Recently the Board of Fisheries voted down the request to have the 2017 Upper Cook Inlet Finfish meeting on the Kenai.
Throughout the election season many candidates have spoken not only about the location of the meeting but also about the makeup of the board affecting its accessibility.
District 30 House of Representatives candidate Shauna Thornton(D) spoke about what she thought the ideal makeup of the Board of Fisheries would be.
Thornton(D): “You need to have a balance of the different people in there so you should have some biologist and you should have some sport fishing and you should have some commercial fishing, you should have some subsistence fishermen, and you should also have some general public who have nothing in there for them other than going out and fishing from home.”
Her competition, current House member Kurt Olson(R) detailed what the legislature can do currently the problem with the structure of the board.
Rep. Olson(R): “Realistically all we can do is confirm or not confirm Board of Fish appointees and when you have a seven person panel like we do at the board of fish you’re always going to have either three commercial people or four commercial people and three people that lean sport fishing and when you have that you’re going to have winners and losers on a regular basis and that’s one of the problems that I have with the way that it’s structured.”
Voters will decide who will represent District 30 on November 4.