ADA decision

[elkaholic]

"As far as responding to CWT, I apologize, but we really do owe you nothing."

 

 

sounds like the azsfw- we do not owe you any explination

 

they got the boys still pushing the how good we are and really dont care to explain any thing to anybody .

 

they'll come back in a yr or 2 all will be forgiven - NOPE!!

 

like from the beginning we never knew if it was the ADA of bpj thoughts and opinions basically cuz the majority of the ADA board was pushing the azsfw agenda at every chance and even did it in the survey!

 

the ADA already lost members over the walking the fence on 2072 - and with the attitide some of the board have - i doubt you'll be getting a whole lot of new members.

 

As far as the azsfw still being around , were working on that one - they've already lost over 50% of their major organizations . All Arizona knows they will never speak for the majority of sportsmen and women agin !

[Snapshot]

IMO. I am not a member of the ADA, and don't know much about it's internal business. I don't think the ADA is the cloak and dagger society some make it out to be. I think some bad judgement was made by many people over the 2072 fiasco. The founder of this website is involved heavily in the ADA, as well as many other respected members of CWT.com I respect these members for their hard work and wildlife conservation efforts, habitat improvement, and certainly for the youth programs.

 

I understand the need for money to fund these various projects, and I am sure there are many habitat improvements that are just waitng for money to do it. Dipping into the tag quotas is not the answer.

[coueshunter]

it is at azgfd headquarters......600.......Allen....

[donniedent]

You know, I went back and read my last message and it didn't come out quite right.

 

Anything that happens in this state, is our buisiness. I do get frustrated at times because I personally feel that if we as sportsmen had been on our game, there would be no need for more raffle tags. I have tried not to bad mouth any individual or org but on the flip side, I shouldn't appear to defend them either and when I re-read my last post, that's how I came across.

 

I truly hope that someday, the majority of sportsmen will be actively involved in conservation. Whether it be donated funds or water projects, I feel we should all do something.

 

I hope we can all find some sort of org to either be a member of or at least support. If your desire is to remain unafiliated, I appriciate that and support it but please find a way to support conservation efforts.

 

Donnie Lee

[krp]

AZSFW is a PAC, that means POLITICAL action committee, emphasis on political... they are not a conservation org. They are a 'private' political entity, and I only care what they do in the 'public' political forum... and as a 'public' myself I have every right to question or opine on their actions. They feed off the conservation orgs by charging dues... therefore we have a right to question and have answers to the political support of the conservation orgs when we disagree with the 'public' political actions of AZSFW.

 

I have continued to emphasis separation of politics and conservation, it was my subject at the ADA meeting with how the tag funding would be legal to use in a PAC political agenda with 2072. I continue to say the commission review board is a 'public' political entity, not conservation... and therefore under political scrutiny... yet I'm told I'm wrong because members have worked in conservation... lol... this is politics, with politic rules, where big boy pants are worn...

 

Conservation isn't the answer, excuse or atonement... you support screwing me politically, I will question the political agenda.

 

Kent

[AZLance]

ADA= hunting tag whores! All ADA board members have lost all credibility! End of discussion for me!

 

Good bye...

[AzHuntingAddict]

BTW, if you are unafiliated and want your voice to be heard, I believe there is a meeting of the Sportmans contituent group on May 8th. I sure I will see you all there.

 

Donnie

 

I am working on attending as well. I think typing on a keyboard can only do so much. Time to saddle up.

[AzHuntingAddict]

Got this email about the meeting comming up on the 8th of may.

 

Greetings, thank you for submitting your name or organization as interested in being a contributing participant of the Sportsmen’s Constituent Committee. Attached you will find a Cover Letter and Agenda for the next meeting to be held at AZGFD Headquarters (5000 W. Carefree Hwy) on May 8th at 6pm. The meeting will also be webcast via Department website should you not be able to make it.

 

 

 

We look forward to your thoughts & input.

[donniedent]

Don't assume that all the board members from the ADA supported 2072! Bad assumtion.

 

If the Ada does lose members over this deal I don't know how good that is. Where will they go? Will they fade into the shadows? We diffinately don't want that. We need more people involved not less.

 

Kent, I completely understand what you are saying. The point I keep trying to get back to though is ultimately it is our collective uninvolvement that left the door open for this to happen. Now, we can all sit here and question the ADA, but I hope we can each look in the mirror and ask ourselves why we have been apethetic. We ALL need to change and get more active but if we start focusing and casting blame, then we will probably forget to take accountability for our own part in this.

