THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 19, 1994 TAG: 9411190413
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Senate leader Marc Basnight has rebutted statements in a Raleigh newspaper story contending that the Manteo Democrat has kept enforcement officers from citing fishermen in his district.
In an interview Wednesday from his Raleigh office, Basnight said a report by the News & Observer of Raleigh and remarks in the report by former fisheries Director William T. Hogarth were part of a deliberate effort to discredit him and ``remove eastern North Carolina from the playing field.''
``I believe that he purposely was part of an effort to discredit me in any way that he could,'' Basnight said. ``I think the News & Observer wants me out.''
News & Observer Deputy Managing Editor Mike Yopp said Friday the report was a ``valid'' and ``legitimate story'' and part of that newspaper's continuing coverage of the problems of fisheries stocks along the coast and within the Division of Marine Fisheries.
The report reflects the newspaper's interest in fisheries issues ``rather than any particular interest in Mr. Basnight,'' Yopp said.
The paper reported Sunday that laws protecting the state's fishing industry have gone unenforced in northeastern North Carolina, the most productive section of the coast, and that Basnight used his political power to discourage ticketing of fishermen.
And it said tickets written by fisheries officers in the Northern District from 1987 to 1993 lag behind the number of tickets written by officers in other districts. The division's Northern District includes much of the region in the 1st Senatorial District, represented by Basnight.
The report quoted former and current division enforcement officers as saying Basnight's influence pervades the Division of Marine Fisheries, including the enforcement section. It said fishermen approached by enforcement officers often threaten to call Basnight and have them disciplined.
The newspaper cited state telephone records that show that more than 200 calls were made from Basnight's office to marine fisheries during the past two years, and it said fisheries officials say many of the calls involved inquiries or complaints about fishing tickets.
The report quoted Hogarth as saying Basnight called him once in the summer of 1993 and said a captain on the force who oversaw the Northern District during that time was forcing the officers under him to write too many tickets.
Basnight denies that the conversation ever took place.
Basnight said he had never approached any fisheries agent or any other law enforcement officer of any state agency and asked them to suppress tickets.
``There's not an agent walking . . . who can say I've asked them not to write tickets,'' Basnight said.
Basnight said he has been told by law enforcement officers from some state agencies that residents of the 1st District occasionally will use his name if they are stopped by an officer. But, he said, this is done without his knowledge.
Basnight told reporters that only once in seven years as a state senator has he called specifically to ask about a citation because a constituent felt he was ticketed unfairly. A judge later dismissed that ticket.
The chairman of the state Marine Fisheries Commission, Robert Lucas, said he knew of no instances where Basnight had interfered with enforcement.
Basnight doesn't dispute the number of telephone calls made from his office to the division in the last two years, an average of about 2.5 a week.
But he said the fisheries division is a major industry in his area and the telephone number is the number for other sections of the Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources - including shellfish sanitation, seafood laboratory, submerged lands and the Division of Coastal Management, and the offices of top fisheries officials and law enforcement officers.
Basnight also said the statistics on fishing violation tickets represent an incomplete picture of enforcement in the district.
In response to Basnight, the Division of Marine Fisheries distributed Nov. 16 the number of citations and warnings issued by the district from 1987 through 1993. The statistics show that fewer citations and warnings were issued in the Northern District than any other region.
Basnight countered that shellfish violations - for illegal oyster and clam harvest - account for about 30 percent of tickets issued in the other districts but are not applicable to the Northern District because the region lacks shellfishing waters.
But if 30 percent of the tickets are deducted from division statistics, the Northern District still lags behind other regions.
Basnight said tickets written in the Northern District have increased at a greater rate than tickets in other districts. From 1987 through 1993, tickets in the Northern District increased 646 percent while tickets in the Central and Pamlico districts increased by 9 and 24 percent, respectively. The number of tickets written in the Southern district during this time decreased 35 percent.
And the Northern District accounted for 20.6 percent of all commercial fishing licenses sold in 1993-94. During that time, tickets in the Northern District accounted for 25.7 percent of all citations and warnings issued by fisheries enforcement officers, according to fisheries statistics.
When contacted this week at his office with the National Marine Fisheries Service near Washington, D.C., Hogarth said he had not read the complete report and was reluctant to comment on it without doing so.
But Hogarth said generally that many state legislators contact the Division of Marine Fisheries with questions about division policy or actions, usually after constituents contact them.
``If you're a legislator and people call you, you have to follow up,'' Hogarth said. ``We live in a democracy . . . and if you're a legislator, you have to respond.'' by CNB