Fishing Michigan

Three things seem apparent with the administration in Lansing these days.  First, if the state is doing great and there is plenty of money in the budget coffers its got to be about election time.  Secondly if there is a projected budget shortfall in any state agency, they are trying to squeeze more money out of the public’s pockets, because come audit time, it will turn out they had plenty of money to begin with.  Last of all, if there is some new “bonus” money laying around, they will come up quickly with new ways to spend it rather than save away for a rainy day.

The recently proposed license fee increases had no greater supporter than Eric Sharpe of the Detroit Free Press.  In yesterday’s Sunday edition, he stood up, although on the back page, and declared that he had been wrong.  That he, along with the MUCC had been hoodwinked by the administration and the DNR.  But, during that process of defending the rate hikes, he along with Dennis Muchmore (head of the MUCC), lost a lot of the credibility they had with the outdoor community within Michigan.  What they did was betray the trust of the Michigan hunter, trapper and angler.  That trust may take years to win back,  and for the well informed outdoors-person, it could be decades.

Now, if the DNR had come forth with a decent proposal, say a dollar or two fee hike,  I guarantee that this fuss could have been avoided.  After all they had not raised the rate in over a decade, costs go up and this would have been something they could have sold to the people as reasonable.  The stink started when they originally were going to ram down our throats a doubling of the rates.  No amount of political jibber jabber can change that fact.  First they could not raise it all at once, so they tried to soften the blow by spreading it out over a few years.  What  in their little bean counter heads showed them that the state’s economy would be getting better to allow such a bitter pill to be swallowed two years later?

We were told that other states have higher fees than Michigan.  That it was time to catch up with those around us.  Its true folks, there are a handful of states that charge more than Michigan,  but the numbers who charge less are far greater.  The problem is that they didn’t only want to catch up, they wanted to surpass all the other states.  The whole thing is this, and it should have been caught by someone with more pull than a lowly blogger;  Michigan even with its lower rates, had more money coming in than any other state due to the sheer numbers of citizens who enjoy the outdoors. 

One thing that angered me the most about the article, is the pure hell that the employees of the DNR were put through themselves.  Who gets axed first in the wide world of business when times are tough, the low man on the totem pole.  So for just about a year or so, the people you see as the face of the DNR were left to sweat it out.  Will they have job, can they find another job, would they lose their homes, would they have to move their families out of Michigan?

There are going to be audits done,  some facts will come out to help clear the air.  Sharpe in his article says that some folks in Lansing should lose their jobs if they knew ahead of time things were going to be alright.  Somebody at the Free Press should be looking at his desk and asking why wasn’t this investigated before being reported on?  Have newspapers become the vehicle of the government,  or are they still the vigilant watchdog that the people have come to respect?  Think I see a pup with its tail between its legs.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 9:12 am and is filed under DNR Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.