June 8, 2005
Dear Mr. Ross,
After your last letter, I had talked over your new program with my fellow instructors and we decided to further investigate it and probably embrace the idea of more hands on. It seemed like the skills part of your program was very similar to what we had been doing up to this current season. However sir, I am at odds with the events over this past day. I am going to tell you about them and then I will await a letter from you in the near future.
As it happened, last week I was contacted by my local WCO Mike Wojtecki and called me at my residence in the evening and stated that I was supposed to meet him at the Northwestern Regional Office on a possible date that was set aside. I asked him what this was about and he stated that he did not know. So I pondered this over the weekend wondering what Regis Senko wanted to talk to me about. The day came and I arrived at the Northwestern Regional Office and was greeted by Regis however Mr. Wojtecki could not make it. I was there to be cordial, however the time that I was spent there I was chastised for my opinions about the new program. I was trying to understand where this was going but Regis was being very agenda oriented on the fact that he felt that I was trying to tell the Game Commission how to do their job. I explained that that was not my issue but rather the fact that my specialty is psychology and that I know how these new hunters think and act. He did not listen to me. He even told me that he was talking. This was not a good meeting and in the end I was told to stop questioning what was going on. Sir, with all due respect, I am a volunteer and not an employee of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The PGC does not own me but seems to think it does. Technically I am only a temporary when I conduct the Hunter-Trapper Education program. I am however an employee of the Commonwealth, Department of Public Welfare and a union member and I resent very much as a private citizen of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania being bullied by someone who has a closed mind and an agenda of a meeting that I was not told the conditions of. I was told to follow a chain of command. I have no chain of command as a private citizen. The PGC may have a chain of command but I as a private citizen do not. These Gestapo tactics were not appreciated and threatening to pull my card is not going to make me stop questioning what is going on. As a private citizen and a taxpayer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and of the United States of America, I have the constitutional right to question anything. That is my God given right. I will continue to question anything I choose to as long as I live and your organization cannot take that away from me. You can take my card if you like and you can suspend my hunting privileges till I am old and gray, but you cannot take away my right to question and my responsibility as a citizen to comment on things that I do not like. This is America and your people should know better than to tell me that I cannot exercise my right of free speech. Your organization seems to thrive on being an autocratic system that bullies people for their own agenda. A day will come and this type of behavior that is unethical and unjust will be questioned by others and dealt with on a civil level.
This could have been avoided by information on how the determination of the new program was made and not by keeping it all secrete and trying to belittle me. I was told that all of this was done over 5 years ago. Where is the sharing of information on this issue? I know as a state employee that paper is always generated from meetings, so why was this report not shared with other instructors that came on after that meeting of 5 years ago? Remember sir, that without out us volunteers and the time we give and the effort put into this program, hunting will start to wane. Sir, I had started to embrace the thoughts of at least the skills program but after this meeting that took time out of my busy schedule and solved almost nothing more than to ire me, I am not sure that I want to be a part of this program anymore and further I may even think about a more drastic approach to further question your organization for what was done to me. Just think that all this started over the fact that I, as a private citizen, a hunter and a psychologist, voiced my opinion over an article in the Pennsylvania Game News. This has definitely gone out of control. After all, I am the one who has been dealing with the youth that are going to become the new hunters for over two decades. I have seen the change in attitude and how they process information. I am the one who has seen and reported on the fact that they have no thoughts of consequence and responsibility. I never once told you what your job is and I have never told you how to do it. This I was accused of at the start of this meeting The only thing that I have done was cautioned you about doing things a certain way that will diminish the value of the experience of the hunter trapper education program and hunting in regards to the way that the current youth value it. At this point sir, I am at a crossroads and did not deserve the treatment that I received from Regis Senko. However I believe that I deserve an apology for what happened and an explanation of why I was not told about the content of the meeting. I believe that this type of game playing is very unprofessional and childish and the bullying was not necessary. I am a reasonable man and I have the character to back it up. However the way this meeting went and the attitude of Mr. Senko was demeaning and closed. He had an agenda and he was not willing to listen. I was willing to listen and cooperate with the new ideas to a point but now; I question the attitude and direction. I personally have put a lot of time and effort into continuing on the tradition of hunting and after today, and the way I was treated; I don’t see why I should continue to do anything for the program or the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Only time will tell this story. I respectfully await your response.
Respectfully,
Dr. Paul A. Bensur, Jr.