THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220181
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 123 lines
Commercial fishermen want state officials to deep-six the director of North Carolina's Division of Marine Fisheries.
In a two-page letter sent to Raleigh on Tuesday, the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Fisheries Association asked Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. to fire Bruce Freeman as the state's top fisheries regulator.
Freeman, who earns $81,600 annually, was hired to oversee North Carolina fisheries issues in March 1995. He formerly worked for New Jersey's marine fisheries department. His 14-month tenure has been racked with tension, criticism and dissension.
``We've been dissatisfied with him since the day he came here,'' North Carolina Fisheries Association board member Billy Carl Tillett of Wanchese said of Freeman Tuesday. ``You have to give the devil his due. But it's just been gradually getting worse. The man ain't working with us. He just does his own thing. We want his butt back in New Jersey.''
During its quarterly meeting last week, the 21-member North Carolina Fisheries Association's Board of Directors voted unanimously to ask the governor to get rid of Freeman.
``The commercial fishing industry has paid and is continuing to pay for his lack of attention to the day-to-day operations of the division, and to instructions from the Marine Fisheries Commission,'' the letter dated Tuesday said. ``The board has expressed its total lack of confidence in his leadership and managerial abilities.''
A 44-year-old New Bern-based lobbying organization representing more than 1,100 dues-paying commercial fishermen, seafood processors and fish house operators, the North Carolina Fisheries Association has never formally requested the termination of a state director before, Executive Director Jerry Schill said.
``They gave him his honeymoon period hoping things would straighten out,'' Schill said Tuesday. ``Things didn't. So now they decided to take action.''
Freeman issued a one-page response to the request Tuesday through his state's office's public relations department.
``The Division of Marine Fisheries is a regulatory agency, and like other regulatory agencies, we often face criticism from those parties that we are mandated to control or govern,'' he wrote. ``Fisheries managers are constantly torn between doing what is right for the resource and specific demands of resource users.
``If one special user group is upset about my management decisions, that will be the price I will have to pay in order to ensure that our fisheries are healthy and viable today, and for generations to come.''
The governor asked Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources spokeswoman Debbie Crane to respond to the request.
``It's been a difficult time,'' Crane said of Freeman's tenure. ``It's unfortunate it's come to this. Once we get our entire fisheries team in line, that'll be the time to judge Bruce. He's doing as good a job as he can with little support. He's really trying hard. This is just a little problem - a little blip in the screen.''
Bob Lucas, who presides over the state's Marine Fisheries Commission, admits that ``there are legitimate problems that exist in the Division of Marine Fisheries.'' But he said it was unfair ``to put them at one person's doorstep . . . What will firing our director solve? Let's focus on finding some solutions instead.''
Many sportfishermen support Freeman. Dick Brame, leader of the state's chapter of the Atlantic Coast Conservation Association that represents more than 3,000 dues-paying recreational fishermen, said anybody in Freeman's position would have problems.
``He's done a good job given the people and tools he's had to work with,'' Brame said of Freeman. ``And he's bent over backwards to accommodate concerns of the commercial side.
``Regardless of the side, he's done what's right for the resource,'' said Brame. ``He just needs to have the governor and the division stand behind him and get him the tools he needs to do the job. I think it's premature to ask for his termination.''
Commercial fishermen cite five specific reasons they want Freeman fired:
Decaying morale within the division.
Lack of knowledge of the internal operations of the division, citing a mistake Freeman made last week while addressing the legislature's Joint Legislative Commission on Seafood & Aquaculture: Freeman complained to commission members that his employees are overworked by having to supervise the entry of fishing data collected from seafood dealers. Later, he admitted that the work on those ``trip ticket'' entries actually is contracted to an outside data services company in Blue Grass, Va.
Lack of oversight on the summer flounder quota: In January, Freeman told the North Carolina Fisheries Association board that watermen should be able to continue catching the popular flatfish ``with a slight closure.'' A month later, with 10 months left in the year, the entire flounder industry was shut down. The 1996 quota was even exceeded by 644,000 pounds - which will be deducted from next year's quota.
A cap Freeman set on herring landings after Marine Fisheries Commission members approved a plan - without a quota - to allow watermen to catch herring this spring if they would reduce the number of nets they used.
Failure to fill fisheries law enforcement positions despite state funding for those slots.
Other problems that have arisen under Freeman are personnel related:
On Jan. 31, Freeman fired the fisheries division's chief of law enforcement, Fred Swain - who had worked for the state's Division of Marine Fisheries for 30 years. Freeman had given Swain a positive job evaluation with an overall rating of ``very good'' just six months earlier. Freeman refused to comment on why he fired Swain. Swain is suing Freeman over the termination. No one has been hired to replace Swain. And two other fisheries law enforcement officers are being investigated by the state auditor's office over allegations they misused telephone services.
In March, Freeman announced he had hired one of his assistants, Jess Hawkins, to be the division's new deputy director. He offered Hawkins a $23,729 raise. But Freeman never got the state personnel office's permission to extend such a huge salary increase. State officials nixed Hawkins for the spot as soon as they learned the job offer had been made with the promised salary. Hawkins later withdrew his application. The deputy director position still hasn't been filled.
Freeman also reassigned duties and titles of two other top fisheries division employees this year.
Commercial watermen say the state's fisheries director makes decisions based on perception and politics rather than biological needs of certain fish species.
``I don't think he's done his job,'' Fisheries Association Board Member Joey Daniels of Wanchese said Tuesday. ``We've given him enough time to adjust. But he just seems like he has his own agenda. We're in such a state of emergency right now that if we don't have a tremendous shrimping season this summer, a lot of guys around here will lose their houses, their boats, and everything else they own.''
Wanchese commercial fisherman Willie Etheridge agreed.
``There's no scientific evidence to do what he's doing,'' Etheridge said. ``He just wants to shut down commercial fishermen. It's not right for some people's recreation to shut down other people's livelihoods.'' by CNB