I'm your huckleberry!

[Big Fin]

I replied to dkpeay that I will go on the "three hour tour" if such is needed to keep the debate going forward. I also accepted some other demands he made as far as scope of topics and questions.

I made one demand. If the topics and questions relate to SFW accomplishments, then I need access to their financial information to support or refute what claims might be made. Same with topics related to source of funds.

I offered to sign a non-disclosure agreement, preventing me from distributing anything provided. Is in those all the time in my CPA life. Both for personal integrity and professional credibility as a CPA, I would never violate the terms of such.

Guess we will see if my one request is accepted.

On the road until tomorrow afternoon, so not able to connect much with the web.

 

[kansasdad]

I made one demand. If the topics and questions relate to SFW accomplishments, then I need access to their financial information to support or refute what claims might be made. Same with topics related to source of funds.

All too often, acting with personal integrity and professional credibility is not the norm. Those with dirt to hide generally don't want to truth to come out.....bet he balks at letting you have a peek at the dirt.

 

[spook12]

My bad Big Fin,the 3hour tour has now turned into a 9 hour tour .This is what the ''DON'' has decided is necessary for you to understand the issues. What an arrogant ass.

 

[Big Fin]

A formal announcement on the status of the debate between me and Don Peay. Here is a link to the MM thread where Hawkeye, an attorney from the SLC area who was serving as the facilitator, explains how things have transpired and where we are at this point.

http://www.monstermuleys.info/dcforum/DCForumID5/19527.html

I know many of you visit that site in addition to our Hunt Talk site, so I thought I would provide an explanation of what Hawkeye posted. I had hoped we could have a true debate about the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and the Utah Model. Pretty hard to have that debate and discussion when the group holding all the info relevant to a major debate topic will not release the info.

Sorry, guys. I promise you, I did everything possible to make this work out. I agreed to all of the following, with my only request being the right to see the financial information.

• I agreed to the 3-hour tour, which I later found out would be a 9-hour tour.
  
  
• As much as I did not want to give up on the wolf topic, Don required that for a debate to occur, we must agree to NOT talk about the details of wolf delisting.
  
  
• To have a moderator who knows the North American Model better than anyone, I obligated myself to cover the $8,000 cost of that persons, travel, lodging, meals, and appearance fee.
  
  
• I agreed to have any of the Utah examples be a major part of the discussion, though I am more interested in the biggest scope of what is best for outside of Utah.
  
  
• I offered to sign a non-disclosure agreement, with respect to the financial statements I was requesting. When you think about a non-disclosure agreement in that context, it is rather funny, given I was asking for the financial statements of a publicly supported non-profit charitable organization.
  
  
• I agreed to every demand that was made.

My one requirement is that for the Utah examples to be used, I be allowed to have access to the books and records of the organization who is the primary beneficiary of the Utah Model; Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, Sportsment for Habitat, and the Western Hunting and Conservation Expo.

Some are under the assumption that the publicly issued tax returns of SFW, which I downloaded myself from the IRS website, are adequate financial informaiton. Not the case. Here is why.

Being a CPA of 23 years I know what information will support or refute assertions made. That is what I do for a living. Tax returns are a sad substitute for financial statements, as multiple accounts get lumped into large categories on tax returns, making it hard to decipher what is in those tax returns categories, or omitted from those categories. Tax returns use vague categories and lack any detail to support the cash inflow and outflows of an organization.

Tax returns do not give you the detail of who is paid what, what liabilities exist, what assets are held, and a host of other information normally provided by financial statements, especially financial statements that have been subject to a "Yellow Book" audit by an external CPA firm.

In the event these records are made available, I will debate all of these topics, any time that fits my schedule, at any place that is requested. But, I do not know if under a future scenario that I would be so accommodating as to take the wolf topic off the table or go on a tour as was required.

Anyhow, that is where it stands right now. It is in the hands of SFW/SFH to determine if the debate goes forward, or if it is postponed indefinitely.

I was really looking forward to this debate. Hopefully Don will agree to lean on SFW for release of the information and we can go forward.

