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Three weeks ago the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of TU National resigned. In his letter, he stated his resignation was over the issue of stream access. He disagreed with the NLC policy developed last year over stream access, which essentially created a working group at National that all access issues would be referred to for a case by case adjudication as to whether TU should be involved. The Board Chairman said flatly, this is not TU's business, it is not related to TU's mission, and we should not be involved in access issues, with a couple of limited exceptions. This individual was from Colorado, and was known to be influential in regard to his fundraising ability. TU is about to embark on a major campaign to raise a couple of hundred million dollars.
About two weeks ago, the Acting Chairman of the Board of Trustees sent out a resolution to be voted on by the Board of Trustees on either March 28 or 29, 2007 that said TU would be not be involved in any access issue dispute, but for the situations where there were pre-existing access agreements, and access related to federal dams and licensing matters. Before the vote is taken, there was a conference call set up for the NLC for tonight, so that input could be gathered from this forum by the board. But note, the board is the one making the decision on this. Nothing that happens tonight will have binding impact on the board. It would be persuasive input for the ultimate board vote.
This past week, Charles Gauvin sent out an e-mail essentially supporting the no access policy. He said that access is too complicated of an issue, it is a distraction, and it is not part of our core mission.
However, when the NLC developed policy came out last year, Kirk Otey, head of the NLC, wrote a memo linking access to the part of TU's mission statement relating to "home waters." It seems at the time the NLC very much believed that access was directly related to TU's mission.
Over the weekend, I spoke with the members of the Executive Committee, which would be the Secretary and Treasurer, to get their sense of things. I also spoke with Mark Hattman, our NLC rep, Steve Angiers, former Council NLC rep, John Salemi and Gene Chague, both former Council Chairmen.
Our collective judgment is as follows. We do not support this initiative by the board to change the NLC access policy. First, the manner in which this is being done is not democratic, and disrespects any process that takes into consideration the grassroots nature of TU. Second, whether or not TU should be involved in access issues is an open question, and one that ultimately may be decided in the negative. But most of us believe a precursor to doing work for TU involves some sense of commitment by the organization to the concept that our rivers, and the fish within the rivers, are a public asset, and cannot be owned by private entities. That concept must be balanced against the private property rights of those who own land along rivers and streams and lakes and ponds. But the laws relating to what rights such abutters have vary from state to state.
I gave direction to Mark Hattman to tell the people running the conference call tonight that we do not support this change in policy, and that the manner in which TU national is doing things is completely disrespectful of the grassroots character, or stated character of this organization.
My plan is to contact Jan Allardt after the conference call, probably on Wednesday, and ask that this issue must be put on the April 14, 2007 Agenda. I have 15 minutes on another topic, fundraising that is done without informing the local organizations, such as what was done in Boston last month. I will ask her, if there is no other time, to use this time and space to address the access issue, and the broader issue of national's heavy handed manner in dealing with the local organizations.
Please feel free to distribute this information to all those who are interested.