Sea Change at Fish Council

Tuesday, September 30--Anchorage Alaska

I run up the circular stairway to the Sheraton's second floor where the Advisory Panel for the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council is reconvening.

Growling halibut fishermen are settling into hard back chairs as the AP members reluctantly sit back down in front of their vast ring binders full of recomendations and analyses compiled by staff. The fishermen will soon be telling them all the different ways the binders are wrong. The Advisory Panel is a non paid group of industry spokespersons. The Council may listen to them or completely ignore them.

I am hesitant to go inside so I loiter in the hall. Strategic loitering is a big part of effective advocacy. Stephanie from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is there, listening intently to an effusive baseball cap clamped down over the red face of a longliner. I do a shark circle around her, browsing at the documents table, picking out the stuff I might be able to use and slipping them into my faux leather zipper binder.Palming my Kodiak City Council business card with my cell number and the address to this blog written on the front I hover closer, trying to be silently insistent but not overtly rude. I'm hoping to slip her the card and head back to my room--its naptime for grandpa. She is too quick for me. "I'll call you in a while. I want to talk about your proposal."

Stephanie is a front line soldier, the face of the Department's new philosophy under Commissioner Denby Lloyd--to use their Council seat to look out for the citizens of the State, rather than their former role of throwing bloody steaks to the lions of the industry.

I grab a double breve and retire to my room. I've shmoozed my way onto the fifteenth floor, looking straight down the runway of Merrill Field and at the mountains beyond. I grab the desk chair and balance it on the heater unit so I'm sitting window level at the top floor as I sip the breve and watch the Beech Bonanzas and Cessna Citations climb right at me and then bank away from the window at the last minute. There's a lesson here somewhere.

Picking through the papers I took from the governmentese document buffet table I start writing notes like "Ha!" and "?". Then I look down and see the Mammoth Music store across the street.

"Harmonica!" I shout to myself as I jump up and run for the elevator. I have forgotten to bring a harmonica on this trip and I never travel without one. (Be sure to tell the TSA guy about harmonicas in your carry on. They look like gun clips or something in the X-ray--it freaks them out.)

Coming out with a blues harp in "E" I see Jeff Stephen from Kodiak at the curb. Jeff is a boat owner rep and compulsive community servant: he serves on the thankless School Board, for instance. I like him (I like most people- a terrible weakness).

We visit and he mentions my new role as Kodiak community representative to the Council. I leaped at the chance to be the comrep. I have a hard time saying no to a profitless challenge. He mentions something I will hear later from another boat owner rep-that is, whether I can advocate for crew issues and communities at the same time.

"Heck yeah. Crew is part of Community. What's good for one is good for the other."

Stephanie calls and I run off. We go over my Crew Quota Proposal (reprinted below). She has many questions. (So do I, truthfully). She is a deadly serious person, intent on doing her job well and not given to frivolity (or smiling).

I soberly explain to her that the idea is not to sell or give quota to crew- a misapprehension shared by many. "The problem with the program now is that it privatized a public resource, allowing owners to set up a tollbooth in the ocean that charges working fishermen 50-70% for access..."

She stops me. She has heard this from me before.

"How would it work?"

"That's what I'm here to find out."

NEXT: The Council Comes to Town, I Play Bar Trivia with the New York Times and Why the Trial of Ted Stevens Matters to the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council