I am Paul Donheffner, and I served as Director of the State Marine Board from 1984 to 2010, so I have more than a little experience working with the members of the Marine Board. HB 2695 is a radical and unnecessary makeover of the Board, which will have negative consequences for years to come.

The reason for this bill appears to be a nexus with HB 2555 and wakeboarding, which is a longstanding hot potato. In a desire to ban wakeboarding on the Willamette River, advocates want to dismantle and re-design the Marine Board to achieve their goals. This is not the right answer. The Board makes decisions based on the statutes created by the Legislature. If the Legislature has a better prescription for wakeboarding, it should set that in law rather than destroying the Board over this one issue.

Re-making the Board using identity politics and labels will not enhance the Board, but instead divide the Board into interest group camps and members who feel an obligation to represent their identity point of view rather than a broader public interest.

Board members serve as citizen volunteers, giving many hours of often thankless work for only mileage and per diem. Board members are vetted by the Governor's office and confirmed by the Oregon Senate. Under this bill as few as two members would actually be boaters, which is just plain wrong.

It is a mistake to exclude persons who might want to serve on the Board because they don't check a certain box. Or because that box is already filled. In addition, if you go down the rabbit hole of identity labels, then this bill fails to check off other groups with a stake. There is nobody representing law enforcement or search and rescue, representing guides or charter boats, representing active water sports, representing marine dealers or tourism, representing local governments, and so on.

And the Division of State Lands and DEQ do not need to serve ex-officio on the Board. Why not ODFW? OSP? State Parks? This quickly gets very unwieldy and political influence sets in. It is not a good model for a volunteer citizen board.

The Legislature should tackle wakeboard policy, but leave identity politics out of the Marine Board. Please vote NO on HB-2695.