By K.C. Mehaffey
World staff writer
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
OKANOGAN — A newly appointed member of the state Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission from Omak is under fire by Okanogan County Republicans, who say he’s a “wolf advocate” and does not reflect Eastern Washington views.
Jay Kehne was appointed by Gov. Chris Gregoire in December.
The Republicans have asked Okanogan County commissioners to object to Kehne’s appointment, and call for his resignation due to a conflict of interest.
On Tuesday, all three commissioners signed a letter to the governor and state senators seeking his removal.
Kehne said he sees no conflict in working for Conservation Northwest and serving on the Wildlife Commission, and said that he’ll join the commission for his first meeting this week.
“I’ve lived in Eastern Washington most of my life, and recognize rural county values,” he said.
Before becoming Okanogan County’s outreach associate for Conservation Northwest in 2009, Kehne worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service for 11 years, and its Soil Conservation Service for 20 years. He’s lived in Eastern Washington for 44 years.
He said his work with Conservation Northwest has included traveling around the state giving talks about wolves, and trying to get an underpass for mule deer on Highway 97 between Riverside and Tonasket.
“If you look at this issue with wolves, it was a mix of Eastern and Western Washington commissioners, and it passed unanimously. That says to me that this Commission did a good job looking at the facts and figures, and listening to comments. They passed the plan, which is what has to happen before we get on with living with wolves,” he said.
He added that his work for Conservation Northwest included work to put together a volunteer group to help state officials figure out what wolves are eating, and help document any livestock killed so ranchers can be compensated.
“I don’t work for a bunch of radical terrorists. I work for a group that believes strongly in wildlife conservation, and realizes that communities are a large part of where this all happens,” he said.
He’s the first Okanogan County resident to be named to the nine-member board since Terry Karro, a Winthrop lawyer who served from 1985 to 1997.
Jon Wyss, the Okanogan County Republican Party’s state committeeman, said the main issue is not with Kehne.
“Jay Kehne is a good guy. He really is. But you can’t sit on a Fish and Wildlife Commission and represent Eastern Washington when the organization that writes your paycheck espouses everything that is opposite” to the area represented.
Wyss said in addition to its support of wolves, Conservation Northwest has pushed for the purchase of private land for wildlife conservation.
He said both the Okanogan County Farm Bureau and Coalition for Property Rights met recently to support the effort to remove Kehne from the Wildlife Commission. Wyss is president of both organizations.
Joel Kretz, a Republican state representative from Okanogan County, called Conservation Northwest, “an extremist environmental group,” and pointed to its executive director, Mitch Friedman, who once belonged to the radical group Earth First!, and admitted in a speech to being arrested for civil disobedience.
“He locked up the Loomis Forest, and he’s got a 30-year history of litigation over timber sales,” Kretz said. And, it supported the state’s plans to recover wolves in Washington.
The county’s anti-wolf stance is well known. In August, Okanogan County commissioners passed a resolution asking the state to delist the gray wolf, and consider it instead a “deleterious exotic wildlife.”
“I would say if you put them up against the values of Eastern Washington, their values are pretty extreme,” Kretz said.
Kretz said Kehne also doesn’t represent Eastern Washington views. “Jay went around the state and spent the last year promoting wolves,” he said. “To me, it’s just insulting that he would be appointed to an Eastern Washington position.”
Friedman said he thinks Okanogan County Republicans are just upset that a wolf recovery plan is now in place, and the debate is over.
He said he weathered all of the same attacks in the mid-1990s, when Okanogan County Republicans were worked up over a proposed international park, and started, he said, seeing black helicopters.
“I don’t think this is about me. I think it’s about them. Every 15 years, the right wing of Okanogan County has to show just how out of touch it is, and I’m their whipping boy,” he said.
http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2012/jan/04/republicans-push-to-oust-newly-appointed-wildlife/
