Texas Gulf Coast Council of Diving Clubs
  • My name is George Clark, and I am the 2nd Vice President of the Texas Gulf Coast Council of Diving Clubs in charge of governmental affairs. The council is a combination of Texas dive clubs with over 500 members. I am speaking for all of the 500 very concerned members.
  • The dive council wants TPWD to start spending SFR Act taxpayer money legally to have an artificial reef program like other states are doing
  • The council has been trying to; 1 - find out how TPWD has been spending taxpayer money, and then 2 - get TPWD to spend it legally
  • This has proven to be an impossible quest
  • The same problems that were discovered by the Senate Finance Committee in the parks department of misspent, mishandled, and possibly stolen money is prevalent throughout TPWD
  • If not, then why else does TPWD refuse to give simple straight forward answers to simple straight forward questions.
  • The SPORT FISH RESTORATION ACT is where other states get the money to spend on off shore artificial reefs
  • TPWD has gotten over 200 million dollars from this federal fund in the last 25 years and how it has been spent is a mystery. When asked they would supply a colored pie chart, but when asked for numbers and grant proposals, none would be given
  • The SFR Act is a user pay user benefit dispersal of federal tax funds. In a TPWD magazine article, Larry McKinney wrote that 45% of people that bought salt water fishing licenses fished off shore
  • Using simple math for user pay user benefit TPWD should be spending close to 3 million dollars a year on off shore artificial reefs
  • When TPWD was asked what SFR Act money they were spending offshore the answer was none
  • TPWD response was that by spending SFR Act money on marsh grass, mangrove trees, and fish hatcheries they were spending this money legally[1]
  • There is no other state that uses this ridiculous logic
  • The last sunset committee found numerous financial and spending problems with TPWD
  • They issued a number of directives for TPWD to implement and follow
  • One of these directives was to create artificial reefs
  • These directives were sent to the legislators to vote on and all the directives passed
  • These directives were on the TPWD controlled website until the spring of this year
  • Then they were deleted from the website by a person or persons at TPWD
  • I feel they were deleted by TPWD because they had ignored nearly all the directives.
  • This was a criminal act of willful destruction of government property
  • The dive council has asked that these 2000 sunset review directives be restored
  • TPWD response has been they need more information
  • I am asking this sunset committee to demand that the deleted directives of the 2000 sunset review be reinstated and that a strong effort be made to find who was responsible
  • TPWD has also been directed to put their entire budget on the state ordered website
  • This has not happen and TPWD is making no effort to comply with this directive either
  • The Texas Gulf Coast Council of Diving Clubs is asking the Sunset Committee to once again direct TPWD to spend money on offshore artificial reefs and to spend the correct proportion of SFR Act doing this
  • Because of all the continuing despicable problems at TPWD I am also asking that TPWD be put on sunset probation until they are spending as directed and legally. They also need to have a financial website as good as the Texas prisons system
  • IF THE SUNSET COMMITTEE DESIRES ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME AT MY CELL PHONE NUMBER OF xxx-xxx-xxxx OR MY E-MAIL ADDRESS OF GEOKARCLARK@AOL.COM