Won Article, RSG member perspective

[Holy Mackerel]

I didn't want this article to get burried in Zen's post on Ed Zieralski, where I initially posted a link. BOTH are must reads, and should fire up everyone to make it next Thursday!

Friday, May 29, 2009
MLPA LOG: Trust Betrayed

Hard-won cross-interest gains sabotaged to appease a preservationist agenda
MLPA LOG: TRUST BETRAYED

EDITOR'S NOTE: WON staffer and Kayak Editor Paul Lebowitz is a stakeholder in the MLPA process and his MLPA log is an ongoing observation within the process.

Say what you want about the people responsible for managing MLPA implementation. But don’t call them stupid; initiative staffers such as Executive Director Ken Wiseman are exceedingly sharp and practiced at this game.

That makes last week’s stunning developments so much harder to stomach. Scarcely pausing to recognize the landmark collaboration painstakingly achieved in two of the three South Coast Regional Stakeholder Group ‘Gems’ workgroups, Wiseman and MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force Chair Don Benninghoven smashed fragile new feelings of trust and hope that this process might after all be fair by a single act that can at best be described as clumsy. At worst, it confirmed the fears of the MLPA’s most vocal critics. What were they thinking?

In a provocation seemingly designed to prove the oft-heard assertion that the private money funding MLPA implementation is getting the environmental community the best policy they can buy, the pair threw agreed-to RSG procedure to the winds. In essence, they changed the rules of the game on the fly, discarding the results of a vote to eliminate 1 of 7 marine protected area network proposals, and they did it when no one in the public was watching, several days after the vote was taken and a day after the results were promised. Sound suspicious?

The beneficiary was external proposal C, the handiwork of environmental groups Santa Barbara Channelkeeper and Santa Monica Baykeeper. By far, it was the most closure heavy plan on the table. It received only 29 out of 64 possible votes. Given the format of the ballot, in which RSG members had to select 4 out of 5 proposals to advance, 35 RSG members, a majority of some 55%, recognized External C’s narrow, single interest focus and voted to eliminate it. In contrast, United Anglers of Southern California’s plan was second to last, with 39 votes and significantly more support. Quick note; 2 of the proposals, produced through cross-interest support in the workgroups, were exempt by prior arrangement from the vote – you’ll hear more about this in a bit.

So you can fully understand the shockwaves generated by the decision to keep External C in play, ones that knocked the RSG members who represent fishing communities flat just days after we’d bent over backwards to forge a reasonable middle ground, we have to travel back in time a week to a grueling 3-day set of workshops and hearings held in Santa Ana May 19-21. That one started off with a rare 7 pm public comment session. Given a chance to attend without losing a day’s pay, fishing folk turned out in force, speaking emotionally and eloquently about the potential impacts of closures at La Jolla, Palos Verdes, the Laguna-Dana Pt coast, and other spots. It was past 1 am when the echoes of the final public speaker’s comments faded and the meeting was adjourned.

Your words resonated during the two days of intense negotiations that followed. Taking the admonitions of Wiseman and Benninghoven that only cross-interest proposals will get it done, and heeding the warning that proposals lacking it would be either unilaterally killed or at least subject to the aforementioned RSG elimination vote, RSG members from all sides dug deep in every workgroup. We bartered, cajoled, and argued our way up and down Southern California. And somehow against all odds, those of us in the Opal and Topaz workgroups found enough in common to forge true compromise proposals that most of the RSG members and the interests they represent can live with.

Straw votes were required to reach conclusions as we moved down the coast, always cognizant of the heavy burden imposed by the Science Advisory Team guidelines on MPA size, spacing and habitat representation. Straw votes are nothing new in MLPA planning at the RSG level; they were used in previous study regions to reach decisions in the short time frame available during work sessions. Most votes were contentious, but debate in the Opal workgroup was never cut off with less than a 2 to 1 vote in favor. When preservationists protested, the bar was even higher, requiring thresholds in the 75 to 80% range. To put that context, that’s more than it takes to pass a state budget, and we all know how difficult a task that is!

The eventual Opal majority included a fisheries biologist, a national marine sanctuary employee, a representative of the California Coastal Commission, an industrial wastewater expert, a harbor master, and a representative of the Department of Defense, and they were joined by others outside the fishing community for votes on key areas – always after costly sacrifices were made to get closer to meeting their particular needs. If this isn’t the definition of working across interests, what is?

As with any collection of diverse perspectives, there were some partisans who were bitterly displeased with the results. They fell on both sides of the line, fishing and pro-closure, but the only ones I heard complaining about the legitimacy of the process represent preservationist groups, who decried “the tyranny of the majority.” Their protests continued in the days following the vote. Those of us with a healthy paranoid streak watched in rising alarm, and this publication warned presciently of yet another sudden process change favoring the pro-closure side.

That two of three workgroups reached convergence proposals was a notable achievement, one that to my knowledge has never happened this early in an MLPA planning process or to this broad extent. Doing so required agonizing concessions on the part of the fishing RSG representatives, ones we know will have real-world consequences in terms of lost jobs, damaged businesses, and impacts to cherished ways of life but stops short of destroying the majority of our maritime economy and heritage.

The two consensus proposals were automatically forwarded for scientific analysis, while the external proposals and a pair of non-consensus plans out of the deadlocked Lapis workgroup had to face the aforementioned elimination vote. And for what did we in the cross-interest RSG majority labor? For the reward of watching the smart people who run the MLPA exert their dictatorial power to nullify the vote, giving the economically disastrous external C a free pass. This is the proposal that calls for the closure of virtually every meaningful fishing spot in Southern California, the one voted down by a majority of the RSG. If I’d have known that sticking to the extreme was an option that could sail forward by executive fiat, I’d have refused to budge from my original starting position. Then again, could we be sure an option backed by fishing interests would have been granted a new lease on life?

External C should now be nothing but a bad memory. Instead, it’ll serve as a glaring reminder that a minority of the RSG, a collection of the most ardent pro-closure advocates, can hold the process hostage until the powers that be grant their wishes. Yet when 30 members of the RSG, largely on the fishing side, signed a letter asking for a pause in the MLPA planning process to allow tardy guidance and scientific work to catch up, we were told to make do with the existing process.

As a member of the RSG who represents a fishing group, I’m angry for allowing myself to be used by an MLPA planning team that arbitrarily changes rules, nearly always at the last minute and under mysterious circumstances. I’m profoundly disappointed with a BRTF that, when it gets what it wants, true collaboration and cross-interest compromise, doesn’t respect the work of a majority of its stakeholders. And I end with this question, for you the fishing public but most especially for the BRTF, the Fish and Game Commission, and our state legislators. If a compromise that cuts across interests can’t get it done as long as those favoring massive closures don’t get their way, what kind of Southern California MLPA plan could possibly be good enough?

Editor’s note: The Blue Ribbon Task Force is meeting this week on Thursday, June 4, at the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Hotel, 6101 West Century Boulevard, Los Angeles. Public comment is scheduled for 9:40 am. If you too feel betrayed by recent developments that outrageously advantaged those who want to end fishing as we know it in Southern California, this is a perfect opportunity to hold the BRTF accountable for its recent biased, anti-democratic action.

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