The Kodiak City Council and Kodiak Island Borough will review policies for a joint fisheries consultant in upcoming meetings and explore one of the ideas presented at their joint work session Tuesday evening.

Both parties inched through first discussions about a joint fisheries consultant and weighed in on what they would like to see in a representative.

Borough Assembly member Sue Jeffrey supports a fisheries consultant to attend various federal, state and local meetings.

“Fishing remains the backbone of this economy and not having a good understanding of what is going on on the horizon is really a disservice to our community,” Jeffrey said.

Council member Terry Haines agreed with Jeffrey and said it is local governments’ job to get a consultant because it is essential to the community.

“Having a policy and then having a representative is really just taking that step that says we realize this is within our scope of responsibilities for the community,” Haines said.

He also said the policy needs to look to the future for citizens, but needs to avoid focusing on specific groups of fishermen.

“The policy shouldn’t try to make any distinctions between gear types or user types,” Haines said.

Jeffrey also said it will be impossible to please every fisherman, but both parties have to try.

“We’re not going to please everybody,” she said. “In my opinion, the scope of the representative’s job is to represent the community as a whole, and the policies that are going to be good for the community. There are going to be people that scream and yell because it’s not going to be good for their particular pocketbooks, but we’re going to need to sit at the table and protect the health of this fishing community.”

Council member John Whiddon also agreed there is a need for some representation in fish meetings and brought forth the idea of having Trevor Brown, an economic development specialist for the Kodiak Chamber of Commerce, to work as a fishing consultant as a mutual party.

Neither party was ready to move forward with any kind of decision with Brown, but each said they would explore the option of having him represent Kodiak.

Borough Assembly member Judy Fulp is against having a joint fishing representative.

“This is a real hot issue that we get somebody that represents us, we think is representing the community, and half the community is against what they’re doing,” Fulp said. “I just don’t see with the different gear types and the issues that we’re going to find one person.”

Fulp said she would rather spend money on travel to send different qualified fisheries advisory committee members to attend different meetings to save money on creating a new job.

“If we’re going to add a position we’re going to need to know what we’re going to cut in our budget,” Fulp said. “I don’t see we have all that money to just create another position.”

Both parties will talk about the policy at future meetings to figure out the direction they’d like to go with a representative, but some members would like to see something come to fruition sooner, rather than later.

“We’re dropping the ball if we don’t get onto it right now,” Jeffrey said.

Mirror writer Louis Garcia can be reached via e-mail at lgarcia@kodiakdailymirror.com.