Today July 3, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation (SAF) filed a motion for summary judgment in its public records case against the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), citing clear evidence of violations of the state’s Public Records Act by agency staff and individual commissioners alike.
“We had to sue to get the vast majority of these records, and what these records show is corruption on steroids,” said Todd Adkins, Senior Vice President at the Sportsmen’s Alliance. “The corruption is so deep even the mainstream media is covering this story now.”
SAF brought suit against WDFW in January 2025, after waiting more than a year for production of documents related to several policies, including the November 2022 decision to cancel the spring bear hunting season on a permanent basis. SAF issued a records request in September of 2023, asking WDFW for communication records between commissioners and others on spring bear hunting and a host of other policy issues the commission was considering.
As a result of the lawsuit, SAF received more than 40,000 records, with searches of this massive database uncovering a panoply of bad behaviors, established norms, and in several instances, evidence of potential crimes taking place, including felonies.
“We thought it might be bad, but unfortunately, it’s worse than we could have imagined,” added Adkins. “What makes this so incredibly troubling is last week’s commission meeting showed these commissioners have no contrition, no remorse about what we found, they just want to blame the Sportsmen’s Alliance for shining light on their corrupt practices, behaviors, and words.”
The initial hearing on the SAF lawsuit is scheduled for August 1 in Thurston County. SAF’s summary judgement motion essentially asks the judge to rule on the case because the evidence brought forth to this point shows obvious and blatant disregard of the Public Records Act and further proceedings on the merits of the case is unnecessary.
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