The Alaska Department of Fish and Game Anchorage advisory committee is encouraging the Board of Fisheries to move the 2017 Upper Cook Inlet meeting location to the Kenai Peninsula.
Kenai City Manager Rick Koch traveled to a meeting of Anchorage’s advisory committee Tuesday where members voted 12-3 in support of the location change.
Koch: “It’ll be in the form of a letter that goes to the Board of Fish, recommending that the 2017 UCI meeting be held on the Kenai Peninsula. That’s a very generous offer on their part because they’re from Anchorage, it’s obviously easier for them to be involved in Anchorage but they recognize the inherent unfairness of a large population of Alaskans not having direct access to the Board of Fish the decisions made there directly affect everybody on the Kenai Peninsula, more so than in Anchorage.”
On Tuesday, he and recently appointed Board of Fisheries member Bob Mumford took part in the discussion of the location change with the Anchorage advisory committee.
Koch says the advisory committee members also felt that the process the Board of Fisheries takes part in will be enhanced by including more members of affected communities and having the meeting in Kenai.
ADF&G’s Kenai and Soldotna Advisory Committee passed a resolution last year in support of having the 2017 meeting on the Kenai Peninsula. The last time it was held on the central peninsula was 1999.
December 2-8 the Board of Fisheries will consider changing the location of the 2017 UCI to Kenai.
Koch says there is still a lot of work to be done and encourages Kenai Peninsula residents to submit public comments to the Board of Fisheries before November 19.
He will appear on Thursday’s Soundoff at 10 am with Host Karen McGahan to speak more about the recent developments.
