January 17, 2015 — Frank Mirarchi is concerned, too. But in the ensuing emotional and polarizing conversation about economic disaster and scientific prevarication, Mirarchi’s voice is unusual for its measured tone, its historical context, and a reasonableness that comes from someone who’s been doing this for 50 years.
Here’s a guy whose brain Governor Charlie Baker should pick. And on the double.
Baker’s chief of staff, Steven Kadish, should scan the gubernatorial schedule and make room for Scituate fisherman Frank Mirarchi before the month is out. Why the urgency? Because our new governor himself has demanded it.
When you think about Baker and the fishing industry, you probably remember Baker’s weepy debate moment about that broad-and-salty fisherman who said he had ruined his son’s life by encouraging a life at sea, and the kerfuffle that followed when the burly fisherman couldn’t be located to prove his tale was true.
But what fishermen like Mirarchi remember is what Baker said after the election about the federal government’s move in November to effectively ban all commercial cod fishing off the coast of Massachusetts:
“I promise — I’m telling you point-blank — that this administration is going to directly engage this issue, and we are going to engage it early in giving it priority,” Baker told the Gloucester Daily Times.
Baker is concerned that the science behind the ban, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has relied on, might be too thin to warrant the closure of commercial and recreational fishing in parts of the Gulf of Maine. He wants the state’s scientists to take a look.