move forward for evaluation in order to inform the process and provide us with the flexibility we need to find compromise.

I am respectfully requesting that the BRTF does not follow the recommendations in Ken’s memo, that they retain External Proposal C for evaluation in Round 3, and that they reduce the number of maps moving forward through merging those arrays that are blatantly similar, offer no new insight, and are essentially gaming the system.


I am disenchanted.

Jenn



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Jenn Feinberg