Thursday, June 02, 2005
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Let's keep politics out of the game department
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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W. Tayloe Murphy’s recommendation that the director of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries be appointed by the governor should scare hunters, anglers, boaters and wildlife watchers. The director must be a career wildlife professional untainted by political pressures, not someone sent over every four years by the governor.
Murphy, who is Virginia’s secretary of natural resources, presented his recommendation because he and Gov. Mark Warner have been embarrassed by the front-page reports of improper spending and abuse by DGIF director Bill Woodfin and a couple of his top aids.
Woodfin resigned last week under the pressure of a 52-page report from a state auditor that was filled with damaging accounts of questionable spending, misuse of state property, cronyism, abuse and intimidation of employees and a “What’s in it for me?” attitude. Even some of the people who fiercely supported Woodfin up to the last minute admitted they had been wrong after learning of the contents of the audit report. Others should quit clinging to “Bill” so the agency can move on.
Damage to the DGIF has been severe. It has lost credibility. Its has a divided constituency. Needed funding initiatives have been sidetracked. Loyal employees have been disillusioned under rule by fear.
The agency must be restored to one of pride and accomplishment, one that the sportsmen, the public and the state legislators can count on to manage wildlife resources in superior ways, one that other states look to for innovative research and programs.
Much has been made that under Woodfin DGIF was elevated from a Level 3 to Level 1 agency. Now is the time for it to start acting like a Level 1 agency.
To accomplish this, the DGIF board must start doing its job. It failed the agency and it failed the sportsmen of Virginia. It gave Woodfin a blank check, approving his every whim, even giving him a lavish annual bonus at a time when programs and personnel were being slashed for the lack of funds.
Because the board failed to hold its director accountable, which is its most pressing assignment, Murphy and others are calling for a change in how the director is appointed. No telling how many other proposed changes are down the road. Will there be legislators who introduce bills that would strip the agency of its atonomy and bring it under the umbrella of some kind of natural resource conglomerate? If so, sportsmen and wildlife are likely to suffer.
The current system is for the board to hire the director and make him accountable. This should remain in place, because it is one layer farther away from politics than having the governor appoint the director. For it to work, however, requires competent board members. This has been the missing link.
Both major candidates for governor should make a campaign promise that they will appoint qualified people to the board of the DGIF. That they will let the professional wildlife staff manage wildlife resources under scientific concepts. That they will not pilfer DGIF funds and that they will encourage input by constitutes.
The scary thing is that the board members who failed sportsmen under Woodfin’s tenure are the very ones assigned the task of hiring a new director. The future of the agency depends on them doing something right for a change.
Some board members apparently haven’t gotten the message and continue to harbor the arrogance of the Woodfin era. At the May 24 board meeting when Woodfin resigned under the threat of being fired, James Hazel, board member from Oakton, looked out on those who had called for reform and said, “You’ve got trophies on your wall now. I hope that’s enough.” That topped the list of the 10 most stupid things said during the DGIF caper.
Hazel and his fellow board members should offer their resignation and let Gov. Warner sort out who is worthy of staying to rebuild the agency.
I know of no one gloating over the demise of Bill Woodfin. He had been a friend to most of us, a person we worked along side for common goals. It was sad to see his career end this way.
The DGIF can be put back on track, because it has loyal supporters, and it has a talented and dedicated staff -- for the most part -- that is ready, if given the chance, to replace distrust and selfish motives with enthusiasm, commitment and credibility.
