REEDSPORT — Ocean Policy Advisory Council Chairman Scott McMullen should have been wearing a black-and-white referee shirt Tuesday.

The debate over marine reserves took up most of the council’s agenda when it met in the small offices of the Port of Umpqua, but the controversy heated up in the afternoon, when nearly 60 people signed up to speak during public testimony. McMullen had to remind members of the public — and council members — to keep the debate professional and courteous.

Council members planned to discuss a strategy for reviewing the 20 proposals for marine reserves submitted to the state before the Sept. 30 deadline.

The public had a different agenda.

The idea of closing areas to fishing or other extractive activity while diving, swimming or other activity still may be allowed did not sit well with many speakers. Most of them said they’d had little or no input with the groups proposing the closed areas — something the council made clear would have to happen for any of the areas to be seriously considered.

There still is a two-year evaluation process that will take place. Any sites that pass OPAC scrutiny, and are forwarded to the governor for further consideration and to the legislature for funding consideration, must go through even more study between now and 2011.

“It’s not designation,” said Ed Bowles, fish division director for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the governor’s representative on the council.

Socio-economic studies must first be done, he said, as well as baseline scientific studies. ODFW designed a draft OPAC review process and proposed that in the morning, prior to public testimony and prior to the council debating it. Council members plan to use the process in reviewing the proposals when it meets for two days, Oct. 23-24 in Florence, before forwarding the finalists to the governor on Nov. 17.

The process included a timeline for state agencies’ analyses, steps to arrive at consensus, if possible, and more.

Still, many of the people in attendance ignored the reason for the meeting and spoke out against marine reserves, primarily the one at Cape Arago.

The environmental group Our Ocean proposed a network of eight reserves, some with corresponding less-restrictive marine-protected areas, for the entire Oregon coast.

Opponents saw the proposal as a direct stab in the back to the Charleston community.

Under guidelines established by OPAC and the state, anyone proposing a reserve should have vetted the idea with local community groups, including sport and commercial fishermen. It must be a ground-up proposal, not a top-down proposal.

But when it came time for collaboration on the Cape Arago site, there was little, fishermen said.

Proponents said there were three meetings held — in July, August  and September, said Robin Hartmann, an Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition member and conservation representative on the council. Oregon Shores also is a member of Our Ocean.

Yet in early September, Gus Gates, the paid representative of Our Ocean, said at a meeting in Charleston that no concrete ideas for Cape Arago were planned.

That was preposterous, fishermen and fishermen’s representatives in the audience said.

“This did not happen just in two weeks,” said Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.

Hartmann, in response to testimony by Oregon Internation Port of Coos Bay Deputy Director Mike Gaul, countered that maps and charts still had not been done as of late September.

Hartmann was adamant there was ample opportunity for public collaboration.

“I feel like I knocked myself out personally to come over from Roseburg,” she said. “Gus and I had three meetings in the Bandon area.”

That offended several fishermen. Charleston fisherman Jeff Reeves wanted to know why didn’t they come to Charleston.

Peg Regan, who worked on proposing an area at Mack Reef, near Gold Beach, listed the number of fishermen — both sport and commercial — she talked to. It was quite a few. But some wouldn’t talk with her, she said.

“We tried,” she said.

The Cape Arago instance is a watery ground zero for what some say is an intimidating process. Environmentalists and conservationists are concerned about being targets of harassment. The fishing industry is worried it will lose fishing grounds important to struggling coastal communities.

“And that’s a bigger issue,” said Onno Husing, executive director of the Oregon Coastal Zone Management Association.

Council members identified two proposals — one at Port Orford and one near Depoe Bay — that did appear to have a lot of community support. Those, they said, were examples of how the process was designed to work.

“The part still in play is collaboration and any additional modification as a result of that collaboration,” Bowles said.