[Tman]

Wow indeed...Ed hit the nail on the head.

The incident served notice to everyone in the room that the potential for violence exists over fishing grounds, especially when recreational fishermen and commercial fishermen are displaced by conflicting and suspect science.
Fishermen protested, but it was clear nothing would alter the inevitable, raw deal from the mostly green task force appointees of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Fishermen held up their protest placards whenever someone spoke for more restrictive closures. In the end, treasured fishing grounds off Encinitas, La Jolla and Imperial Beach were taken from San Diego County fishermen and turned into “sanctuaries.”
It was sad to see the other four task force members sit silently as Meg Caldwell, who dominated the panel, drew up her personal preferred plan of ocean closures that the task force picked. Caldwell is an enemy of fishing and a card-carrying preservationist who marches to the Packard Foundation's well-funded tune.
The unanimous vote by the panel said it all. This group had met privately and often to hammer out “deals.” Unfortunately for fishermen, panel members Bill Anderson and Greg Schem lacked the inner workings to counter Caldwell's cunning manipulations.
Sonke Mastrup, a high-ranking DFG official, once described Caldwell as being on a “jihad” for environmentalists. Michael Sutton, a member of the state Fish and Game Commission, is an ally of Caldwell's in that holy war.
Caldwell and Sutton represent a powerful political force, one that benefits from Sacramento green juice provided by Schwarzenegger and his resources secretary, the suddenly evergreen Michael Chrisman. They have steamrolled this process thanks to money from the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, or the Packard Foundation, and other preservation groups. They were given a time frame to get as much ocean closed as they can, and they're doing just that.
Don't expect the Fish and Game Commission to do anything but rubber-stamp the task force's set of closures. Except for Dan Richards and Jim Kellogg, the commission is as green and as indebted to the environmental community as the task force.
Kayaker Paul Lebowitz, a member of the South Coast Regional Stakeholders Group, devoted more than a year of his time to coming up with sensible closures. Of all the user groups, kayak and lobster fishermen took the biggest hits.
“I feel like I went through a year-long, protracted divorce,” Lebowitz said.
It was all that, with the preservationists continuing to get custody of huge chunks of ocean for their so-called “sanctuaries” and anglers losing visitation rights to those traditional fishing grounds where some play and others make money for their families.
As long as the environmental money flows, we haven't seen the end of these ocean and land closures.
Meanwhile, our nearly bankrupt state government, namely the Department of Fish and Game, can't afford to monitor, enforce or even do the necessary public outreach for these giant proposed closures.
But MLPA backers carry on, holy war-like in their march to keep anglers off the water and ruin this state's fishing economy.
Holy wars never have and never will make much sense.