DWR cleaning up 'Dirty Harry'

Officials of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources are working to make agency law enforcement more customer friendly, says a report distributed to lawmakers on Wednesday.

The Deseret Morning News reported on Oct. 10 that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s transition team was so concerned about comments that wildlife enforcement agents sometimes acted in an arrogant way that the team considered recommending Wildlife Resources be taken out of the Department of Natural Resources. They mulled over placing it under the Department of Agriculture, which they speculated might be able to keep officers under better control.

Eventually, they decided against the recommendation, saying that action would cost Huntsman too much political capital.

Still, "Dirty Harry"-type confrontation between DWR law enforcement and the public was cited by a team co-chairman. The transition report said of the division, "It has a culture that often clashes with other divisions within the department and with the farming/ranching community as well as rural county government leaders."

Law enforcement responsibilities in the Department of Natural Resources cover two divisions, the Division of Wildlife Resources and the Division of State Parks and Recreation.

Wednesday afternoon, Mike Styler, executive director of the DNR, appeared before the Legislature's Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Interim Committee, and he was obviously concerned about the criticism. He was before the committee to brief lawmakers on expenditures for endangered species protection but brought a box of reports that he offered to the senators and representatives that had nothing to do with the scheduled topic.

The report, "Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement," was in response to the transition team's findings, said Styler.

The agency's law enforcement has made improvements in the past 10 months (the period since Huntsman's inauguration), he added.

"We consider complete customer satisfaction as a high priority," says one of the main values listed in the booklet.

Cited by the document as progress to answer criticism by the transition team are these items, among others: the appointment of Styler as the DNR executive director; the appointment of Jim Karpowitz as the division's new director; appointment of a new director of the Division of State Parks and Recreation, Mary Tullis; appointment of a new director of law enforcement, Sid Groll; and appointment of a new chief of law enforcement for the DWR, Mike Fowlks.