Hi Friends,

I just got back from Sacramento minutes ago. This morning, after I testified in support of AB 7, the Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee, the bill was unanimously passed. Also testifying in support were people from the Hot Creek Foundation, Mono Co. Fisheries Commission, IMPACT, as well as Brett Matzke from CalTrout.

I believe that there have been over 1,500 letters of support, so far. But we can use more if you haven't sent one yet. Last year, by the time the bill went to the Senate Natural Resources Committee, we had over 4,000 letters of support (we are still early in the game and get many letters on Opening Day).

The bill has now been amended to say that the 33 1/3% will go to the "Hatcheries and Inland Fisheries Fund". This change will enable the Wild and Native Trout Program to also receive a portion of the dedicated funds, if passed. These programs have also suffered from a lack of funding. However, there will still be adequate funding for the hatcheries with this amendment.

The bill now goes to Appropriations. There it will go into suspense as it has money attached to it. This is common practice. The fight is then to get it out of suspense. The same thing happened last year with AB 2280 and we got it out of suspense. Many of the same Assemblymembers are still on the Appropriations Committee.

Anyway, this is my update. I am too tired to say much more, except thanks to all for the support. We are on our way to getting this bill to the Governor's desk.

Brad
www.friendsofcaliforniahatcheries.org
James "Brad" Willis
CSEA Bargaining Unit 11 Negotiating Council
Mojave River Hatchery
Victorville,CA
mojavekroc@msn.com or
jwillis@dfg.ca.gov