Pa. Game Commission To Change Meeting Format

The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners on Dec. 18 announced changes to its traditional quarterly meeting format.

The January 2020 meeting will be the first to follow the new format, through which meetings will be held on Friday and Saturday rather than on Monday and Tuesday.

With the change, the January 2020 meeting will begin on Friday, Jan. 24 at 1 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is for the board to hear reports from staff. Public comment will not be accepted at this meeting.

The two-day meeting then will reconvene on Saturday, Jan. 25 at 8:30 a.m. Public comment – limited to five minutes – will be accepted at this meeting on a first-to-register, first-to-speak basis. Following the conclusion of public comment, the board will take up its regular agenda, then will discuss new business that, under the previous format, would have been addressed at the next working group meeting.

There will be no working group meetings under the new format.

Commissioner Timothy Layton said the new meeting format will better accommodate board members and help to attract more-diverse candidates when there are vacancies on the board.

Previously, meeting obligations required commissioners to spend over a dozen days per year traveling to, attending and staying overnight to attend meetings. And commissioners with careers needed to take off work to attend, which isn’t an option for many potential commissioners.

Not everybody interested in serving as commissioner is able to adhere to such a schedule, and many who would be willing to serve might not apply for a vacant position due to the time commitments that were necessary.

“Changing the format will open the door to a whole host of new candidates who otherwise couldn’t have served, and eventually is likely to result in a more-diverse board that better represents Pennsylvania’s wide cross-section of hunters and trappers,” Layton said.

The January meeting will be held at the Game Commission’s headquarters, 2001 Elmerton Ave., just off the Progress Avenue exit off Interstate 81 in Harrisburg, Dauphin County. Doors open at 7:45 a.m. each day of the meeting.

The agenda for the January meeting will be available at http://www.pgc.pa.gov at a later date.