President — Bruce Vandervort, 5338 US Hwy 101, Humptulips, WA 98552; phone: 360-288-2466; e-mail: brucevandervort@hotmail.com
Vice President West — John Consolini, 17030 Marmount ST SE, Monroe WA 98272; e-mail: itrap4you@yahoo.com
Vice President East — George Brady, P.O. Box 535, Pateros, WA 98846; phone: 509-923-2326;
e-mail: cascadeb@televar.com
Executive Secretary — Ralph Dobson, 711 196th Street NW, Arlington, WA 98223; phone: 360-652-2132; e-mail: rlph.dobson@gmail.com
Treasurer — BJ Thornily; 63 Redmond Rd., Republic, WA 99166; phone: 509-775-2936;
e-mail: bobbiemike@yahoo.com
NTA Director — Bob Maier, 38 Francis Dr., Walla Walla, WA 99362; phone: 509-529-9568;
e-mail: bob_maier@hotmail.com
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
I’m writing this before the Fur Sale so I’ll give a report on that next month. I would like to mention though a bit about Miss Rodeo Washington. We present her with a fur garment every year at the Fur Sale. Amanda Platoni is good enough to manufacture it free of charge for us, but we need to supply her with furs for it.
We all know the price of furs is in the toilet so now would be a good time to consider donating a few nice furs towards this project. Hey, it won’t cost you much.
George Brady and I spent the day in Olympia recently to lobby some key representatives about our proposed bill. Due to some last-minute schedule changes, George ended up being the one that actually talked to them about our bill. I ended up making the trip for nothing.
The upshot of things is there will be no bill this year. Kind of sounds like a broken record I know, but I really think things are looking up for us in the long term. It is just that with the current budget crisis in state government and it being a short session this year it is going to be extremely difficult to move anything except budget items. Ed told me this earlier and Brian Blake confirmed it.
There are some very good things happening from our prospective. First of all, Steve Pozzanghera will be gone from his current position on Feb. 1. He is being put in charge of Region 1 and will no longer hold the position of Legislative Liaison. He has been a thorn in our side at this position and although I do not know who his replacement will be, it would be hard to be worse. I think some of our friends in the legislature helped this happen. If things happen the way I hope, we might get the departments support for our bill and this would help us a lot. A lot of what ifs there, but, like I said, it can only improve.
2010 is an election year and I think you can count on taxes being raised. This could put some of our opponents on the democratic side of the aisle in trouble and this could help us. We are virtually assured of a friendly chairmen in the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources. Any bill dealing with trapping has to go through this committee.
Bottom line though is we have some very good wording for a bill that will be very hard to argue against. Not saying there won’t be opposition, but it will be hard for them to argue against it.
— Bruce Vandervort
