Thanks guys!
@Don - I was born in Groton, but my dad was in the Navy, so I got accustomed to moving around a lot- thankfully always near the water:) Yea, I'd be happy to sport the "new" logo''.
We have a few things in common. I know New London and Groton well, I come from seaworthy family myself.
Cheers, Don
That's going to be perfect for my shore diving where I have to schlep my gear a 1/2 mile. I've been following the development of that float from the beginning. When do you get you first shipment ?
Cheers, Don
That bookend burl handle wood is sick, Phil's resin system really magnifies the beautiful wood work you've
crafted.
Cheers, Don
Except a motor,
;).. It looks like a dream float, but has a large wet surface area and windage above the water line. I would love to have it on a calm day with no white caps or current.
Cheers, Don
More Goat F-ck.
Monday, February 07, 2011
SECRET MLPA MEETINGS REVEALED
SACRAMENTO – Meeting agendas and emails uncovered by a successful Public Records Act lawsuit demonstrate what skeptical members of the public have long suspected. The Marine Life Protection Act Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force pervasively and routinely met behind closed doors while directing the privately funded marine closure process.
“Public meetings of the BRTF have been an elaborately staged kabuki performance choreographed and rehearsed down to the last detail, even to the crafting of motions in scheduled private meetings held before the so-called public meetings of the BRTF. Clearly this has not been the ‘most open and transparent process ever’ as it has so often been described,” Partnership of Sustainable Oceans representative George Osborn testified during the February 2nd meeting of the California Fish and Game Commission.
Earlier that day, the commission was formally served with the PSO lawsuit seeking to invalidate MPAs approved for the South and North-Central Coast study regions. The new lawsuit filed in San Diego Superior Court alleges violations of the state Administrative Procedures Act and the California Environmental Quality Act among other violations of law.
The documents are the fruits of a successful Public Records Act lawsuit brought last year by United Anglers of Southern California and Robert C. Fletcher, former DFG Chief Deputy Director and past president of the Sportfishing Association of California. Sources say they represent only a tiny fraction of the materials ordered for release when the court determined the BRTF is a state agency, most of which have yet to be produced.
Spanning from April 2007 to November 2009, the documents demonstrate that the MLPA process was directed from high within the executive branch of state government. Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman is implicated in a briefing on managing the public process. The same emailed agenda dated April 7, 2007 advises BRTF members to “give your own notes verbally and throw them away after,” a secretive strategy for limiting “discoverable” material, denying the public a record of the BRTF’s closed-door actions.
BRTF “briefing meetings” were held on April 2007, November 3, 2008, December 10, 2008, February 25, 2009, and October 20, 21 and 22, 2009. The sessions preceded scheduled public meetings in places such as MLPAI executive director Ken Wiseman’s hotel parlor suite and the Santa Barbara home of then-BRTF chair Don Benninghoven. That meeting included a dinner with Chrisman and Fish and Game commissioner Richard Rogers, another frequent defender of the MLPA as a model public planning process.
As a member of a state commission, Rogers should have known the briefings were suspect. The state’s Bagley-Keene open meetings law clearly prohibits private meetings of a panel majority, even those limited to briefings. BRTF members and some commissioners such as Rogers regularly asserted the BRTF was not subject to Bagley-Keene, but claimed BRTF members voluntarily abided by it.
They did a miserable job. Emails authored by Meg Caldwell and Jane Pisano suggest the BRTF went far beyond briefings. They deliberated during their private sessions. In an email dated June 2, 2009, Pisano wrote “I feel strongly that we need to meet privately before the public meeting (either on the phone or in person).”
In late October 2009 as the South Coast process neared its end and the development of the BRTF’s own proposed set of Marine Protected Area closures known as the Integrated Preferred Alternative, MLPAI program manager Melissa Miller-Henson authored an email referencing a boardroom dinner “allowing the group to talk with Dr. Pisano about her perspective before she departs” a multi-day session early.
Similarly, in a request for more private time for BRTF members, Caldwell wrote “we can digest it in our own rooms, or conversation with one another, or in conversations with staff.”
At times, the emails delve deep into complex details. A February 2009 Caldwell email recommends bringing in an expert to consult on legal-jurisdictional issues between the state and the US Department of Defense over the question of MPAs at military use areas. “I’m free to talk by cell phone pretty much any time this weekend,” Caldwell added. Bagley-Keene expressly prohibits serial meetings such as these.
The public record also supports the notion that the BRTF deliberated behind closed doors. In an unguarded moment at the beginning of the November 10, 2009 BRTF meeting, then-chair Cathy Reheis-Boyd said “we’ve got task force members running on empty after three nights of about three hours sleep.” At that meeting, MPA plans developed by the three Regional Stakeholder Groups suddenly became Options A and B, literally overnight and without action in the public eye.