 

Lets look at this another way. Orgs are created to organize and represent the voices of many. Now, if you have say... 300,000 sportsmen in the state and 6,000 of those are part of the org system, the org system that does 99.9% of the conservation work and you need funding. Funding to fight anti's, funding for conservation work... yada yada yada. Now 300,000 are taxing the rescource but only 6,000 are giving back, theres a huge gap there. So funds need to be generated. On top of that, you hear the voice of 6,000 and assume that they might represent the rest.... you can only assume. There is absolutely no possible way, even with auction tags, that enough money can be generated by 6,000 involved people to fight the anti's, let alone do conservation work. So, an idea is conceived to generate more funds from tags. Heres the line of thought, "if the masses don't want to be directly involved and help fund the fight... fine. We'll write legislation to get tags so we can fund the fight." They truly have no possible way of knowing what the masses will say because they don't have a voice... they're slient. So, if we have not let our voices be heard, it leaves the door WIDE open for people to assume what we want and need. And, we are trusting a few to have the honorable intentions when speaking for us. And yes, if you are not speaking out and staying involved, you are allowing a few people to speak for you by default!

 

Now, do I agree with the whole idea? Absolutely not. Whether the masses are involved or not you can never assume to speak for them. Its the responsability of all parties involved to work to get the majority involved. But our own apathy and uninvolvement left the door wide open for this.

 

Guys... we need to fund the fight somehow! If we as a collective group don't want a bill like 2072 and we don't want to auction off our tags, then we need to come up with some other way to protect our heritage. We fought to stop this bill... awesome! BUT IT IS NOW OUR DUTY AS SPORTSMEN TO FIND ANOTHER WAY TO DO IT!!!!!!!!

 

Do we want to stop this kind of stuff? Do we want the masses to be heard? Then we need to commit to getting ourselves involved and take 5 other sportsmen with us. If just one.... just one... decides to join in the fight with each of us.... we just doubled in size. Lets get it done and stop questioning those that you don't want to represent you anyway. Its time to do this!

 

Donnie

[ThomC]

Don't assume that all the board members from the ADA supported 2072! Bad assumtion.

 

If the Ada does lose members over this deal I don't know how good that is. Where will they go? Will they fade into the shadows? We diffinately don't want that. We need more people involved not less.

 

Kent, I completely understand what you are saying. The point I keep trying to get back to though is ultimately it is our collective uninvolvement that left the door open for this to happen. Now, we can all sit here and question the ADA, but I hope we can each look in the mirror and ask ourselves why we have been apethetic. We ALL need to change and get more active but if we start focusing and casting blame, then we will probably forget to take accountability for our own part in this.

 

Lets look at this another way. Orgs are created to organize and represent the voices of many. Now, if you have say... 300,000 sportsmen in the state and 6,000 of those are part of the org system, the org system that does 99.9% of the conservation work and you need funding. Funding to fight anti's, funding for conservation work... yada yada yada. Now 300,000 are taxing the rescource but only 6,000 are giving back, theres a huge gap there. So funds need to be generated. On top of that, you hear the voice of 6,000 and assume that they might represent the rest.... you can only assume. There is absolutely no possible way, even with auction tags, that enough money can be generated by 6,000 involved people to fight the anti's, let alone do conservation work. So, an idea is conceived to generate more funds from tags. Heres the line of thought, "if the masses don't want to be directly involved and help fund the fight... fine. We'll write legislation to get tags so we can fund the fight." They truly have no possible way of knowing what the masses will say because they don't have a voice... they're slient. So, if we have not let our voices be heard, it leaves the door WIDE open for people to assume what we want and need. And, we are trusting a few to have the honorable intentions when speaking for us. And yes, if you are not speaking out and staying involved, you are allowing a few people to speak for you by default!

 

Now, do I agree with the whole idea? Absolutely not. Whether the masses are involved or not you can never assume to speak for them. Its the responsability of all parties involved to work to get the majority involved. But our own apathy and uninvolvement left the door wide open for this.

 

Guys... we need to fund the fight somehow! If we as a collective group don't want a bill like 2072 then we need to come up with some way to protect our heritage. We fought to stop this bill... awesome! BUT IT IS NOW OUR DUTY AS SPORTSMEN TO FIND ANOTHER WAY TO DO IT!!!!!!!!

 

Do we want to stop this kind of stuff? Do we want the masses to be heard? Then we need to commit to getting ourselves involved and take 5 other sportsmen with us. If just one.... just one... decides to join in the fight with each of us.... we just doubled in size. Lets get it done and stop questioning those that we don't want to represent us anyway. Its time to do this!

 

Donnie

[ThomC]

You keep saying that you are not defending the ADA or its leader, and then you do. If you are a member of an org. you still have to be very involved in what the org. does. Apathy among org members lets the rogue leader do whatever they want. And that is exactually what happened. IMHO

[donniedent]

I don't feel I defended the ADA again but you have a right to your opinion. I'm truly just trying to get us all to have a proactive focus on what we can do from this point forward. Thats all.

 

Donnie

[Non-Typical Solutions]

When is the ADA gonna get off their "aces" and come forward with information about the platnium membership with the azsfw .

 

The sportsmen and women of Arizona deserve an Answer -

 

whats it gonna take for this to happen!?

 

we've been told twice the 2072 push is dead - we'vew been told that if it happened a second time the ADA would remove itself from affiliation.

 

WHat is the message they are sending by dragging this out - with no comment from anyone !