 

[brymoore]

Stand your ground, Randy.

 

[noharleyyet]

To have a moderator who knows the North American Model better than anyone, I obligated myself to cover the $8,000 cost of that persons, travel, lodging, meals, and appearance fee.

Whoa! You must have all the good cards.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Fin,

Don't take this wrong, but, you already gave in way too much. That organization is living off the public teat of the public's tags for the public's animals to hunt on public land. The fact they have ANY secrecy is, to put it politely, BULLSHIT!

Don Peay is a coward if he won't debate this topic out in the open with sunshine on every corner and crack of his organization. The fact he had to put on as many conditions as he could in order to assure this debate would NEVER happens shows just what kind of a chicken-shit operator he is.

Randy, with all due respect, you would be an idiot for appearing on stage or in any forum with a low-character person like Don Peay. Never allow yourself to sink to that level.

 

[MNHunter]

I can't really say I'm surprised the way this has gone... I was looking forward to Randy fitting Don for a size XXXL asshat

 

[DHaffner]

I appreciate your effort! It is clear who is trying to make this happen and who is back peddling.

 

[LopeHunter]

The debate would have been interesting. Appreciate BigFin's efforts to provide a voice to people like most of us that want to keep hunting tags in a system that rewards applying rather than who can write the largest check this year.

Does anyone see the value of having a section here on the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation? A NAMWC 101 on key aspects and why they are important to overall success of the model. A bit of compare and contrast with non-NAMWC approaches around the world.

I am serious when I say something is needed to gradually de-program people that are blindly loyal to SFW. I know SFW hides a lot of what it does so members are kept in the dark but several former members have stated they left once they figured out the real deal.

 

[Big Fin]

Fin,

Don't take this wrong, but, you already gave in way too much. That organization is living off the public teat of the public's tags for the public's animals to hunt on public land. The fact they have ANY secrecy is, to put it politely, BULLSHIT!

Don Peay is a coward if he won't debate this topic out in the open with sunshine on every corner and crack of his organization. The fact he had to put on as many conditions as he could in order to assure this debate would NEVER happens shows just what kind of a chicken-shit operator he is.

Randy, with all due respect, you would be an idiot for appearing on stage or in any forum with a low-character person like Don Peay. Never allow yourself to sink to that level.

I agree that I had given way more concessions than what seemed reasonable for a fair and balanced debate. But, I so badly wanted the debate to go forward, that I was willing to go there, on their turf, with all these concessions, if that is what it took to keep it on track.

I wanted the public to see the facts and hopefully make a decision about the things you pointed out - a public charity, living off public assets, supposedly doing so much for the public hunter, yet unwilling to share with the public what they do with the money raised from those public assets.

The Utah Model is being advocated by fringe groups in every western state. I can assure you we will see some derivative in MT next session, the same as AZ and ID guys saw this spring in their states.

The value I saw in making those concessions was to keep the debate alive and bring these topics into a brighter focus, hopefully giving the hunter inclined to be less involved, the chance to hear the pros and cons of each Model. Maybe I am overly confident that the North American Model will be more appealing to hunters than the Utah Model.

You are right. I did make more concessions that was reasonable. And, as it turns out, evidently even that is not enough to get them to show the financial records.

 

[1FastGambler]

Randy, I thank you sincerely for everything you've done regarding this debate.

Your time and resources have not been in vain. The fruits of your efforts will come to bear with the shinning beacon of light that their reffusal to provide you full disclousure to their financial statements has shed upon the true integrity of the SFW.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for you for sticking you neck out on this subject, although we all knew in our hearts that this was the most likely outcome the moment this all began.

Thank you again for standing up for all us, "common Joe's"!!

Like Bobby Bouche's momma would say... "SFW is the Devil Bobby" (Water Boy)

Now all we need to do is make sure that as many people as possible become enlightened about what has transpired here.

Actions speak louder than words, right?!

