Downtown Marquette's Ramada Inn was filled to standing room only Saturday (Feb. 16) as hundreds of concerned citizens rallied to express complaints with the departments of Natural Resources and Environmental Quality.
The popular sentiment at the rally seemed to be too much bureaucratic waste at the administrative level of the departments and not enough focus on what citizens – and many of the departments own field staff, according to those speaking – say about Michigan resource management.Budgets were at the top of the list as organizers said, in their review of the department's budgets, the DNR could save a third of its current budget cost and the DEQ could be run for 2/3rds less.
Speakers cited the impact of the departments on the state economy – from the $2 billion dollar equestrian industry to the forest industry which accounts for a very large portion of northern Michigan jobs – as a reason to reform the departments sooner than later.
Some speakers insisted the rally was not anti-DNR, while others explicitly called for the elimination of the Natural Resources Commission and DNR Director Rebecca Humpheries, who recently visited Marquette speaking with this station and others about the rally.Great Lakes Radio covered the entire meeting. We'll have more updates as we wade through the information this week. – Pete Mackin, UP to the Minute Report
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