FOI Panel Rules Against Towns' Deer Management Alliance

A Redding man who is bitterly opposed to towns culling deer announced he’s succeeded in obtaining a ruling against an alliance of towns that manages deer kills.

In a news release, Mike Gorfinkle says the state’s Freedom of Information Commission has found the Fairfield County Municipal Deer Management Alliance did not comply with statutes regarding the filing of notices and agendas for its
meetings.

Gorfinkle, who is co-founder of CT No Arrows or Bullets, says when he asked the alliance where meeting schedules, agendas and minutes were available for public perusal, he was "given the runaround.”

He says he filed his complaint with the commission last August, and it handed down its decision June 22.

There are 18 Fairfield County towns in the alliance.

On its web site, the commission says it administers and enforces the provisions of the state’s Freedom of Information act to ensure citizen access to the records and meetings of public agencies.

In a phone interview, Gorfinkle described members of the alliance as, “bored, tired old men looking for something to do.” The deer problem, he said, is “non-existent.”

The alliance has established its mission as “killing deer as a solution to a myriad of unrelated problems,” Gorfinkle says in his release.

Asked if there’s a problem with motorists hitting deer, Gorfinkle said it’s because they’re “texting, talking and speeding.” As for homeowners who have deer eating their gardens, Gorfinkle said they should be planting “deer-resistant plants.”

Gorfinkle says the alliance’s hiding documents “was a deliberate effort to avoid criticism of their not-so-transparent actions.”

Now that it’s been found in violation of FOI, Gorfinkle writes, the alliance should reconsider its mission. “Why don’t they advocate real scientific non-lethal methods for safe and healthy co-existence with deer, rather than looking for reasons to kill them?”

Informed of Gorfinkle’s news release, alliance chairman David Streit provided this statement:

“This is just another case of the misuse of a government agency at the expense of taxpayers to assure that the residents of Fairfield County continue to needlessly suffer from high deer densities and the resulting diseases. Consuming the states resources to attack volunteers attempting to eliminate human suffering, particularly when we are faced with a severe budget crisis and so many are out of work,  is simply shameful.“

During a phone interview, Streit said culling deer “is the only thing demonstrated to reduce a town’s tick disease and deer problems.”