Court Opinion

ID: 9789153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:28:59.015187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:20.113743
License: Public Domain

CARPENETI, Justice,
dissenting.
In response to this court’s decision in Gru-nert I, an opinion that contained no explicit prohibition on all cooperative fisheries,7 the board drastically restructured the Chignik cooperative. It did so to meet this court’s stated concern that “a central premise of the statutory scheme is that the permit holder is *1249an individual who will fish.” The board established a program that requires every coop member, in order to share in the co-op’s proceeds, to fish: In order to qualify, a member must make at least ten landings. The change had dramatic effect: In 2005, under the new regulation, seventy-six co-op members made deliveries of fish, and fifty of them had at least fifteen deliveries.8
Now this court says that this dramatic change is not enough. In a decision that will probably doom several other cooperative fisheries (though without any briefing by the parties or consideration by the court at all), the court utterly strips the board of power to use a proven and effective tool in dealing with the critical problems it faces in managing Alaska’s fisheries. I previously expressed my disagreement with the court’s earlier decision that the former co-op regulation violated the Limited Entry Act.9 I adhere to those views now. But even assuming that Grunert I was correctly decided, it should not be read to require today’s decision. I respectfully dissent.
ce: Supreme Court Justices
Judge Morse
Trial Court Clerk
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. Nowhere in the opinion did the court in Gru-nert I hold all co-op forms to violate the Limited Entry Act. Rather, Gmnert I, in its holding, stated:
The co-op regulation ... transforms the limited entry permit from what used to be a personal gear license into a mere ownership share in a cooperative organization.... Before this regulatory scheme accomplishes such radical departure from the historical model of limited entry fisheries in Alaska and the spirit of the Limited Entry Act, however, we conclude that the legislature must first authorize the board to approve cooperative salmon fisheries.
109 P.3d at 936 (emphasis added). Because the new regulatory scheme has completely abandoned the "mere ownership share” model that Grunert I found lacking, the new scheme is consistent with Grunert I.

. Only an average of twenty-one co-op members made deliveries in the three previous years, when the former regulation was in effect.

. Grunert I, 109 P.3d at 936-42 (Carpeneti, J., dissenting).