2017-02-17 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes — February 13, 2017 were one — are not enforceable on private land, which is really interesting to me because we don't have those same sorts of differences in California. So if those two things are occurring — hunting at night and hunting unlicensed then yes, we would respond. TL: One of the things that I noticed in going through the wildlife revolving fund - Is that monies from your officers when they tag somebody for example, the fines and fees and what are you supposed to go into the Wildlife Revolving Fund and in the last two years, or last couple of years? Anyway — that number has been zero or like $100.00 or whatever — yet I can't believe that you're not catching people that are out there. So I'm just curious where that money goes. RF: Another great question — I feel like every one of these questions; I have deja vu because in California we dealt with the same thing. I saw every county there and there's in excess of fifty counties in California — they all have a commission similar to yours and they're all supposed to get county fines money coat least a portion of it from each Fish and Wildlife for resource violation — so it's the same sort of thing there — sometimes the courts aren't aware of it because it's not really DOCARE or DLNR that would be responsible for getting those funds. It's really the court so we have to liaison with the prosecutor's office to find out if the commissions are due any monies and then often times we find out that there is some account errors or there are some misunderstandings on how the money's supposed to flow to the local commissions. Also, there's differences in the way that the laws are applied — a lot of times we may write a ticket for a fishing or hunting violation but that ticket is plead out as a plea bargain process to a lesser criminal violation. That way and in that respect a criminal violation would not result in the fine money coming to the commission. So you kind of have to make sure that when we're talking to the prosecutors and understanding the process with the judges and everything that they can order a certain portion of that fine money. Even if it's a criminal violation to go to the commissions, we have to try and iron out some of those things that could cause your lack of funding. TL: My personal opinion is that if you have a shortage of officers over here, Do you have to sit down in your room and try and work out a case to go to court for $25.00 or whatever it might be — fine? I can see it would be easier just to say, let's be done with this — we have more important things to do — I can see that. RF: Yeah, on my end, my guys are more than willing to write tickets, but often times the breakdown occurs in the prosecution phase. The good news is Hawaii has an environmental court and so with the push behind that and the procedure behind that — I think we'll start to see a little bit better dispositions. We're also looking at the civil fine process and most 6