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THEY SIMPLY DON’T
CARE WHAT YOU THINK
TIME TO TAKE ACTION!
With only one
working day left before the first public hearing, the Gulf Council,
under the watchful eye of National Marine Fisheries Service, has just
made available the documents for your final comments on gag and red
grouper rules and a VERY SCARY ‘generic annual catch limits and
accountability measures’ amendment. Very scary in that it will
AUTOMATICALLY reduce ALL allowable landings BY 25 TO 50% for EVERY
fishery under federal control.
All this pending,
but YOU couldn’t see it. Until now. All 400 plus pages with the
latest, greatest voodoo math are YOURS to digest, investigate and
develop comments on in less than three day! Go ahead, take off time
from work. Take the weekend off. Invite your favorite economist,
marine biologist and attorney over for beers and forty straight hours of
reading, reviewing and developing comments on ONE of these amendments
(there are THREE out for comment in ten days).
Or you could tune in
SUNDAY NIGHT at 7:30 PM for a live FRA TV online education seminar. We
will have available public input guidance sheets as well as the public
input documents that the Council finally issued.
www.thefra.org/fisheyewide.htm
See Denny O’Hern and a guest or two discuss and explain the proposed
regulations and their impacts upon us. We have an ACTION PLAN for you!
We will post up the
FINALLY-RELEASED documents on the FRA website later today.
Right now, you need to take some action.
Call your
Congressmen and your Governor NOW!
Click for phone list.Let
them know that you have been denied your right to receive documents
pertaining to public input hearings in a timely manner. Ask your
congressmen to intervene on your behalf by requesting that the Council
postpone these meetings until the public has at least two weeks to
review these 500 plus pages of documents upon which final action will be
taken.
Ask your
representatives if it is acceptable to give the public one business day
to review hundreds of pages of documents that will cause automatic
reductions of 25 to 50% in all allowable landings of fish is
acceptable. You already know the answer. So should they.
Send an email to the
Gulf Council
gulfcouncil@gulfcouncil.org
telling them how you feel about being given so little time to review so
much information.
Below is an email
string showing the FRA requesting that the hearings be postponed. We
thank Florida for responding. Feel free to share this with your
legislators
Bill-
Thank you for
your response. The document for Amendment 32 has only been available to
the public since Wednesday afternoon. The A 32 hearings begin on
Tuesday. The public turnout
will most likely be poor, given that people have not had reasonably
adequate time to read, review, research and discuss these 200+ pages of
final actions and their consequences.
The ACL/AM documents have only become available after 1 PM today, with
no public announcement of such availability. With the final hearing
scheduled for Monday night, this is nothing short of appalling. The
public will be justifiably upset that this hearing on a final action is
going forward. The Council should be prepared to explain its decision.
The FRA would like some assurance that our Florida state representative
on the Council is advocating for us. Will you or Nick please go on the
record with the Council stating your concern over the lack of
availability of hearing materials in advance of final public input? I
am sure this lack of availability of documents will further erode the
public's confidence in the process and negate all Council outreach
efforts.
Would it not be
in Florida's best interest to have a well-informed public make comments
on a proposed final actions that have such enormous economic and social
impacts?
Florida citizen's jobs and economic well being are at stake. Please act
to protect our right to fish.
Below is a copy of the original email to Dr. Shipp and Nick Wiley, as
well as Nick's response and subsequent emails. I have received no
response from Dr. Shipp.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Regards-
Dennis O'Hern
From Bill Teehan at 1:13 PM:
Everything is now posted on council website.....Bill
From:
Wiley, Nick
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 10:51 AM
To: Denny Ohern <Dohern@tampabay.rr.com>
Cc: Teehan, William; Robson, Mark
Subject: RE: Meeting materials unavailable
Hi
Denny. Bill Teehan has looked into this. He will be sending you an
email with further information. Thanks. Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Teehan, William
[mailto:william.teehan@MyFWC.com]
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2011 10:57 AM
To: 'Dohern@tampabay.rr.com'; Wiley, Nick; Robson, Mark
Subject: Public documents
Dennis,
Talked to Steve Bortone and he said acl/am document will be posted this
afternoon. Document for 32 has been up for some time.......GMFMC does
not
plan to postpone hearing. I am on road today but you can reach me by
email
or cell. Cheers
Bill=
Hi Denny. Bill Teehan has looked into this. He will be sending you an
email with further information. Thanks. Nick
From: Denny Ohern
[mailto:Dohern@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2011 4:41 PM
To: Wiley, Nick
Subject: FW: Meeting materials unavailable
Nick-
I hope all is well.
We need your help. As you can see by the email below, the documents for
the
public hearings which begin this Monday are still unavailable to the
public
who is expected to comment upon them.
This is absolutely unacceptable to any reasonable person. I have not
received any response from Dr. Shipp, nor do I honesty even expect one.
I
request that you ask that these hearings be postponed.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you for your time-
Dennis O'Hern
727.692.6902
From: Denny Ohern
[mailto:Dohern@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 5:56 AM
To: 'Bob Shipp (rshipp@jaguar1.usouthal.edu)';
'gulfcouncil@gulfcouncil.org'; 'nick.wiley@myfwc.com'
Cc: Craig Berman (cberman@tampabay.rr.com)
Subject: Meeting materials unavailable
Dr. Shipp-
In the course of Gulf Council actions, public input is encouraged and
considered.
