IA Sportsmen Demand The Meetings Go Forward

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Iowa sportsmen as you know all meetings have been canceled that would have laid out the License fee increase issues and our Fish & Wildlife Trust Fund crisis and present budget needs. Well, I would like to take this time and request a little help here on this issue.

It is my opinion that all meetings should go forward for a host of reasons as they are vitally important to you and the management of your state facilities that you may utilize.

1. Sportsmen Need to know how these budgets cuts will impact their facilities.
2. Sportsmen Need to know what cuts will be made on each facility.
3. Every Site Manager must lay out what they may cut from their management.
4. Sportsmen should be permitted the opportunity to help prioritize said management cuts.
5. Sportsmen need to know how the budget is broken down.
6. Sportsmen need to know the full scope of this issue as it relates to the future of the Fish & Wildlife Trust Fund.
These meetings need to go forward so that everyone understands what the consequences are going forward. We need to know what lies ahead as further budget cuts may be a potential problem.

It is also a good time for every site manager of state facilities to lay out what they will have to cut on specific sites and look to it's sportsmen who use these areas for support. Let site managers lay out these management cuts and then request from its sportsmen, to priorities the cuts. The ones that sportsmen feel they need to maintain are the ones that they need to work on with the site managers to maintain. Some priorities that site managers may have, might not be what sportsmen are looking for and some of that priority may be shifted to support the sportsmen's concerns on the facility.

What I am recommending here is that everyone send an e- mail letter to the director demanding that these state meeting GO FORWARD. We need to know how these proposed cuts will impact us and our said facilities and the management of each facility specifically.

Please contact the Director of our Iowa Department Natural Resources at:

Richard.Leopold@dnr.iowa.gov

Express your opinion loud and clear that as a recreational sporting community we need to go forward with these meetings that have been denied/canceled. As a recipient of these cuts and as the sole supporting mechanism of our states Fish & Wildlife Trust Fund, WE NEED TO KNOW HOW THIS IS GOING TO IMPACT OUR PRESENT MANAGEMENT AND HABITAT PROJECTS.

Sincerely,

Bill Smith

Sioux City Iowa

Region 5

Waterfowlers

712-253-0362

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