 

[npaden]

DDD - Most non-profits get a financial statement audit and issue such report. Such audits are called Yellow Book Audits, referring the the yellow book that contains the Governmental Auditing Standards.

I am aware of no financial statement audit by SFW. The books of a non-profit are not open to public record. They have file a Form 990, that in summary form is available, but you can hide big things in a Form 990.

And, you can have much of your activity go through consultants and subcontractors, a place where not even the Form 990 will give you any details.

The mere fact that much is not available speaks to the issue of transparency and accountability when much funding comes from a state resource.

Here are the Utah Governmental Audit Standards for state, local, and non-profit groups meeting the audit criteria. Don't spend a lot of time 210 pages long.

http://www.sao.utah.gov/localGov/legalComp/lcag.pdf

If indeed statements were audited by an outside CPA firm, it would be very helpful for those to be made available. According to Question 12, on Page 3, of their most recent Form 990 I have, they answered that they did not have a financial statement audit.

As my specialty is financial statement audits of nonprofits, just want to clarify that most nonprofits don't get yellow book audits. Those are only when they are getting a good bit of direct governmental grant dollars. Seems to me that the tags coming from the state of Utah would qualify as governmental grant dollars, but evidently that isn't the case.

If a nonprofit gets over $500,000 of federal governmental grant dollars they have to have a single audit that includes a yellowbook audit and lots of other compliance testing and reporting. In Texas $500,000 of state funding triggers the same audit requirement. No idea what the state of Utah audit requirements are though.

Pretty much agree with all you said on the 990 reliability without an audit, etc., just wanted to clarify that many nonprofits recieve a standard audit under generally accepted auditing standards, not neccessarily "yellowbook" audits under government auditing standards.

FWIW, Nathan

 

[bjtc_brian]

Way to go Fin, you made them your B!tch without even having the debate. Plain and simple you gave into most of their requests and they couldn't give into the one you asked for! I agree with Jose(can't believe I said that ) don't give in at all next time. They are jokers!!!!!

 

[drahthaar]

Does DP remind anyone else of Sasha Baron Cohen's "The Dictator"?

"Yes, I will debate you". But first, you must go on a marathon site seeing tour of all the good I have done. Next, "we can't debate anything like wolves, Simpson-Tester, my views on socialism, my stolen tags, or my "consultation" fees, nor anything having to do with my crooked ass SFW cult." "We will debate American Idol, Nascar, and maybe if there is time, hookah pipes vs cigarettes."

Now that you (Fin) have agreed to that, watch out. Your accomodations will have bed bugs, a drunken college party going all night before the debate. Random knocks will keep you up all night. Your morning coffee will drugged. A couple three thugs will mug you on your way out, and if you still have the sack to proceed, there will probably be a car bomb waiting for you in the parking lot. He can't debate you on the issues at hand and he knows it.

I think Jose was spot on. You gave way too much.

 

[ringer]

In AZ we have the Goldwater Institute that will do a class action lawsuit in court to expose financial irregularities on government or nonprofit orasganizations when public resources are involved. Do you in Utah have any such group that might take on the task pro bono? I would look in that direction and force exposure of the financial records if that is even possible. No cost, no fundraising and a watchdog that can get the Don to open up. I would pursue that here if they got the free tag deal done. If they abused the funds generated by the state tag sales they could end up doing a perp walk. A charity can take most the funds donated but I don't think the same applies to the selling of a public resource.

 

[brymoore]

I've heard rumors from a reliable source that Don expects Romney to appoint him to the number 2 position in the Interior Department. His first mission - reform USFW.

 

[WV Hunter]

i've heard rumors from a reliable source that don expects romney to appoint him to the number 2 position in the interior department. His first mission - reform usfw.

omg, let"s all vote for obama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!1

 

[MNHunter]

I've heard rumors from a reliable source that Don expects Romney to appoint him to the number 2 position in the Interior Department. His first mission - reform USFW.

Romney has about as much of a chance of winning as Dole did in 1996....

 

[Elkmagnet]

omg, let"s all vote for obama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!1

Shh politics