BY ANDY SHER | The Tennessee Journal
Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission members have elected Jimmy Granbery of Nashville as the panel’s new chair and Chris Devaney of Lookout Mountain as vice chair.
The five-member commission oversees and promulgates rules for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency which enforces hunting, fishing and boating regulations while also working to preserve fish and wildlife habitats across the state.
Granbery, the CEO of H.G. Hill Realty Company, had been serving as vice chairman. Devaney, a former Tennessee Republican Party chair who advised Bill Lee in his 2018 Republican gubernatorial campaign and later as special assistant after he took office, is a founding partner of the Poplar Group, a political consulting firm. Devaney had been serving on TFWC as secretary.
Granbery has been at the center of a legal dispute over the management of Nashville International Airport. As GOP lawmakers were looking to mete out retribution at the Nashville mayor and council last year over a refusal to approve a framework to host the Republican National Convention, one major vehicle became giving appointment power to its board to the speakers of the House and Senate and the governor.
Granbery, who had served in the previous incarnation of the panel, was appointed to the new board by Senate Speaker Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge, alongside similarly situated Bobby Joslin, who was named by House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville.
When the airport board law was thrown out for violating the Tennessee Constitution’s home rule protections, Granbery and Joslin resumed participating in the reinstated airport board’s activities. New Mayor Freddie O’Connell has chosen not to fight their return despite an opinion from legal director Wally Dietz that they forfeited their appointments when they agreed to join the new board.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of a state agency overseeing hunting and fishing with the agency having had multiple names over the decades.
Among other actions, TFWC members last week voted to replace mentions of “Asian Carp” with “Invasive Carp” in what the agency said was an effort to “better align” with national terminology. That in turn prompted a name change for TWRA’s incentive program to eradicate the fish which is now called the “Tennessee Carp Harvest Program.”