Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Hard feelings remain in DGIF case
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
Recent columns
A judge's decision last week to throw out embezzlement charges against the former leader of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries brings to an end another chapter -- let's hope the final one -- in the long tale of the past few challenging years for the agency.
Bill Woodfin's exoneration came after two of his former top aides, senior game wardens Terry Bradbery and Mike Caison, also were cleared of criminal wrongdoing.
Although a state auditor's investigation uncovered a number of spending improprieties at the agency, the issue that got most of the attention -- from the press, the public and, eventually, prosecutors -- was a safari to Zimbabwe.
The three men and former board chairman Dan Hoffler took the trip in 2004, claiming that it would help them learn more about game management. They even asked for state funding for the safari.
Now, it would seem that a DGIF contingent going anywhere to learn about wildlife management should probably include an actual wildlife biologist or two.
Fortunately for the sportsmen who fund the agency, then-deputy of natural resources David Paylor agreed that the trip wasn't a good use of DGIF money. He approved the trip only if taken at no expense to the state.
So the state employees took a vacation, largely financed by Hoffler.
But some of their gear was purchased with state-issued credit cards. Also, they carried a state-provided satellite phone, ringing up a bill of about $1,350. Only 10 of the 70 calls from the phone were made to DGIF offices. The rest were personal calls.
Hence, the charges, which didn't come about until three years after the trip.
Bradbery and Caison's acquittals weren't too surprising. In short, they said they didn't do anything their superiors didn't know about.
Their boss, Woodfin, said he wasn't aware he wasn't allowed to use the phone for personal use (use for which the state was eventually repaid).
As for the other gear Woodfin bought, the department's chief financial officer, Ray Davis, testified that the gear could be needed for other on-the-job requirements.
And that was that.
This wasn't the end some hoped for.
They hadn't been satisfied when members of the agency's board pitched in to pay back money in question from the safari. And they weren't satisfied that the three men were forced to retire in, let's face it, disgrace. They won't be satisfied with the judge in Woodfin's trial criticizing the department's financial procedures.
They wanted felony convictions.
Some were motivated out of a simple sense of justice. Like prosecutors, they believed that laws had been broken.
For others, the feelings were deeper.
The auditor's investigation noted that cronyism was an issue at the DGIF, and most agency insiders would support that assertion. Basically, if you were in the circle, you were OK. Not in the circle? Not so good.
It wasn't unlike what you find in plenty of work environments.
Had these guys been loved by all of the troops, the audit and ensuing criminal investigation might have turned out differently. But disgruntled employees tend to be much more open during such inquisitions.
There will be theories and speculation about why this turned out the way it did. There will be accusations of political maneuvering and favoritism and incompetence and witch hunts.
But the real focus needs to be on what it has been for most of us, including the agency's current leadership, for the past couple of years: moving on.
That doesn't mean we can't continue to believe that those former DGIF leaders made some poor choices that weren't fair to the state's sportsmen.
With that era over, attention should be on the new one.