During a joint BRTF / Fish and Game Commission hearing on December 9, 2009, commissioner Dan Richards asked Wiseman if the BRTF held private meetings. Reheis-Boyd fielded the question, testifying on record that “[we] certainly do not make any decisions behind closed doors. It’s against our policy. We don’t do that, we don’t stand for that and we haven’t participated in that period.”
Reheis-Boyd acknowledged the group met for meals. “During that time if a member has a question they can ask a question of staff, certainly they can ask and have it answered so they could inform themselves. We do not deliberate and we do not make decisions at any of those meetings,” she added.
The documents prove otherwise, shining a revealing light into the secretive inner workings of the MLPAI, a process the PSO’s Fletcher characterized as the most corrupt and conflicted he’s encountered during decades of public service.
Video of PSO representative Osborn’s commission testimony is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7_04BC1acA.
Video of Reheis-Boyd’s denial can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHxA14wBvDs.
MLPA records prove BRTF commonly met in secret
MLPA SECRECY EXPOSED – Emails uncovered by the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans show the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force pervasively and routinely met behind closed doors. In this example, BRTF member Meg Caldwell demands a scheduled public meeting be delayed to allow more time to meet privately in the members’ own hotel rooms.
Posted By Bradley On 02/07/2011 At 8:22 PM Comments.
I also was under the impresion that Germans hated the idea of spearfishing.
One deep diving Berliner...
He lives in the US, but Jorg Meyer a third generation glass blower: is one of the best spero's ever. Jay Riffe copied his hand made Austrian speargun, the rest is history. Jorg worked and dove with the legendary Aussie underwater film maker Ben and Eva Croft. Jorg has speared more fish in Baja then I will ever see in a life time.
Cheers, Don
imo it's better to get it off the reef as fast as possible so it doesn't hole up but if it does you can use the lift of the float to put pressure on it and eventually it will come out. i lost all of my bluewater gear in pv last year when i shot a 60+ fish with a sliptip and bungie on a breakaway. the fish stretched the bungie enough and the sliptip allowed it to go deep into a hole. if i had a short it with a hard float line and a short (one wrap) shooting line i may have been able to horse it up in time. the other thing is, if i was usuing a flopper shaft i think the fish would not have been able to hole up too deep with a shaft sticking through it.
again, my opinion.
You need to stop diving that waste out flow pipe, was it a 125 foot with no float ? Or did it get dark to soon ?
Cheers, Don
A flungee also works, a 100 `75 `floatline coupled to a short ( 10 feet bungie) is also a good option. One quality Inflatable is enough. The regular Riffe torpedo will land any fish that you would encounter around here. The 2 atmosphere is more than enough.
Except 12' Black Marlin.:( on a very deep drop off.
Cheers Don
Josh @ Neptonic Systems. From what I have seen over the years his quality is high and has strong materials.
I use a 50' Norprene buggie and a 50' specta cored vinyl float line.
Cheers, Don
why do u say that don? because of the electromagnetic forces it emits?
I was kidding around more than any thing, sorry Ben, but I will say this: To many speros look outward to technology and should be looking inward to the arts of stalking and hunting stills. If more guys became one with their gun, they would not need the Junk in the Trunk. <img src= " height="23" srcset="https://spearfishing.world/forum/images/smilies/emojione/1f606@2x.png 2x">
Cheers, Don
Hi Ben, welcome to the forum mate. Where are you from in Connecticut?, I grew up there as well.
I love my logo less Pursuit blue Camo 5mil, ...... may be we can gang up on Dan and ask him to offer a logo
Kit option,;)
Cheers, Don Paul
Welcome mate,great to have you, love your guns.
Cheers, Don
Welcome mate.
Cheers, Don Paul
I would buy this one.. it would be hard to build for the price Dan is giving it away for. You could lengthen the bands a little if needed, or shoot with 1 band for close shots.
Cheers, Don
Have you use a pole spear yet mate ? How large a frame do you have ?
Cheers, Don Paul
Welcome mate.
Cheers, Don Paul
The only thing going in my ear is my chicks tongue......I need to hear those white Sea Bass croak .
Cheers, Don
The indigenous people of California say ; '' If you can see the island from mainland and have canoe ....don't go''. 
That uphill run to PV into the wind will get wet and wild, make sure every thing is lashed down. I hope this wind rolls the water upside down so we can get some vis.
Cheers, Don
Nice intro mate, good to have you.
Cheers, Don Paul
