Members.
The Coffee hosted by Senator Hubert Houser & Rep. Richard Anderson was held as advertised at 10:00 a.m. this morning here in Clarinda.
Sen. Houser walked into the meeting early and came right over to me and sat down. He stated that he figured I was here to discuss the pending deer legislation. I guess his first guess must have been the black IW cap.
I introduced myself and he knew immediately who I was. He said he had been reading the many emails that I had been sending to him. He also said that he has been receiving a lot of emails from concerned resident deer hunters. He apologized and stated he did not have the time right now to respond to all of them. I spent 20 minutes with Hubert Houser prior to the official meeting getting started. Senator Houser was very friendly, polite, and appeared to be listening to what I had to say. He did say that some of the points that I bought up were valid concerns and some of them he hadnt thought of before.
He did say that Freeman & Black backed by the insurance industry are pressuring others to back the proposed bill. He said that Black & Freeman are worried about the law suit possibility of doing nothing re: allotting more NR tags.
Sen. Houser sat right there in front of me all told me that he doesnt think that is that big of a deer population problem in Iowa other than in the Metropolitan areas that are closed to hunting.
Sen. Houser said he plans to study the bill hard Monday and talk with others prior to Tuesday. I sent 8 pages of information with him to read over, he thanked me for providing this information. He also promised me that he would read it and try to get a better perspective re: ramifications for resident hunters.
I guess that is all I can ask?
Unfortunately there were only 18 people in attendance at this meeting. Eleven women and 7 men, none of which were the least bit interested in deer hunting issues. And I must say that Senator Houser gave them all a chance to response to the proposed deer legislation. In fact he started his portion of the meeting off with the issue of the deer bill.
In closing I would encourage everyone who has thoughts on the pending deer legislation to contact their representatives ASAP. I do believe they are listening, and I do believe that the outcome of this legislation will be decided
very shortly.