The final results of the survey are in an will be published in our newsletter. We owe it to our membership to give them the information of the survey. I have read that there were "trick Questions" in the survey. There were 3 questions. Question 1 was "Are you for the ADA continuing to support the AZSFW?" If you can discover the tricky part, please advise Amanda, since she helped craft some of the questions. As far as the AZSFW, it will continue to exist, but in a far different format and certainly without funding from any of the conservation groups, including the ADA. There is a HB in the legislature which is designed around what can or cannot be said on the internet. I hope that it does not garner support, but CWT would be an interesting place to visit if it does. I must admit that the silver lining is that some people have come out and gotten involved. Don Lee is a good example of what can happen when people get off their collective backsides and get to rolling up their sleeves. I attempted to call all those who voted to NOT support the AZSFW only to thank them for participating in the process. Some folks did not place their names or addresses on the return vote or envelope, but those that did I attempted to contact. As far as responding to CWT, I apologize, but we really do owe you nothing. The ADA will have their annual election in June and we are looking forward to our members attending and having new board members on the slate for a 2 year commitment. Regard, BPJ

 

Once again, as I have stated on the thread regarding north of the big ditch. At this point as AZlance stated, credibility has been damaged.

 

Then, BPJ you make a statement like this:

 

As far as responding to CWT, I apologize, but we really do owe you nothing.

 

You are 100% correct, you don't owe us anything, my guess though is that you feel we owe something to you for all of your many hours spent on "our" behalf?

 

You don't owe us a thing, but comments like that do very little to bridge the gaping hole created by the HB2072, and that hole lies in the word trust, or maybe credibility.

 

I actually do appreciate all that you and others have done for our deer herds here in Arizona, it is way more than I have done by far. But really, is it about oweing(sp?) anything to anybody other than what we can live with when we look in the mirror each morning?

 

I don't think we throw the whole program out the window, (ADA) but credibility would have to take the reins in order to salvage and restore......

[krp]

NRA, around 100,000 strong in AZ, is a powerful force even in state politics though they are mostly National. Here's an example of state legislation Gov Brewer signed for hunters less than two weeks ago. I didn't see any local orgs engaged in this successful legislation for hunters...

 

http://www.nraila.org/hunting/issues-and-alerts/2012/4/arizona-governor-signs-hunter-protection-bill-into-law.aspx

 

April 11, 2012... Last night, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed House Bill 2457 into law. This legislation will allow hunters to carry a handgun for self-defense while in the field. This important hunter protection bill passed the state Senate by a 21 to 7 vote on April 4 and passed in the House by a 54 to 4 vote on March 5.

 

The RMEF has 5000 members in this state and there are other national orgs that we can rely on that have members here also. We need to rely on them because most of the threats from antis are on the Federal level... GC watershed monument as an example...

 

We have many more people involved than is being stated... and with effectual organizations.

 

Every person involved in hunting also supports the AZ G&F with licenses and fees, AZ G&F is the biggest entity in the state supplying biology and habitat solutions for wildlife... obviously... but it gets lost sometimes.

 

Along with that every hunter pays the 11% Pittman Robertson taxes on equipment that comes back to AZ, and in 2010 it was 12,000,000... so the average hunter is funding in a big way already...

 

http://www.fws.gov/southwest/federal_assistance/wr.html

 

http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/federal-aid-cycle.shtml

 

Who does the best job in youth retention... family. For every youth hunter there is an average of 2 adults along and sometimes more... consider that, on the amount of youth tags given. I love youth camps and they are sorely needed, but they pale in comparison in the overall picture numbers wise. Our elk camp was typical this last year. There was a youth with a 3C jr tag one weekend and a youth with a general 3C cow tag the next and we also had a youth with a reservation archery tag at the same time... and adults with rez tags. So it's a big camp for a couple weeks... I help on all their hunts, the perfect example was the young lady that had her GreatGF, GF, Father in camp making 4 generations. GF, father and I take her out. What she gets out of this is how important she is to her family, how supportive they are not only in this but all things in her life...

 

You can't replace that with a 8.00 hotdog and a fishtank at an expo.

 

Local orgs are effective on the ground, no doubt, that's where their strength is, not politics... my take is there is X amount of extra donations available, just how life is... there are more and more orgs lining up for that pot and that's what we are seeing. We need to be smart in who gets our donation, who proves they won't waste it, who proves they are conservation orientated. Those that stepout into the 'public' political arena are making a big mistake and they can't hide behind their conservation skirts when public opinion confronts them.

 

For politics we need an org that can prove they are effectual, not flail around in their agendas and representation. When we see a solid org, I will support... we are at ground zero.

 

Kent

[runningbird]

It seem obvious that most will not get what they want from the ADA. It seems like John did state that the ADA will not continue funding AZSFW. If you are a member you have the opportunity to speak at a board meeting.

 

What about the other groups/Organizations. The ABA asked it's membership what they thought of HB 1072. The membership overwhelmingly said they did not support it. They did not ask what the membership thought of AZSFW. Why did they leave that out? What is the status of other organizations?

 

I think at this point we should be looking forward to the meeting on the 8th. If we can all stay focused and work together we may be able to make some progress.