OLYMPIA, WA – A labor union representing most employees at Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife says it’s troubled that a member of a commission that oversees the agency may not get reappointed after Gov. Bob Ferguson hit the brakes on his nomination.
The roughly 1,000-member Washington Association of Fish and Wildlife Professionals sent a letter to the governor Thursday saying that Tim Ragen had helped to give them fresh hope that long-running concerns about a lack of workplace safety, gaps in training, and supervisor retaliation against employees might finally be addressed.
“He has shown genuine concern about our safety and welfare, devoted the time necessary to understanding our issues, and actively worked to find pathways to improve our working conditions,” says the letter, signed by Candace Hultberg (Bennett), president of the association.
It adds that Ragen may not be reappointed “precisely because his courage in confronting these sorts of difficult and controversial situations has led to political criticism.”
Former Gov. Jay Inslee announced that he’d reappointed Ragen, along with appointing a new commissioner, Lynn O’Connor, on Jan. 13, two days before Ferguson took office. Ragen is retired from a career in marine mammal research. He was first appointed to the Fish and Wildlife Commission by Inslee in 2022 and became vice chair last year.
The appointments require state Senate confirmation. In one of his first acts as governor, Ferguson asked the Senate to allow him to pull the appointments, a request that lawmakers unanimously granted. Since then, the governor launched a new process to fill the commission seats, with Ragen and O’Connor now under consideration along with 12 other applicants.
Ferguson’s decision removed Ragen from the commission.
‘Failing its employees’
The union is raising its concerns after a series of incidents at the Department of Fish and Wildlife that resulted in deaths and injuries. Two department employees drowned in separate on-the-job accidents in the past 18 months — in September 2023 and January 2024.
Also last year, a worker was hospitalized after sustaining a head injury when a boat they and another employee were in capsized on the Nisqually River. At the time, the employees were attempting to use a chainsaw to cut debris from a fish trap.
In February, a Fish and Wildlife employee was hospitalized after being exposed to an unspecified disease spread by wildlife, according to Hultberg’s letter.
Department of Labor and Industries investigations into the first three incidents have led to citations and more than $231,000 in fines.
“WDFW management is failing its employees at the most fundamental level, and our members are literally paying for that failure with their lives,” the union’s letter says.
Hultberg said by phone on Friday that she’s led the union since October 2023 and that she contacted commissioners after the two drowning accidents. “Tim Ragen was one of a handful of commissioners that reached back out and wanted to hear what the issues were,” she said.
Asked to comment on the concerns raised in the letter, the Department of Fish and Wildlife said in an emailed statement on Friday that over the past 18 months, it had “implemented holistic safety improvements in reporting, training, and expertise” and is adding new safety staff.
The statement went on to outline a list of specific measures, including distributing “updated and work-specific individual first aid kits” to all field staff, updating agency policy to state that every employee conducting fieldwork has their own device for emergency communications, and requiring basic training for all motorboat operators.
Hultberg acknowledged training and safety efforts by the department but said progress in key areas has been slow and uneven across the agency and that more needs to be done.
Appointments due April 7
The governor’s office is reviewing the union’s letter, Ferguson’s communications director, Brionna Aho, said in an email on Friday. “Governor Ferguson takes worker safety very seriously. We will pursue any actions that will ensure all employees have a safe workplace, and that complaints are taken seriously,” Aho added.
She said the governor’s office had interviewed all 14 applicants, including Ragen and O’Connor and that the new appointments are due April 7.
Aho said that Ferguson decided to reevaluate Inslee’s appointments in light of concerns raised in a highly critical report the William D. Ruckelshaus Center released in December.
In his request to the Senate, the governor cited “multiple letters, emails and other correspondence from individuals, tribes and other entities expressing a desire for a more extensive process for these appointments.”
The Ruckelshaus Center report included findings from more than 100 interviews with people familiar with the agency and its issues. It said interviewees described the commission as “dysfunctional, politically polarized, and caught up in conflict,” and specifically raised concerns about a lack of transparency and selection criteria for commissioners.
Nine members sit on the commission, each appointed by the governor to a six-year term. When Ragen was appointed in 2022 he replaced a commissioner who’d served a partial term.
Hultberg said Friday she had not yet heard back from the governor’s office.
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