This summer there was a legislative proposal to dismantle the LWFC and now, according to a wire story this week, a consultant to a government cost-cutting panel has recommended dissolving the DW&F. Somebody take this guy and show him the door, puh-leeze.
Fortunately, the legislative push died a slow death. Hopefully, Maurice McTigue’s crazy lightbulb of an idea will meet a similar fate when considered by the Louisiana Commission on Streamlining Government.
|
Advertisement
|
The commission hasn’t started entertaining his ideas yet, according to the Associated Press. This one is certainly a stinker.
Abolish DW&F? As I’ve said before, many of us, myself included, have complained about things over the years the department did to rub people the wrong way. But I’ve also said in the same breath it’s easier to manage wildlife than people and based on the past three decades, the state agency has done the job.
“This proposal is so ludicrous I hate to even give credence to it. Their approach to correcting the ills of Louisiana is to throw a hand grenade into the room and sweep the pieces into a pile, wherever they happen to go,” Wildlife and Fisheries secretary Robert Barham told the AP.
The department’s wildlife functions would go to a new Department of Conservation and its fisheries operations would be under the Department of Agriculture and Forestry.
McTigue’s suggestion is ludicrous, Barham said. It’s hard to disagree.
“It makes absolutely no sense to dismantle a very successful department to just whimsically realign them into other entities where they do not fit,” Barham said. “Managing shrimp and oysters is not exactly like telling (someone) how best to raise a cow and a horse.”
To the state’s credit, at least one elected official realizes the broad paintbrush the consultant used to come up with his recommendations, which include creating two new state agencies and stripping much of the authority of elected agriculture and insurance commissioners. Many of the changes would require rewriting the Louisiana Constitution, reorganize some state officials’ duties and scrap some departments.
State Sen. Jack Donahue, chairman of the streamlining commission, told the Associated Press, “We didn’t give him any instructions. This was supposed to be freewheeling, everything’s on the table. That’s what we did.”
Barham did concur with one statement by McTigue, who said his proposals were based “on very little information, and the committee’s local knowledge may determine that the suggestions are not viable.”
“That is the only thing I agree with,” Barham said.
Well said. Since this about wildlife and fisheries, can you say “quack, quack?”
DON SHOOPMAN
SENIOR NEWS EDITOR
Comments