While the Council requires briefing materials to be submitted no less
than
two weeks in advance of a meeting, the same does not apply for documents
being made available to the public in advance of public comment
meetings.
We are less than a week away from the start of the ACL/AM amendment
public
input and Amendment 32 public input, yet there are no documents
available
for the public to read, digest, investigate nor develop comments upon.
This could be construed by the public as an attempt to thwart public
comment
and demoralize, disengage and disenfranchise anglers wishing to
participate
in the process. It certainly does not lend itself to a stated process of
outreach and education, nor does it instill confidence in the angler.
We request more time for the public to digest the proposed final rules.
We
suggest postponing all hearings until such time as the public has a
minimum
of three weeks in which to review finalized documents prior to the
public
hearings. You have already postponed Mackerel hearings, so there is a
precedent.
When may we reasonable expect that the Amendment 32 and ACL/AM documents
will be available?
Thank you for your time.
Dennis O'Hern
Executive Director
Fishing Rights Alliance, Inc.
4604 49th Street N #34
St. Petersburg, FL 33709
PH 727.692.6902
FX 727.528.6460
www.thefra.org
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Meeting dates and locations
All hearings will begin at 6 p.m. local time and will conclude no later
than 9 p.m. The meeting schedule is as follows:
Monday, May 2, 2011
ACLs/AMs
Hilton
St. Petersburg Carillon Parkway
950 Lake Carillon Drive
St. Petersburg, FL
ACLs/AMs
Clarion Hotel
12635 South Cleveland Ave
Fort Myers, FL
Mackerel
POSTPONED WITHOUT EXPLANATION
Best Western
7921 Lamar Poole Road
Biloxi, MS
Tuesday May 3, 2011
Amendment 32
Hilton St. Petersburg Carillon Parkway
950 Lake Carillon Drive
St. Petersburg, FL
Amendment 32
Clarion Hotel
12635 South Cleveland Ave
Fort Myers, FL 33907
Mackerel
POSTPONED WITHOUT EXPLANATION
Fairfield Inn & Suites
3111 Loop Road
Orange Beach, AL
Wednesday May 4, 2011
Amendment 32
Banana Bay Resort
4590 Overseas Hwy
Marathon, FL
Mackerel
POSTPONED WITHOUT EXPLANATION
Boardwalk - Royal American Beach Getaways
9400 S. Thomas Drive
Panama City Beach, FL
Thursday May 5, 2011
ACLs/AMs
Banana Bay Resort
4590 Overseas Hwy
Marathon, FL
Monday May 9, 2011
Mackerel/Spiny Lobster
Sirata Beach Resort
5300 Gulf Blvd
St. Pete Beach, FL
ACLs/AMs and Amendment 32
Renaissance Riverview Plaza
64 South Water Street
Mobile, AL
ACLs/AMs
Boardwalk - Royal American Beach Getaways
9400 S. Thomas Drive
Panama City Beach, FL
Tuesday May 10, 2011
ACLs/AMs and Amendment 32
Hilton
5400 Seawall Blvd
Galveston, TX
ACLs/AMs and Amendment 32
MOVED WITHOUT PROPER NOTICE FROM:
Best Western
7921 Lamar Poole Road
Biloxi, MS
MOVED WITHOUT PROPER PUBLIC
NOTICE TO:
Four Points Sheraton
Fais DoDo Room
940 Beach Boulevard
Biloxi, MS 39530
228-546-3100
Amendment 32
Boardwalk - Royal American Beach Getaways
9400 S. Thomas Drive
Panama City Beach, FL
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Amendment 32
Harte Research Institute
Conference Room
6300 Ocean Drive
Corpus Christi, TX
ACLs/AMs and Amendment 32
MOVED WITHOUT PROPER
NOTICE FROM:
Hilton Garden Inn
4535 Williams Blvd
Kenner, LA
MOVED WITHOUT PROPER PUBLIC NOTICE TO:
Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel
Harry Lee A Room
2829 Williams Blvd.
Kenner, LA 70062
504-467-5611
Thursday, May 12, 2011
ACLs/AMs
Plantation Suites & Conference Center
1909 Highway 361
Port Aransas, TX
Monday, May 16, 2011
Mackerel
POSTPONED WITHOUT EXPLANATION
Fisheries Research Lab
195 Ludwig Annex
Grand Isle, LA
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Mackerel
POSTPONED WITHOUT EXPLANATION
Hampton Inn
506 West Bay Area Blvd.
Webster, TX
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Mackerel
POSTPONED WITHOUT EXPLANATION
Plantation Suites & Conference Center
1909 Highway 361
Port Aransas, TX
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FRA will be at
King of the Beach
Thanks to our sponsors:
TAMPA BAY
SPEARFISHING CLUB
E-SEA RIDER
Marine Bean Bag Chairs
FLORIDA SKIN DIVERS
ASSOCIATION
 
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