In a back-peddling
move by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and its Ohio
Division of Wildlife, a popular program that supports
sportsmen/conservation groups’ outreach efforts remains in tact.
Credit the
180-degree turn-around by intense lobbying by sportsmen’s and
conservation groups as well as efforts by some state legislators who
hold the all-important trump cards of politics and agency-funding
approval.
About one month ago
the Natural Resources Department and the Wildlife Division unveiled a
revamped plan whereby local sportsmen/conservation clubs would
receive funding for such activities as youth and veteran fishing
outings, expanded hunter education programming, outdoors introductory
activities for women and minorities, and similar hands-on
engagements.
The two state
agencies had informed the clubs that total monies for the program
would be slashed to no more than $500,000, annually down from the
minimum promised several years ago of at least $750,000 and sometimes
which had seen as much as $1 million.
Grant-qualifying
clubs also would see a reduction in the dollar amount they’d each
get for approved projects with further curbs on what the money could
be used for during an event. In many cases clubs had bought things
such as themed tee-shirts or ball-caps as token premiums along with
buying food items served at free lunches and snacks for the students
and other program attendees.
The money for the
so-named “Conservation Club Grant Program” is derived from
federal excises taxes paid on firearms, ammunition, fishing reels and
rods, archery tackle and other such commodities. The federal
government than doles out the dollars to the various states and
territories based upon a formula that enfolds a state’s physical
size and number of licensed hunters and anglers.
From there the
states distribute the money based on an application process.
In Ohio, the money
was in lieu of the dollars that clubs at one time received for their
distribution of hunting and fishing licenses and game law digests to
local license-issuing agents. When the state went to a computerized
license-issuing system that necessity was discontinued. The state
consequently developed a different system whereby clubs could still
receive money in order to accomplish their important
recruitment/retention/reactivation projects.
However, the
National Resources Department and the Division of Wildlife changed
the rules of the grant-awarding game; all without first seeking input
from the impacted clubs. Instead, the two agencies conducted a series
of informational meetings that basically were intended to inform the
clubs that this is the way things are going to be; a move that did
not go over well with the conservation/sportsmen community.
Club officials were
stung by the swiftness of the changes and the lack of being
consulted. They also sought help from state legislators; a group of
elected officials who did not take kindly to what they perceived to
be a heavy-handed approach to their constituents by the Kasich
Administration.
Consequently, in a
February 6 letter to the state’s conservation/sportsmen’s clubs
the Wildlife Division’s chief Mike Miller announced that the
program’s initial requirements and fund-distribution system would
remain intact after all, much to the delight of some who helped
shepherd the grant program from the beginning.
“These meetings
were well attended, and a number of opinions and options were shared
on how to help make the grant program more successful,” Miller
wrote in his letter.
“The takeaway was
that we have passionate sportsmen and women all across the state, and
working together we can continue to preserve Ohio’s outdoors
traditions.”
Then without really
acknowledging that the Natural Resources Department and Wildlife
Division were taken out back to the political and sportsmens’
woodshed, Miller said also “As the chief of the ODNR Division of
Wildlife it is my responsibility to take everything into
consideration and utilize the money in the most effective and
efficient way we can.”
Miller then went on
to list what he described as changes to the Conservation Club Grant
program for 2018. These memorandum notes really are not changes but
rather the status quo of what was done prior to the agency’s
attempted – and now aborted - program overhaul.
Which has made
sportsmen such as Jim Marshall very happy.
Marshall was the
Wildlife Division’s assistant chief from 2007 to 2010 and also the
agency’s acting chief for about seven months in 2010. In all, the
now-retired Marshall was employed by the Wildlife Division for 31
years. He likewise was a major contributing cog in the grant
program’s start-up machinery.
“I am very happy
about all of this,” Marshall said. “This has always been money
that’s been promised to the clubs made after the end to the service
fee they collected for distributing hunting and fishing licenses.
These clubs used that money for important projects that sought to
recruit and retain hunters and fishermen.”
Marshall said the
matter never should have reached critical mass in the first place;
rather the Natural Resources Department and the Wildlife Division
should have first consulted with the affected conservation-sportsmen
clubs.
A key to the Natural
Resources and Wildlife Division retreat, Marshall said as well, was
that a number of sportsmen began contacting their state elected
officials and complained bitterly about the Department/Division
mulish approach and the dire impact the changes would have on the
clubs’ programs.
At that point
resistance to the clubs’ complaints began to crumble, Marshall
said.
“They broke a
promise we made to the clubs, and I cannot think of a program that
has done more good than has this grant program” Marshall said.
An additional
incentive to the Natural Resources and Wildlife Division’s retreat,
Marshall said, came when Lawrence and Gallia County sportsman
contacted their state representative, Rep. Ryan Smith R-93. Smith
also is chairman of the powerful Ohio House Finance Committee.
Smith approached the
Natural Resources Department and Wildlife Division to set up a
meeting where the representative said he “expressed my frustration”
at the changes that would seriously impact
recruitment/retention/return programs he’s personally familiar
with.
“I told them that
the local programs for kids and veterans and others are important to
me,” Smith said. “I’m not against statewide R-3 programs at all
but they cannot come at the expense of what is being done now,
especially in my district.”
Smith said he
requested that the Natural Resources Department and Wildlife Division
really “needed to fix” its new program with a return to the
original system being the best option.
“To their credit
they did fix it,” Smith said.
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
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