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Email Story to a Friend June 15, 2006 New head of ODFW remains undecided Outdoors By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune Selecting the new director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife was supposed to be the most transparent of processes, a model for choosing public servants in the public arena. But weekend behind-the-scenes politicking of Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission members has clouded that process, with an eleventh-hour push on behalf of interim director Roy Elicker apparently behind it. After a two-plus-hour closed session Friday in Salem, the commission Monday met by teleconference in a meeting initially planned to name either Elicker or the other finalist, Idaho Department of Fish and Game Director Virgil Moore. Instead, commissioners chose to hold another face-to-face executive session, scheduled for 1 p.m. July 6 in Salem. Commission Chairwoman Marla Rae says the decision was too important to make during a telephone call. Commissioner Don Denman, a Jacksonville attorney, says he believed the telephone call was plenty when he left Friday’s executive session. Advertisement "Most of us fully expected the meeting called (Monday) was for the purpose of naming a new director," Denman says. "It’s gotten a little cloudy since then." Denman says the weekend lobbying efforts have spilled into this week and are still going on. "Some of the (commissioners) apparently had second thoughts about what they decided Friday night," Denman says. "The extent of how it changed, whether they became undecided, I don’t know." Denman says he was lobbied by Salmon For All, a Columbia River commercial-fishing group, and some ODFW staffers for Elicker, a fish biologist by trade who Salmon For All administrator Hobe Kyter called "a known quantity." Elicker was second in command to former director Lindsay Ball, who jumped ship to the state Department of Administrative Services in January. Elicker was well-known and well-respected in Salem during the normally bloodletting process of getting the ODFW’s budget approved. He earned a similar reputation among the Columbia’s commercial fishing interests during the often vicious fights over commercial and recreational salmon seasons there. "Roy Elicker is very even-handed in his approach to fishing issues," Kyter says. "He’s relatively impartial in making decisions." No one called Denman between Friday and Monday about Moore, who Kyter says is "an unknown quantity" whose lack of experience in commercial fishing issues leaves him unschooled. Moore’s longtime work in sport-fishing groups was "not necessarily a strike against him," Kyter says. But Kyter adds that Moore’s support from Trout Unlimited, the Native Fish Society and other "radical sport-fishing interests" also make him suspect. All this has circulated outside the public eye so prevalent in the first five months of the search. "It’s just been a strange process, all the way through," Denman says. "It was supposed to be transparent." And for most of the process, the search for the new head of an agency with a $117 million annual budget and roughly 1,380 employees was as see-through as state government could be. Elicker, Moore and a third candidate, Kay Cool of Arizona, were interviewed publicly during an open commission session Thursday and all three attended a public reception that day in Salem. Cool was eliminated Friday, leaving the commissioners in executive session to discuss what Rae calls two excellent candidates. "There’s no negative, just different positives," Rae says. Denman believed the discussion concluded without consensus. But the lines were drawn clear enough that they would vote. "We expected a vote on Monday, assuming no bad things came up about either candidate," Denman says. "As far as I know, nothing has." Rae says she was unsure on Friday whether the commission was prepared to vote three days later. "I may have made a mistake by setting this up for a conference call Monday," she says. Rae says she spoke Monday morning with the commissioners individually, and she knew then the group wasn’t ready for a vote. "It was clearer to me that commissioners would benefit from additional time," Rae says. "If we’re not ready, we’re not ready." Rae says she disagrees with Denman’s belief that late lobbying influenced Monday’s delay. She says she believes interest groups simply took one last chance at pushing their guy. "I wouldn’t read ‘delay’ as ‘indecisive,’" Rae says. "I’d read "delay’ as ‘we want more time to sit down together and talk about it.’ "We’ll do it when we do it and we’ll do it in public," Rae says. First, however, they’ll talk about it, again, in an executive session closed to the public. Rae says Monday’s vote and the ensuing session does not steal from the transparency of the overall search for a new ODFW director. "I hope that’s still the case," Rae says. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback www.bingo.com Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker Custom Build Computers Discount Hotel Reservations --> online casinos news Ashley Furniture HomeStore Send Flowers California Casinos GMAT Prep Windermere Van Vleet Sports Equipment Entertainment Guide --> Online Casino Fundraisers Sudoku Online Casinos Canada Online Casino Reviews Advertisement s