UT DWR takes on RMEF

[Big Fin]

Not sure how many of you have followed the threads about RMEF asking all non-profits to become more transparent in their activities that involve public trust assets, such as auction and raffle tags.

RMEF sent out this letter last week, calling on all organizations to be transparent, accountable, and to not become dependent upon public resources for funding their tax-exempt mission.

To most, it was a pretty easy concept to get behind - those benefiting from public resources being asked to be accountable to the public. Who would disagree with that?

Here is a copy of the press release that was issued.




A link to the release hitting the wires is provided below.

http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/story/13396617731h25tz7465f

And, now the rest of the story to follow in the next posts.

 

[Big Fin]

So, a few days go by. Most the forums and comments are very appreciative of RMEF taking this stand and asking the same of other groups.

Then, the Director of UT DWR decideds he is going to jump to the defense of some who he thinks are being singled out. Not sure why he felt compelled to write the letter, when the RMEF letter was complimentary of their state partners, but for some reason, Director Karpowitz was pretty fired up.

Intersting that this was not a public release, rather a letter sent privately, with one excpetion. All the SFW board members were out on the forums claiming they were "blessed" to see the letter before it was made public. Evidently, the SFW guys need to "bless" whatever comes from the UT DWR Director's office.

I could spend a lot of time debunking many of the points in the letter he sent, but here it is, demanding further explanation from RMEF.





Still scratching my head as to why the UT DWR Director felt compelled to reply on a topic not ever mentioning him or his organization. While doing my research for the debate with Don Peay, a lot of UT guys and some with inside information told me that DWR was controlled by SFW. I find that hard to believe, but letters like this do noting to give me confidence in my disbeleif.

Anyhow, RMEF released their reply to Director Karpowitz yesterday. Will put in a different post.

 

[Big Fin]

Here is the RMEF reply to Director Karpowitz. Pretty straight forward. RMEF wants transparency and accountability. They do not feel conservation groups should look to state assets as their primary source of funding. They are concerned about the growing expansion of auction and raffle tags, most of which seem to be pushed by the same groups who already have their lips on a teat.

My concern about all of this, is my now increasing suspicion that a state agency might have a cozier relationship with the UT groups than I was willing to believe when I was first told.

It would be a shame if a state agency was so influenced by a non-profit group, that they fail to recognize the importance of transparency and accountability when those non-profit groups are selling tags that are really public trust assets of the citizens of Utah.

Since the Expo tags in UT provide 0%, yeah ZERO, of the funding back to UT DWR, and the auction tags only require 30% of the proceeds to go to DWR, it seems the Utah residents have a compelling case for transparency and accountability. And, it is peculiar that their agency comes to the defense of non-profit groups who are refusing to provide such accountability to the hunters of Utah.

Sorry to ramble. Make of it what you want. Hopefully my growing suspicions are not well founded and UT DWR will join in asking for more accountability from the groups selling Utah hunting opportunity, via auction and raffle tags.

 

[L. I. Yankee]

Hey Fin...As I have said in a prior post...thanks for all you do keeping us informed on what is going on out west. I try to keep up on every post and link you provide to the issues dealing with hunting in the west. Although I live on the east coast I still think its important that EVERY hunter knows what is going on with public lands. I have visited your great state twice in my life with the hopes of drawing a tag there again some day. The west is something specail and to hunt there is a privelage.Keep up the great work Randy your a Huge asset to the public land, OYO community.

 

[bulls1]

It will be interesting to see if a response from DP and SFW follows?

 

[Hooligan]

Kudos to Mr. Allen and the RMEF. I can only hope the other organizations follow suit, and demand accountability and transparency. Thanks Randy for getting this out there.

 

[Craig S.]

Very interesting. With any public asset or entity you must be transparent, especially hunting organizations. Anti's will be the first to feast on the lack of...

 

[ingomar]

Hopefully the Utah resident hunters have had enough of SFW and the Director that they will put pressure on the Director to resign. Time to take back the sport of hunting from politicians and special interest groups that are only interested in their pocketbook. Thanks go out to RMEF and Randy for bringing all this garbage to light. By the way, in my opinion, SFW is trying to do the same things in Montana by working with sympathetic or unknowledgeable legislators and sportsmen.

