Jay Stinson is a friend, but talk so-called rationalization (privatization) and the fur begins to fly. Kodiak is blessed in fisheries because Jay and most Kodiak fishermen had career-building chances because of open access fisheries.

Why deny others the same chance by disassembling the system that allowed you such success? I can think of a few appropriate words: indifference, selfishness and greed.

Just look at what past rationalizations have done to coastal communities, families and hard-working fishermen.

In 1995 the first IFQs were put in place and never again would anyone — except those exclusive members — be able to fish for halibut or sablefish without having hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest. Thousands of deckhands lost their jobs; and the IFQ owners are charging exorbitant rents, and the quotas got consolidated into the pockets of a few fish magnates.

Alaska’s coastal communities were hit hard with fewer dollars in circulation and limited future opportunities. Pollock rationalization soon delivered more closed-class opportunities, fewer jobs and placed our fisheries largely in foreign hands.

Like others, I spent 20 years crab fishing in the Bering Sea so that faraway consumers could eat the delights of Alaskan snow or king crab. Crewmen risked their lives to help the boat owners, processors and others that service our industry stay afloat financially.

And next came crab privatization. Slipped as a rider into an appropriations bill in November of 2003, Ted Stevens imposed crab rationalization on us, despite the Fourth National Standard requiring all fishermen receive “fair and equitably allocated” rights — including crewmen. Meanwhile, excessive shares were issued to other individuals, corporations and entities.

Boat owners were gifted 97 percent of the quota, while the skippers got 3 percent. Combined skipper and crewmen were previously paid 35-40 percent of the net profits as private contractors under open access. So, where are our fair and equitable shares?

Of 1,450 seasonal crab jobs prior to privatization, almost 1,000 were forever lost. Earl Krygier (an alternate for ADF&G Commissioner McKie Campbell, on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council) told me in April at the Anchorage meeting that it’s not possible to figure out who the crewmen were in crab rationalization. I replied that we must be allocated to as, “It’s the law.”

It’s common knowledge that every vessel had a logbook, as well as crew contracts, required by Coast Guard law. And who could forget the infamous IRS Form 1099 that we all received from our employer, like it was a winning lottery ticket.

The NPFMC is presently looking at crew and skipper provisions for GOA groundfish ratz, but shouldn’t we be fixing the broken crab ratz system first? The U.S. Congress that signed the bill should reallocate crab crewmen a share, and Ted Stevens should have to personally introduce this revision in the Senate. After all, Ted violated the very same law he helped enact: the Fourth National Standard.

At this April’s meeting, Fishermen’s Finest, Inc. told the council it had created a government monopoly with AFA pollock allocation, and called that a “rationalization gone awry.”

Crab privatization has led to price-fixing episodes. I watched our crab get caught, delivered, graded and processed in November 2005. Our load was of better quality than any we delivered in the last 20 years to the same plant. The Japanese technicians excitedly steered one-third of our load of jumbo crab into four-section specialty packs (we received no bonus), while another third of our crab were downgraded to $1 a pound less.

Now we have more worries as GOA privatization approaches. It would have already arrived if it weren’t for the free market preserving efforts of coastal communities’ municipal governments, businesses and citizens. We don’t need any more economic chainsaws cutting off our children’s fishing futures.

Status quo will work in the Gulf. All that needs to be done is use the tools in the bycatch mitigation toolbox already available to the NPFMC. Give exclusive limited license permits for the Gulf trawlers to protect their interests from incursions by others. We don’t need privatization. It only gives a golden parachute retirement to a few elite boat owners at the community’s expense.

I urge every citizen in this island community to get informed about Gulf ratz and participate on June 6, when the NPFMC will be taking public comments all day at the Kodiak High School Commons (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.). We need everyone to share opinions on what you think of privatization hiding as “rationalization.”

Shawn C. Dochtermann is the vice president of the Alaska Jig Association and member of the Crewmen’s Association, Alaska Marine Conservation Council and Alaska Independent Fishermen’s Marketing Association. He is a 28-year Kodiak resident fisherman.