Monday, September 25, 2017

Ohio's Natural Resources Department continues to defend the indefensible


Even after nearly seven years of holding down the fort the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ leadership still finds itself trying to both win over pro-sportsmens organizations and justify its full-nelson hold on the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

No where does this mangled mindset appear more in evidence than via a video shot September 8th during a portion of the Ohio State Trappers Association’s annual convention, held at the Holmes County Fairgrounds in Millersburg.

This hour-plus-long video contains a testy (at times) exchange between members of the Trappers Association and the Natural Resources Department’s assistant director Gary Obermiller. It is posted on the Association’s Facebook page.

Subsequent comments made by Association attendees that are linked with the video also suggest that Obermiller’s efforts have achieved little in the way of bolstering confidence in the agency.

Which is in keeping with the Natural Resources Department on-going inability to acknowledge that it has an appearance problem trending toward arrogance. This pomposity has defined the agency’s leadership from the beginning and which still lurches itself onward with faux swagger.

Indeed, the Natural Resources Department continues to misread the breadth and depth of distrust that many Ohio sportsmen/sportswomen hold for the agency.

In a statement worthy of former Trump Administration press secretary Sean Spicer, Ohio Department of Natural Resources spokesman Matt Eislestein added to the administration’s string of back-handed insults of anyone who dares to disagree with the agency.

When asked if Obermiller wanted to amend, change, expand or comment on his statements and performance at the Trappers’ meet, Eiselstein simply stated “I don’t think anything needs added to Assistant Director Obermiller’s appearance at the Ohio State Trappers Association event. He was polite and respectful when answering questions even when interrupted and badgered during his responses.”

Similar vainglorious statements were belched a few months back when roughly 40 state and national conservation groups backed increases to Ohio resident hunting and fishing license fees. Then the Natural Resources Department’s leadership smugly snorted – in effect – as how the non-profit groups should have undertaken a poll of their respective memberships on whether the organizations should say yea or nay to any increase in resident hunting and fishing license fees.

Even forgetting for a moment the logistical improbability of mounting such a step, the very reason people belong to these organizations is because of their conservation activism. All of that is still being lost on the Natural Resources Department’s directorship which seems to believe that anything other than its opinion is fake news.

Clearly this self-promoting strategy spilled over unto the state trapper’s annual pow-wow stage; a group the Natural Resources Department now seems bent on disenfranchising by saying its people badgered Obermiller.

Obviously, too, Natural Resources Department officials both misinterpreted the response to Obermiller’s defense of the indefensible but have also failed – and miserably so – to acknowledge any of the sod-busting efforts on the part of previous administrations which broke ground on various sportsmen initiatives.

In one instance Obermiller attempted to singularly sing the praises regarding his administration’s efforts at opening state parks, natural areas and nature preserves to hunting. And while any and all such effort must be applauded, neither Obermiller, nor Natural Resources Department director James Zehringer - or even Wildlife Division chief Mike Miller - can possibly file an original patent on the idea. Their claim that the Wildlife Division has not taken advantage of this access opportunity is simply bogus.

Then too Obermiller’s statement that state parks have more public water for anglers was a bit surprising and something that stretched reality to the breaking point. After all, Ohio anglers have the Ohio River to the south and something called Lake Erie to the north. Take away those two minor fishing holes and it doesn’t take much of an imagination to determine how low fishing license sales would dip.

As the video shows, now-retired Wildlife Division District Three (Northeast Ohio) supervisor Jeff Herrick pointedly and correctly provided a short history regarding his former employer’s decades-long work in achieving the opening of dozens of state parks as well as natural areas to hunting and the agency’s dogged efforts to share this effort with Ohio’s sportsmen.

And while Herrick’s response was maybe an octave louder than a normal tone of voice, to say that his reaction to Obermiller’s politically talented interpretation of events was somehow “badgering” easily achieves audacity.

Herrick’s responses – and there were multiples of them – also demonstrated the on-going frustration felt by many sportsmen towards current Natural Resources Department’s policies and perceived threats against the Wildlife Division. These perceptions simply have not gone away because more than a few sportsmen/sportswomen still do not trust the Natural Resources Department’s leadership. Again, seven years into the department’s leadership tenure.

They remain outraged as the Natural Resources Department has utilized the Wildlife Division the way a baseball franchise mines its farm club system; robbing the latter of dedicated and experienced employees. A move that included removing the Wildlife Division’s head of law enforcement for the do-it-or-be-dismissed job of babysitting the Natural Resources Department’s communications room.

And when Obermiller tried to say that under the Natural Resources bold leadership the state parks system has achieved fiscal solvency it was candidly pointed out to him that the pilfering of the former Ohio Division of Watercraft with its fiscally solid Waterways Safety Fund, and then shuffling them into the Parks Division, certainly didn’t hurt Parks’ bottom line.

Obermiller wasn’t all wrong nor all bad, however. He was spot on in saying that the multitude of so-called wildlife production areas owned by the Wildlife Division deserve better play. Indeed, these highly obscure parcels of often superb wildlife habitat are decades old but are minimally known by Ohio’s hunters. In this regard the Natural Resources Department earns top marks for wanting to see the Wildlife Division do much more in promoting them.

And credit Obermiller for noting that the Wildlife Division has for too long been viewed as the pretty one of the Natural Resources Department’s family at the expense of its lesser siblings. Sure, some of that feeling is nothing more than jealousy but there is more than an element of truth to the long-held belief.

Problem was, Obermiller had few of these positives; his presentation often citing items of dubious accuracy. His statements on Zehringer’s Natural Resources ad hoc citizens committee make it seems like it is comprised of average joes plucked from the street. The members are anything but, and a going over the list shows more friends of the agency’s leadership than foes; a tell-tale sign that Zehringer wants to hear happy news first, foremost and last.

Even more startling, near the conclusion of the video Obermiller commented on a question addressing these two ad hoc committees. Regarding the new Wildlife Ad Hoc Committee, Obermiller said that he believes there are 12 members but “I can’t tell you all (their) names.” That is a stunning admission given that one of the committee members said he was recruited to join the group by none other than Obermiller himself.

Obmiller said as well that one year from now when he returns to the Trappers’ annual convention, if the group’s membership tells him that the Natural Resources Department has “mucked things up” he’ll take his “medicine.”

Alas, the Kasich-Zehringer-Obermiller political machine has pretty much squandered seven of its eight allotted years. And sadly this means that Administration officials still have an entire year and change to keep mucking things up, to recycle Obermiller’s own words.


To view the video, go to the Ohio State trappers Association’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/456132764517105/. Note that at times the visual portion of the program is heavily pixelated while the audio portion includes segments that will need rewinding and subsequent rehearing.

- By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net

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