 

[bmack]

Wow. It gets more interesting every day.

SFW is embedded like a dirty little tick and they are a real bitch to get removed from the warm blooded creature they have latched on to.

The fellatio being performed under the board room tables by SFW must be amazing.

 

[Moosie]

You don’t need to attend every argument you are invited to.....

But it's hard for those that feel guilty not to reply

 

[Topgun 30-06]

Couldn't have said it any better than that MOOSIE!!!

 

[Big Fin]

You don’t need to attend every argument you are invited to.....

But it's hard for those that feel guilty not to reply

Another of those world-famous "Moosie-isms." Do you have those written in a book I can buy?

 

[1_pointer]

Couple of things similar to what Moosie posted:

During High School baseball I got extremely upset with my coach after a game when he told him he thought I quit on him. I was telling my dad how mad I was and he replied, "the reason your mad is that there is a nugget of truth in what he said".

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis; "The hardest lies to dispute are those with a basis in truth"...

 

[drahthaar]

How anyone involved with SFW, their homers, members, leaders, etc, aren't embarrassed by all this is beyond me. What a cluster of morons.

I tell EVERYONE I know to get on here, get on MM and look at these jackasses. Educate yourself, get clued in to what the SFW is. There are still too many MT hunters blind to them and what they are about, and falling into their, "join us cause we're gonna kill all the wuffs" talk.

It is amazing how few people are defending them on MM.

 

[Topgun 30-06]

Here is a lengthy post placed on a MM thread this evening by Mr. Karpowitz. I'd been interested to see what BigFin and members think about this response.

jimk Jun-22-12, 07:40 PM (MST)
121. "RE: RMEF WantsTransparency on Special Permits"

