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Indybay Feature

Reporter sues MLPA officials, state agencies over arrest

by Dan Bacher
David Gurney, an independent film maker from Fort Bragg, is suing officials from the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative and state agencies in Mendocino County Superior Court over his arrest for recording and speaking at a "work session" in Fort Bragg on April 20, 2010.

"California’s open meeting laws guarantee that citizens and members of the press have a right to keep track of what goes on in a public process, and assures they will not be harassed at public meetings," said Gurney and his lawyer Peter Martin in a news release. "Yet the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, funded by the secretive Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, often had secret, unrecorded meetings, changed the rules of their process at whim, and abided only by the laws of their own choosing."

The defendants in the complaint include the California Department of Fish and Game, California Natural Resources Agency, Eric Bloom, Ken Wiseman, Eric Poncelet and the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.

Since the MLPA process was privatized by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004, the initiative has openly violated numerous state, federal and international laws. Just some of the many laws violated under the initiative, funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, include the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, the California Public Records Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Gurney is seeking a permanent injunction that will prevent further violations of Bagley-Keene, Constitutional and other laws by the MLPA Initiative, as well as damages suffered in the arrest.

"Interestingly, the California Attorney General's Office has declined routine service of papers in the complaint, possibly forcing attorneys to initiate default proceedings against the state," the press release noted.

MLPA officials, in their bizarre conception of marine "protection, have completely taken oil drilling and spills, water pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture, coastal development and all other human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in the so-called marine protected areas that are created by the initiative. These marine protected areas also do absolutely nothing to stop the collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon and other anadromous fish populations imperiled by massive water exports out of the California Delta and declining water quality.

Below is the complete press release:
mlpa2.jpg
Jugglestone Productions
http://www.jugglestone.com

Contacts: David Gurney
(707) 961-1339
jugglestone [at] comcast.net

Peter Martin, Attorney
(707) 268-0445
peterericmartin [at] hotmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fort Bragg, California, Jan. 19, 2011


REPORTER SUES STATE AGENCIES

A journalist forcibly arrested for recording and speaking at a public meeting
is suing the privately funded MLPAI, and state agencies.

On April 20, 2010, David Gurney went to a Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative meeting in Fort Bragg, California, to record the "public/private" agency that was closing off large areas of state waters to fishermen and seaweed gatherers. Soon after the meeting began, it was announced that the public would not be allowed to record or speak at the meeting.

"I was surprised," Gurney says, "The managers had decided to split up the thirty-four local stakeholders into separate sub-groups, against their will. They apparently didn't want it on tape."

But he had been working on a documentary of the MLPAI process for the past nine months, and the camera was rolling.

Executive Director Ken Wiseman immediately stopped the meeting.

"He and professional facilitator Eric Poncelet came up to me with an armed fish and game warden, and ordered me to quit filming," Gurney says. "I was threatened with ejection and arrest if I didn't."

He complied, but three other times during the two-day meetings, he continued to record. "I wanted to get some quick B-roll footage, to show how the stakeholders had been split up against their own vote," he says. Each time seen, he was ordered to stop.

Gurney also spoke up at the beginning of the proceedings when it was announced there would be no opportunity for public comment. "I knew that was also a violation of the law, to hold a public meeting and not allow any comment," he says. "I simply told the MLPAI that I had not given up my rights by attending their meeting."

Finally, near the end of the second day, Gurney asked a question that the staff did not want to hear.

"During the question and answer period, I asked whether the MLPAI would make any provisions to protect the ocean from other activities besides fishing. Things like oil drilling, wind and wave energy development, fish farms, etc. As the facilitator was telling me that no questions would be taken from the public, someone sent a Fish and Game Warden over to arrest me," Gurney says.

He was quickly escorted out of the meeting hall, handcuffed, and taken away in a Fish and Game pick-up truck.

In 2004, the MLPA “Initiative” resurrected a ten-year old law with undisclosed private funding, to create it’s own, nebulous state-like agency. Director Wiseman at first said that California laws, including the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, did not apply because the process was “advisory” to state government. And yet the state supplied scientists, advisors and armed Fish and Game Wardens to act as security guards for public MLPAI meetings. Many feel that the blurring of lines between private and public interests opened the floodgates for corruption, and that illegal private influence of the democratic process runs rampant in the MLPAI.

California’s open meeting laws guarantee that citizens and members of the press have a right to keep track of what goes on in a public process, and assures they will not be harassed at public meetings. Yet the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, funded by the secretive Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, often had secret, unrecorded meetings, changed the rules of their process at whim, and abided only by the laws of their own choosing.

Mr. Gurney had earlier volunteered to serve on his community's citizen watch-dog committee to keep an eye on the "Initiative." Many in his town felt that the privately funded commission had repeatedly crossed the line of illegality.

In addition to violating state open meeting laws, a 72-foot blue whale had been killed off Fort Bragg by an unlicensed mapping vessel, contracted by the MLPAI. Native American interests were negligently ignored. Shady stipends, favors and promises were handed out from the unregulated contributions of the Resources Legacy Foundation. Secret, unrecorded meetings continued to be held. Local folks complained loudly of ineptitude, conflict of interest and corruption.

"I just wanted to get what I could on tape, for the historical record," he said.

He is seeking a permanent injunction that will prevent further violations of Bagley-Keene, Constitutional and other laws by the MLPAI, as well as damages suffered in the arrest.

Interestingly, the California Attorney General's Office has declined routine service of papers in the complaint, possibly forcing attorneys to initiate default proceedings against the state.

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