The Board of Fisheries meets from March 10-22 to focus on management issues for Southeast Alaska and Yakutat commercial, sport, subsistence and personal use fisheries. But one BOF seat on the 7 member panel remains vacant and even Alaska legislators can’t get any information about who’s tossed their hat into the ring for consideration. Requests for information to Alaska Governor Sean Dunleavy’s office have gone unanswered.
Dunleavy appointed Indy Walton of Soldotna to the BOF in September but he resigned in December due to health reasons.
Alaska law states that the governor has 30 days to name another BOF appointment, a deadline long gone.
With the Southeast/Yakutat BOF meetings just days away, who knows?
NPFMC seats also need names
Governor Dunleavy also must name his selections for two seats on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that become open on August 10.
The terms expire then for Cora Campbell, CEO of Silver Bay Seafoods, and Nicole Kimball, VP at Pacific Seafood Processors Association.
Dunleavy must send three names to the Secretary of Commerce by March 15.
Rumored to be in the NPFMC mix are Duncan Fields of Kodiak who previously served several terms on the Council; Heather McCarty of Juneau, a fisheries analyst for the Central Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association and wife of recently retired NOAA/AK director, Jim Balsiger; Rebecca Skinner of Kodiak, director of the Alaska Whitefish Trawlers Association, and Angel Drobnica of Juneau, Director of Fisheries and Government Affairs for the Aleutian/Pribilof Island Community Development Association. Drobnica is mentioned as a front-runner. Campbell and Kimball might also be re-appointed.
The deadline to appoint names to the NPFMC is just days away, but who knows?