Sorry for not knowing how MM works. I need to reply to this post, so I will go ahead and try and put it here and hope it works.
Against my better judgment, I am going to weigh in on this thread and clarify some things from my response to the RMEF news release and address some points raised in David Allen’s letter. Yesterday I invited Jason Hawkins to come to my office to discuss this issue. I also emailed David Allen and invited him to stop by or call me on the phone to discuss the issue and to clarify what I think is a huge misunderstanding. I had a good discussion with both Jason and David and I think we now better understand each other’s concerns. I mentioned to both of them that I would probably respond to Mr. Allen’s letter.
When I talked with Jason and David I attempted to identify and clarify their main issues and concerns. As a result of these discussions it became clear to me that their concerns were focused on convention permits not conservation permits. Both Jason and David agreed that this is not about conservation permits, a point that was not clear in the RMEF news release. We all agreed that the Conservation Permit Program has done great things for wildlife in Utah and doesn't need much change. My comments in my letter to RMEF was focused on both conservation and convention permits since the RMEF news release did not distinguish between the two. RMEF referred to them only as “state special big game permits” so it was not clear to me that they were not talking about conservation permits.
In my letter to RMEF,I attempted to communicate that UDWR is very concerned about accountability and transparency in both the Conservation and Convention Permit Programs. So let me reiterate and clarify the points I was trying to make. 1) Accountability for expenditure of conservation permit funds is thorough and transparent in Utah. 2) All groups have the same level of accountability for the 10% conservation permits dollars they retain. 3) An audit of the conservation and convention permit programs are conducted annually to make sure all groups are in compliance with the rule. 4) UDWR has successfully passed three major external audits of the conservation permit program in the last seven years. 5) The groups involved in the hunt expo have voluntarily reported on how they have used application fees, even though they are not required to do so by rule.
So, let me make it very clear to all concerned - the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources agrees with Mr. Allen’s statement that “accountability and transparency are paramount to the public’s trust in actions of non-profit organizations.” I also want to make it clear that we have taken numerous steps to make sure that transparency exists, and we stand ready to implement any changes the Wildlife Board makes in the rules governing these programs.
I would now like to address the second point in Mr. Allen’s letter that had to do with whether conservation groups should be funded by “their own fund raising effort or by subsidy that comes from public assets.” I certainly did not understand how Mr. Allen could make this statement since RMEF is one of the main participants in the Conservation Permit Program. I was told by both Jason and David that they have no objections using conservation permits for fund raising efforts because of the level of accountability. They are only concerned with using convention permits to support fund raising efforts.
This issue with convention permits is a little puzzling to me considering what has transpired in the last two years. In 2010, the Convention Permit Rule was up for its five year renewal and to the best of my recollection no one from the public came to express their concerns at the RAC and Board meetings. So the board renewed the rule for another five years. In 2011, when the Board needed to act on a new five-year contract for the convention, once again no one came to the Board meeting to voice any concerns or object to the contract. So the Board approved a new five-year contract for the convention.
It appears to me that the main issue of concern is that there should be better accountability of the $5 application fee for convention permits. I firmly believe and I think most people agree that the hunt expo is good for the economy of Salt Lake City, good for the State of Utah and that it brings notoriety to Utah’s big game program. However, many people have said they would like to see more complete reporting of how the $5 application fee is used by the convention groups.
I need to point out that when the Convention Permit Rule was first adopted in 2005 the Wildlife Board felt like $5 was a reasonable amount to allow the convention groups to charge for administrative expenses associated with the drawing at the Expo. Our big game application fee for the regular draw at that time was $5. It is not unreasonable to expect that the overhead in administering this drawing consumes much of $5 per application. As a point of reference, the cost of administering the regular big game drawing in Utah currently exceeds $5. It should also be mentioned that none of the actual permit fees are retained by the organizations. 100% of the permit fees go to UDWR.
Now as to accountability of the application fees - two or three years ago when the convention groups heard that the public would like more information on how the $5 application fees are being spent, the groups voluntarily submitted information that showed how they were spending these funds. They provided this information in a public meeting of the Wildlife Board even though it was not required by rule. That information has been and is available to the public.
So what do we do now? Each year the Wildlife Board has to act on the number and type of permits that are allocated to the convention. That will occur at the Wildlife Board meeting in August. I suspect there will be those at that meeting who will ask the Board to amend the rule to require more thorough accounting of the convention permit application fees. The Board chairman will then need to decide whether they would like to revisit the rule realizing the it was renewed in 2010 and considering that a five-year contract was issued in 2011. The Division will be supportive of whatever the Board decides to do on this issue. In the meantime, I am going to meet with the convention groups and ask that they voluntarily do a better job of accounting for how the $5 application fees are spent.
I just want to make one more point before I shut up. I am very concerned to see conservation groups at odds with each other and trying to pull each other down. I believe that is very counterproductive and bad for wildlife in Utah. I think we need to put our differences aside and get back to the core missions or our organizations. We have been very successful in Utah in expanding most of our big game populations because we have had strong partnerships with conservation organizations. It disappoints me greatly to now see those great organizations at each other throats. We need to resolve this issue and then we all need to get back doing good things for wildlife.
I hope this clarifies my position on conservation and convention permits. I don't intend to make any additional posts on this topic and I won't see your replies since I do not frequent this forum. I would, however, invite you to give me a call or come and talk to me if you would like to discuss this further.

Jim Karpowitz

 

[OriginalOscar]

Interesting. I pay attention to the news and have never heard about 5 year contracts or commitments for Convention Tags.

Real solution is with the state legislature and how they would view using public resources for the benefit of private organizations.

 

[Ben Long]

UT and SFW dig their hole deeper

Amazing, and very telling, that UT DWR felt so offended by a letter that did not even mention them that they immediately went on the defensive. Like Shakespeare's Lady McBeth. "Methinks they do protest too much." And to steal another Shakespeare line: Something is rotten in Denmark... er Utah.

What part of "accountability" and "transparency" do they not understand?

Makes me proud of Big Fin and proud of RMEF. Go get 'em. The track is hot. Let loose the hounds.

 

[Ben Long]

I also predict by the end of 2012 someone high in SFW will accuse Big Fin of being an anti-hunter.

 

[Sytes]

Damn proud of RMEF! Good on them! I have sent my appreciation on to several friends for their support of my medical deal and will now follow up with this ACTION taken to those friends! I know this will seal the deal on memberships and or donations for those that have not already. I've already received e-mails from a couple on their recent support of RMEF. Good stuff!

 

[spook12]

I believe Big Fin has been called a ''Terrorist'' for asking to see their financials.So you are probably correct Ben anti hunter would be the next logical slur.