Improper notice of public meeting by the MLPA “Initiative”

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Improper notice of public meeting by the MLPA “Initiative”

by David Gurney

In the first official appearance of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) “Initiative” on the North Coast, Executive Director Ken Wiseman, its Program Manager, Melissa Miller-Henson and other staff members held a meeting at the Harbor Lite Lodge in Fort Bragg, on June 23, 2009.

The meeting was not properly noticed. The organizers of the “Initiative” furtively put word out through the grapevine, along the waterfronts of both Albion and Fort Bragg to people involved with in the fishing and seaweed harvesting communities that there was to be an important meeting of the North Coast MLPA Initiative.

This manipulative word-of-mouth notice was not made public, and legitimate public notice was not provided.

The following video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_hnrzYPTQc&feature=player_embedded, shows a gentleman bringing up the issue with MLPAI Executive Director Ken Wiseman during this June 23, 2009 meeting. He informs Mr. Wiseman that there was no notice in the local paper. Wiseman jokingly responds that he was on the front page of the same newspaper “a year ago.”

This lack of proper notice was the beginning of what was to become a string of serious violations of California’s Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act by private contractors and public employees who formed the so-called “I-Team” of the MLPA Initiative to create so-called "marine protected areas."

The Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act insures that public meetings of public agencies are properly held and noticed, and that such meetings are open to the sunshine of public scrutiny, and coverage by a free press.

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