Beach
Access Issues
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September 18, 2008
Controversy continues over videotaping of negotiated rulemaking meetings
By IRENE NOLAN
A
controversy over public access to the negotiated rulemaking (RegNeg)
process has continued to simmer this week after Cape Hatteras National
Seashore superintendent Mike Murray put the issue of videotaping the
meetings before the committee in Avon last week.
Many who attended the meetings thought the issue was dead after six committee members said they would not support it.
However, Cyndy Holda, the superintendent’s assistant and
community liaison, said that Murray is still considering the
county’s proposal and will make a decision soon.
Also, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission issued a media
release on the vote against videotaping by its member on the RegNeg
Committee, David Allen.
“The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission supports opening
negotiated rulemaking (RegNeg) committee meetings to a broader segment
of the public through cable television and Internet broadcasts,”
the commission’s executive director, Gordon Myers, said in a
press release.
“Science-based decision making is fundamental to sound resource
management, but those decisions must also take into account culture,
tradition, economic impacts and public trust rights” said Myers.
“The RegNeg Committee is composed of a broad set of interest
groups affected by the ORV vehicle regulations. Synthesis of all
perspectives and strict adherence to the meeting ground rules will
result in the most sustainable long-term policy. Implementation of
broadcast technology would provide another option for the public to
overcome geographic separation in order to stay informed and
participate in the rulemaking process.”
In a later e-mail, Myers noted that “Mr. Allen will represent the position of the Wildlife Resources Commission.
If one assumes that David Allen no longer opposes videotaping, then apparently 24 of the 29 members of the committee support it.
The proposal to videotape the meetings came from Warren Judge, chairman
of the Dare County Board of Commissioners and also a committee member.
Earlier this summer, Judge submitted a proposal to Mike Murray, the
designated federal official on the RegNeg Committee, that the county
arrange and pay for videotaping of the committee meetings for broadcast
on the county’s cable channel, and perhaps for posting on its Web
site.
Judge said he believes that the RegNeg process, needs to be more
transparent and more accessible to county residents and to visitors who
have a stake in the outcome of the effort to make a long-term rule on
ORV use on the seashore. The committee’s meetings, usually over
two days, last all day, and many who would like to view the proceedings
cannot take time off from their businesses or employment – or, in
the case of visitors, cannot take time to travel here.
“This whole issue,” he said in an interview this week,
“is about access – not only beach access but access to
information.”
Judge said he was “disturbed” and
“disappointed” by the discussion of videotaping at the
Sept. 8-9 negotiated rulemaking meeting.
Mike Murray said that FACA regulations do not prohibit videotaping, nor
do they require it. He said that at the start of the committee
meetings, the Park Service notified members that there would not be
videotaping (or audiotaping) because there were no resources for it.
Therefore, Murray asked the committee for its opinions on changing the agreement to allow videotaping.
Six members of the committee weighed in against the idea.
They were Derb Carter of the Southern Environmental Law Center, Walker
Golder of the Audubon Society, Jason Rylander of Defenders of Wildlife,
Neal Moore of the Cape Hatteras Bird Club, Robert Milne of the
Coalition of National Park Service Employees, and David Allen of the
North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.
“Videotaping affects the individuals in such a way as to be
detrimental to justice,” said Carter. “When you have
trials with cameras, you get the O.J. Simpson trial.”
Golder said he did not think that videotaping meetings “would be in any way constructive and could be destructive.”
Rylander agreed with Carter and added that committee members “are
not public figures and are not used to speaking on television.”
“It would be an invitation to even more theater than we already have,” said Milne.
Allen did not speak at the meeting to explain his vote, but said in a
telephone interview that he agreed with the others and added that he
was concerned about some members of the Hatteras Island community who
have been harassed about their views on ORV access.
The vote of the Wildlife Resources Commission’s Allen especially caused some controversy.
"This is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of out-of-state
recreational fishers that travel to and utilize this precious national
resource and sustain the local economy during the fishing season," said
Billy Lomniki, president of the United Mobile Sportfishermen, a group
with a representative on the RegNeg committee in a press release.
Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance,
which also has a seat at the negotiating table, said in the same
release, "The State of North Carolina has a statute that allows public
broadcast of all public meetings and for a representative of the state
of North Carolina to deny the public the ability to watch the full
committee meetings and make their own judgments of this public process
is an outrage. I guess we know what side the N.C. Wildlife
Resources Commission is on."
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING
The negotiated rulemaking committee, whose 29 members and their
alternates were appointed by the Secretary of the Department of the
Interior under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), is charged
with developing a long-range rule for ORV operation on the Cape
Hatteras National Seashore.
The seashore has been required to have an ORV plan since the
mid-1970s. Although a plan for the seashore was developed with
public input and submitted to the National Park Service in Washington,
D.C., in 1978, it was never officially adopted through publication in
the Federal Register.
The seashore’s lack of an ORV plan resulted in a lawsuit by
environmental groups that was filed last October and settled with a
consent decree in April. The decree spells out natural resource
and ORV management until the negotiated rulemaking committee finishes
its work.
Under the decree, the National Park Service is required to complete an
ORV management plan by December, 2010, and publish the final regulation
by April 1, 2011.
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