For the week of  September 12 - 18, 2001

Playing Politics

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Rare, indeed, is the public allowed a peek inside a politically appointed body to see what really lies beneath the façade.

That came when Idaho Mountain Express reporter Greg Stahl chatted with one of Idaho’s most respected and experienced conservation officers, Lee Frost.

Frost retired Sept. 1 after 29 years with the Department of Fish and Game, and now speaks freely about his department’s intellectual independence being increasingly muzzled by the politics of the seven members of the governor-appointed policymaking Idaho Fish and Game Commission.

What Frost saw was a department on which the public depended for sensible, straight-talking, science-based management of wildlife being cowered by political appointees whose concerns fall far short of the higher purposes of Fish and Game programs.

"Politics have just gotten incredible," is how Frost describes the environment. "We’ve lost a lot of good people who won’t compromise good, sound science for politics."

No longer is Fish and Game the voice of authority once sought for its opinion on Idaho’s wildlife. The politically appointed commission has effectively muzzled the department.

When Frost spoke out critically of clashing philosophies, he was threatened in a letter from Fish and Game Director Rod Sando with discipline for "publicly airing internal disagreements or misunderstandings (that) derail both the commission and the agency’s efforts to regain this public trust. . . ."

Frost’s revelations didn’t deserve recriminations, but praise, for giving the public a whiff of a smelly condition in a vital agency whose expertise is being compromised.

As for Frost’s destroying public trust, appointees to the Fish and Game Commission are doing just fine fouling public confidence without any help.

Do state legislators have as much starch in their spines as Lee Frost and be willing to ask whether Idaho conservation programs are being crippled for political motives? Better yet, do they have the spine to change it?

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.