The Southern California Regional Stakeholder Group (“RSG”) participating in the current remapping of the Southern California by just concluded two days of meetings in San Diego, California. There is a lot of news to report. There are also some things which need immediate attention, but I'll give you the short summary first.

They have finally completed the feeding an immense amount of biological, socioeconomic, scientific, and anecdotal data and have completed laying down the rules on process and we have unanimously agreed on the goals and objectives of the program. What this means is that on January 29, we will meet again in El Segundo and start drawing lines on the maps for real. There is another meeting a couple of weeks later, to refine and complete the original ideas from the working groups and those will be assembled and worked on a two-day session later in March. This is all happening very fast. The good news is they have the right 58 people in the room to do it because it is difficult to find a question that cannot be answered by someone sitting at the table or their alternate right behind them. It really is one of the most amazing groups of people that I have ever had the pleasure of working with on state game management issues. He Marine life initiatives a hundred came personnel are really doing a splendid job and I have to give them credit for the way they are performing as well. There is an incredible pressure on all of the participants to perform an almost perfect job. You won't get perfect. I just hope we get our children deserve.

In a previous post, I provided the guidelines and access to the additional technical libraries of the service for any group wishing to offer an alternative proposal. The deadline for submission of proposals outside the RSG process is only 30 days away. Any proposals submitted from the public must conform to a guidelines set forth in the materials previously furnished. What this means is that we will be pretty much done with the formation of the base plans that will be forwarded to the Blue Ribbon Task Force (“BRTF”). Once the BRTF receives the two or three alternate comprehensive proposals from the RSG subgroups they will begin a public hearing process and deliberation and select a final product for presentation to the California Fish and Game Commission for approval. You can see the schedule for completion in on the Department of Fish and game website www.dfg.ca.gov at the Marine Life Protection Act tab.

I will post the official summary of the last meeting, when they have been forwarded to us. If I can get them up before someone beats me to it.

Please read the next post to because there is something that seriously affects all of us who use the ocean environment, and we would like to have your input. Unfortunately that input has to be received quickly, but I won't spoil this nice post with a plea for mercy.

Dictated but not read, Anything spelled correctly is by accident

Stephen G. Benavides
MLPA RSG Diving Representative

steve@sgbcpa.com
949-474-7427

“There are only three groups of people in the world that have the privilege of spending someone else’s money~thieves, politicians and children... They all need supervision!”

• Thanks Steve! (nfm) Divebum Don 19:58:34 01/15/09 (0)