Mendocino Coast ocean lovers were given until January to come up with “external proposals” for the creation of areas off limits to fishing or partially closed to fishing.
That was the big change announced Tuesday night by organizers of the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI) at a meeting remotely broadcast to the C.V. Starr Community Center in Fort Bragg.
Instead of starting the local stakeholder process now, that usual first step will be delayed until February. However, organizers made it clear that there would be no variation from the timeline, which calls for locals to put final recommendations into the hands of the Blue Ribbon Task Force in just 12 months.
The meeting consisted of the MLPAI team dictating the timeline, and the extensive criteria any local proposal must meet, including everything from the size and shapes allowed for the new ocean parks to criteria on how names should be chosen.
Fort Bragg Mayor Doug Hammerstrom was among about 75 people who quietly listened to two and a-half hours of audio broadcast information about the MLPAI process. Any conversation, or even the rustle of papers, made it impossible to hear the broadcast.
Asked if the city would be one of those to suggest an “external proposal,” Hammerstrom said there wasn”t enough science for him to suggest building a proposal on. He said that lack of science was also the reason he would distrust other proposals.
“In a world in which I would submit one of these external proposals, there would be a bunch of data available to base it on, which there isn”t. Sufficient data isn”t available to anybody — even the science teams …. So they are going to come up with things that meet the criteria, even though there isn”t the data and that is disturbing.”
At the beginning of the audio-only meeting broadcast, about 10 MLPAI officials, most gathered in Eureka, were introduced. But with no video image provided, many locals had a tough time keeping up with disembodied voices who usually didn”t give their names before speaking. Constant oral commentary from overhead speakers was accompanied by printed agendas illuminated in the fashion of an old-fashioned overhead projector, except for one brief period of modern PowerPoint.
One of these typical overhead screens included 12 boxes of information, each box containing 20 to 40 words. That slide, accompanied by verbal commentary, stayed on the screen for 34 seconds. A huge amount of information, almost all defining the process for the public was presented.
“Everything was presented at top speed, rush, rush, which is what the process seemed like too,” said Mary Walsh, who came to the meeting as an interested conservationist.
The location of the Tuesday meeting was changed last week from Fort Bragg Town Hall to the C.V. Starr Community Center. Also, a second meeting, solely for questions and answers, was announced at 4 p.m. Tuesday to happen 25 hours later on Wednesday.
But these were apparently not last minute changes or accommodations. When this reporter checked with the desk at the Aquatic Center, the book showed the room was paid for both Tuesday and Wednesday — a month ago. More than a dozen people who went to Town Hall arrived late for the meeting.
Hammerstrom and City Council members Jere Melo and Meg Courtney were on hand, observing a process far less structured and public than what they are used to.
If Wednesday”s meeting or Tuesday”s late change had been held by the City Council or Board of Supervisors, it would be illegal under the Brown Act for the short notice. But the private MLPAI group is not subject to state sunshine laws. Also, the presentation made it clear there are no current plans for any meeting where the public can speak their thoughts directly to the organizers or the deciding Blue Ribbon Task Force.
Public hearings involving give and take and open discussion are held regularly by supervisors and city councils. Instead, the MLPAI process will consist of a series of workshops and a succession of committees composed of locals and scientists, none of which will possess final decision authority.
The structure, created by the private groups enacting the MLPAI under the terms of a special contract with the state is modeled on corporate empowerment teams more than open government.
“The way they run these meetings, it”s all carefully managed, there is no real public input. One guy tried to speak up, but of course he was hushed,” said David Gurney of Fort Bragg.
“This is supposed to be a public meeting but it really isn”t. It”s a staged, carefully managed event … I think the fishermen are the ones being processed in this process,” Gurney said.
“We used to be given our three minutes for public comment. Now it”s down to questions submitted on three by five sheets of paper, which they choose whether or not to answer,” Gurney said.
Several locals were baffled as to whether to participate in a structured, cookie-cutter process with so many terms and conditions placed on any ideas suggested.
“In a way, if you [come up with a proposal] that meets their criteria, you are buying into their view of the world. If you don”t, they will come in and say that one doesn”t work,” said Hammerstrom.
One bit of excitement at the meeting came when Department of Fish and Game Warden Eric Bloom announced a tsunami advisory. Dusty and Linda Dillon, who have property in Noyo Harbor, left the meeting.
Linda Dillon felt the meeting was an orchestrated event where officials were dictating and defining exactly what they want. Dusty Dillon noted how subjects such as the socioeconomic impacts of the MLPAI process had been avoided.
The MLPAI has funded a socioeconomic study by EcoTrust, which is under way, but it wasn”t mentioned as part of the meeting script.
At the outset of the meeting, three sessions for the public to ask questions were scheduled. But one was canceled, with organizers saying there had been more questions than expected and many were answered in the lengthy broadcasts.
Forms were provided for people to submit questions, which organizers promised would be answered. Questions were also set to be answered at the Wednesday event and online.
One man in Eureka asked whether direct public input to the Blue Ribbon Task Force would be allowed, but that part of his multi-part question was not answered.
Kelly Sayce, one of the numerous public relations consultants hired with Resources Legacy Foundation Fund moneys to promote the MLPAI, provided a summary of positives impacts of marine life protected areas.
While her voice came over the speakers, a slide of protected areas in oceans around the world was shown. She said studies showed a 446 percent increase in the living biomass inside marine protected areas, and reported smaller but significant increases in density, diversity and size of marine organisms inside MLPAs.
Those studies have not been presented to locals, nor could this reporter find them on the Department of Fish and Game website.
Hammerstrom said the public process being used bothers him more as a trial lawyer than as a mayor.
“In a courtroom, there are definitions of what facts are, a standard of evidence. A lot of the material they are using wouldn”t get past an objection,” Hammerstrom said.
