ELKO, Nev. (AP) - Northeast Nevada rancher and businessman Demar Dahl will hang up his hat as an Elko County Commissioner next month, terming out of office after 12 years.
While he will no longer hold elected office, Dahl told the Elko Daily Free Press he plans to remain an active voice regarding public lands - an issue at the forefront of his political career since the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and the Jarbidge River “Shovel Brigade” in 2000.
“I was raised on a cattle ranch and you know Nevada is 87% owned and managed by the federal government,” Dahl said from the office of the Nevada Lands Council, where he serves as chairman. “It causes a lot of problems that other states don’t have, especially the states with very little federal land.”
“It has been a big issue in my life because I was raised on the range, so to speak, that was owned and managed by the federal government, somebody 3,000 miles away,” he added.
Elected to the county commission in 2008, Dahl was re-elected in 2012 and 2016.
He traces his interest in politics to his childhood, when his father, Harvey A. Dahl, served as an undersecretary to the Secretary of Agriculture during the administration of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower
“We left the ranch and moved to Washington, D.C., when I was in the sixth grade and so I got exposed to politics there and then it was just a natural thing,” he said.
Dahl was an active member during the 1970s of the Sagebrush Rebellion, which sought to give more control of federal lands to individual states. He drew 40.2% of the statewide vote in a 1992 bid to unseat Demcratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.
Dahl went on to be a leader of the “Shovel Brigade” in 2000 after a road along the Jarbidge River was closed by the U.S. Forest Service. Dahl argued that legislation from 1866 required an installed roadway to remain available to anyone that needs to use it. Court fights continued for years.
“We had about 2,000 people from all over the country come here to help on that,” Dahl said. “We had thousands and thousands of shovels and we formed the Shovel Brigade in order to do this.”
Dahl said that in all his years of ranching, he is fortunate to have always had dependable neighbors. He said he has experienced the same qualities as a county commissioner.
“I have had really good commissioners to work with and really good people in the county government to work with,” he said.
Elko County Manager Rob Stokes and Commissioner Delmo Andreozzi noted that Dahl represented the region on public lands and water issues and sat on both the National and Nevada Association of Counties boards of directors.
“He has just been an absolute fighter for those rights for all of us,” Andreozzi said.
“In addition to his big-picture awareness, Demar repeatedly helped individuals with issues that affected them directly,” Stokes added. “Elko County has benefited from Demar’s tenure on the Elko County Commission.”
Dahl said his one regret about his time on the commission involves an agreement with the Forest Service over the road in Jarbidge.
“The Forest Service wanted us to sign an agreement on that road that would basically say that they still owned and controlled the road,” he said. “My position was it was an RS2477, they closed it, we opened it and we said if you close it again we will open again.”
Dahl said his fellow commissioners did not share his views, and the vote ended up being 4-1 in favor of the measure.
Dahl said it will be two years before the state Legislature could possibly be flipped to be controlled by Republicans, something that he believes is important in making headway on transferring Nevada’s federal lands into state or even county hands. He said it is a project that he will continue to work on.
“As a County Commission, last summer, we passed a resolution supporting the transfer of the public land from the federal government directly to the county,” Dahl said. “Not just to Elko County but for all of the counties in the state, and we sent a copy of that resolution to every county commission in the state and asked them to support it and that is where we are right now.”
Dahl said he has spoken with Clover Valley rancher Wilde Brough, who was elected in November to follow him on the county commission, about issues facing the district.
He said his best advice for an incoming commissioner is to let each independent entity in the district know that you are there for them, but to avoid pushing in unless they seek help.
“That is one piece of advice,” he said.
The second?
“It is okay to disagree, but don’t be disagreeable,” Dahl said.
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