Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 22, 1994 TAG: 9405220039
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Former state Sen. William E. Fears of Accomac did that recently when he resigned as a board member of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Fears praised the qualifications and dedication of the department's staff, but added, "The executive and General Assembly have really put this fine agency on the back burner as far as importance and financing."
It was a remark that appeared to break a logjam. Very quickly Gov. George Allen appointed Charles G. McDaniel of Fredericksburg to replace Fears.
McDaniel got the assignment Wednesday and was at the department's board meeting in Richmond at 9 a.m. the next day. Fears had not attended any of the regularly scheduled public board meetings since being appointed in January by Gov. Doug Wilder.
If McDaniel's appointment is typical of the kind of people Allen plans to seat on the board, then the game and fish department is destined to be in good hands. No political plum, McDaniel is an outdoorsman who has worked hard on a voluntary basis to increase funding and recognition for the department.
McDaniel wasn't the only fresh face at the board meeting Thursday. Becky Norton Dunlop, Virginia's secretary of natural resources, also was there.
"To the best of my recollection, this is the first time the secretary of natural resources has ever been to one of our board meetings," said chairman Walter P. Conrad Jr. of Chesapeake.
The secretary's office is the door to the governor and can determine how successful the agency is in accomplishing its goals. That door often was shut during the Wilder administration.
"This agency is one of the agencies I have that is high on my list of favorites," Dunlop said.
All of a sudden, some of those feelings about the department being overlooked began to wane. If there is any concern now, it might be that Dunlop will try to play too great a role in the day-to-day operation of the agency rather than letting the board and its professional wildlife managers do the job.
Dunlop has assumed a major role in the selection of a new executive director for the game and fish department. The board was close to appointing a replacement for Bud Bristow, who resigned in mid-October, when Dunlop halted the process.
"I asked Chairman Conrad to postpone the decision until I had an opportunity to review with them the process they went through and to get in place our agenda in terms of laying out the principles that we are looking for," she said.
"Let's make sure that we are all singing out of the same hymnal," she told the board.
The board has an excellent hymnal. It is called "2003: A Vision for the Future." The 50-page document the board and staff hammered out is a plan to broaden the agency's base heading into the 21st century. Now the greatest need is money to make it work, and if Dunlop can help with that, she will have done her job well.
"There seems to be some concern among conservation organizations whether she will fall in favor of resource protection or indiscriminate use," said Tom Evans, president of the Virginia Wildlife Federation.
"I think she will follow a middle path," said Evans, who welcomed Dunlop's remarks about working closely with the game and fish department.
"I think the more contact she has with the agency and the biological staff and the management staff, the more she will see the value in keeping Virginia and its resources very much like they are now," Evans said. "This agency has done a wonderful job in resource protection, while it has done a good job also of human use of the resources."
by CNB