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IN MY OPINION
Eleven years ago a group of California Wildlife Control Operators, and some like-minded friends, responded to the national association’s call to organize by creating the California Nuisance Wildlife Control Operators Association (CNWCOA) as a non-profit, mutual benefit corporation. We subsequently became qualified as a tax exempt trade association under section 501(c6) of the Internal Revenue Code. Our specific purpose was then, and still is, to represent and develop the professional, economic, and political interests of Wildlife Control Operators working in California. In our early years, we sought recognition for our chosen vocation, by trying to become regulated and licensed first by our state’s Structural Pest Control Board, then our Department of Pesticide Regulation and finally by our state’s Department of Fish and Game. Our attempts for recognition all failed, but in 2003 we resumed our fight for economic liberty, this time, into the federal court system. After waging a six year legal battle in the U.S. District Court and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, we emerged victorious. The lawsuit against the state of California ended with the California NWCO Association members being named as the prevailing Plaintiffs against the state’s Defendants. The U.S. District Court in San Francisco, acting on a mandate issued by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, issued a Judgment and Injunction permanently prohibiting the state’s top law enforcement official from enforcing a law requiring WCOs from needing a pesticide applicators license when using non-pesticide methods for controlling rats, mice and pigeons in structures. Before filing this lawsuit in federal court, the NWCOA Board was invited to join the California WCOs as a co-plaintiff, but the Board demurred and chose not to become involved in this risky venture. To be fair, the NWCOA did pass the hat and did help pay the legal bills, but it refused to step up to the plate when we were behind and a hit was sorely needed. Five years of legal infighting went on between the California WCOs and their powerful adversaries, but throughout the long battle, not a word of encouragement and not a dime in support was given by the national organization in support of our right to earn an honest living. Well, that was then, and this is now. The state Defendants have been permanently enjoined from interfering with California WCOs’ ability to control the most common vertebrate pests found in structures so long as the WCOs do not use pesticides and maintain the required liability insurance coverage. If the state defendants violate the terms of the permanent injunction, the California NWCO Association will have the legal standing to act in a quick and decisive manner without the need to first seek NWCOA’s help.
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