Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) states that the sponsors are reworking wording of petition to address critics’ concerns that is a new initiative proposal to ban commercial gillnets on the Columbia River. It is said that the original petition effort was dropped last week after the attorney general’s office issued a ballot title that was unacceptable to the sponsors.
The proposed title “Bans Oregon salmon fishing with gillnets; redirects license surcharges to fund changing to alternative methods.” The proposal did not reflect the sponsors’ intent — to prohibit non
Bryan Irwin, the association’s Pacific Northwest executive director, told that it’s hard up front to guess what the attorney general’s going to do, how he’s going to interpret the initiative language. The attorney general’s ballot title points to a direction for the redraft, which association officials hope to have next week.
Experts believe that the Association members are ready to grasp the need for changes to make it palatable to anglers as well as the public. And CCA officials also learned a lot from the comments of the critics who swayed the attorney general’s office to rewrite the initiative title.
Irwin said that there is lot of concerns and in a lot of ways wouldn’t necessarily even characterize as the opponents. But this is good advice on what things to change in this initiative to make it palatable to all, say Irwin.
