Board of Fisheries member Jeremiah Campbell said he has no plans to resign his seat on the regulatory panel despite pleading no contest June 20 to a criminal misdemeanor charge of improperly signing a big game commercial services transporter report.
Gov. Sarah Palin, who can remove members of the fish or game boards only for cause, including violation of any fish or wildlife laws or regulations, knows about the charges but had not indicated her intentions as of July 2.
Campbell was fined $500, with $250 suspended, and placed on one year's probation by Cordova District Magistrate Vincent DiNapoli.
Campbell said he plans to complete his three-year Fish Board term, ending July 2009, “unless something comes up and the governor wants to remove me for cause. I haven't heard anything yet,” he said June 27. He added that he sent a letter to the governor explaining the incident, which he said was “completely inadvertent and unintentional.”
Campbell was charged in May with signing a report relating to a hunting trip in October 2005. Art and Charla Webb, of Alabama, hired Alaska Northern Outfitters LLC, a Seward-based sportfishing, hunting and sightseeing charter company that Campbell owns and operates with his brother, Ezra.
The complaint against Jeremiah Campbell states that he transported the Webbs from Anchorage to Whittier, but the Webbs, according to the complaint, said Ezra Campbell piloted the boat that took them from Whittier to the field on Oct. 7, and back on Oct. 12.
Jeremiah Campbell signed the transporter report on Oct. 7, 2005, the date the trip started. Transporters are required by state regulations to sign their own reports immediately upon the conclusion of a trip.
Charla Webb was fined on separate charges. Webb shot a black bear on the October trip, and returned in May 2006 to take a second bear on another Alaska Northern Outfitters charter. The second bear violated the one per year bag limit for nonresidents, which is tallied on a July 1 to June 30 regulatory calendar.
Webb was fined $250 last August for a civil violation, plus $600 in restitution, regarding the designated value of an Alaska black bear.
Ezra Campbell, also arraigned June 20, pleaded “not guilty” to three misdemeanor charges relating to the Webbs' visits. Further court proceedings are pending.
Court records show that Campbell told the magistrate he didn't pay attention when a new transporter report form was put into use earlier in 2005.
“I pled no contest. I wasn't about to try and get off on some technicality. The statute is pretty clear to me. I guess I should have been paying more attention,” Campbell said in the June 27 interview.
He argued that he dated the form accurately at the start of the trip rather than the conclusion but said, “That portion of the complaint is irrelevant. The form has inconsistencies with the regulation ... The big deal here is that I signed my name.” The older form required the signature of the operator, which meant that he, as the business owner could sign it, according to Campbell.
“The bottom line is all the dates on that form were correct. I shouldn't have signed the form. I have signed a few of them that way. As a representative of the company I thought I could do it,” he continued.
Alaska Wildlife Trooper Sgt. Paul McConnell, who investigated the case, said accurate dates and signatures on the transporter document are important because “if there was a problem on the hunt, the state needs to know who all was involved.” However, he called Campbell's action “just a paper error.”
“It probably happens more often than we know, but the state doesn't have the manpower to examine every report filed,” McConnell said. “The more serious issue is the other individual whose stuff is still pending,” the trooper said with reference to Ezra Campbell.
Although Jeremiah Campbell's personal liability has been settled, he still faces sanctions as co-owner of Alaska Northern Outfitters. Transporter licenses are assigned to a business, not an individual and the Big Game Commercial Services Board could do anything from issuing a letter of advisement to revoking the company's license, according to Quinten Warren, a board staffer. Although Warren said he could not confirm or deny the existence of any case involving the Campbells' company, he said no action would be taken on any such case until final disposition of the charges against Ezra.
The maximum possible penalties are one year in jail and a $10,000 fine.
Before removing a member of the Fish or Game Boards board a governor must provide for a public hearing before the governor or her designee.
Shortly before his arraignment Campbell telephoned and “told me there was a violation,” Fish Board Chairman Mel Morris said, June 27. The board has no formal role in the process for removal of a member and Morris said he has had no communications from the administration on the incident.
“I don't know how the governor might act or what she might consider a serious issue,” Morris said.
Jim Marcotte, Fish Board executive director, said, June 27, he hasn't heard that any action is in the works.
Campbell was first appointed to the board in September 2005 by Gov. Frank Murkowski and was reappointed early last year to a full three-year term.
