Thursday, Nov. 11, 1999 | 11:14 a.m.
The abrupt resignation of Nevada's top U.S. Forest Service official has bolstered the Silver State's notorious reputation among federal employees, some workers say.
"It has an 'anti-fed' reputation.' I've heard it a lot since I moved here two years ago," said Wayne Smith, a U.S. Forest Service special law enforcement agent for the Nevada-Utah zone based in Carson City.
"Last time I checked, Nevada was a part of the United States. But there are some people who don't want to believe that," Smith said. "It's like the 'Republic of Nevada' or the 'Republic of Elko.' "
Gloria Flora resigned Monday as the U.S. Forest Service supervisor for the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, calling the attitude toward federal employees and laws in Nevada "pitiful."
"I have learned that in Nevada, as a federal employee, you have no right to speak, no right to do your job and certainly no right to be treated with respect," Flora says in an open letter she wrote to her employees.
"I could go on and on with examples of those of you who have been castigated in public, shunned in your communities, refused service in restaurants, kicked out of motels just because of who you work for."
Citing her work experience in Montana, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, Flora assured her co-workers that, "It is not like this in other places!"
Even federal workers in other states say Nevada's atmosphere is perceived as more hostile.
"It would definitely influence my moving to Nevada with my family. I wouldn't want to move them there," said Rick Vallejos, a forest service employee who works in Utah's Wasatch-Cache National Forest.
Bob Swinford, spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service's Intermountain Region office in Ogden, Utah, said the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion sentiment seems stronger in Nevada.
The movement started in 1979 when lawmakers in Nevada and five other Western states passed laws that claimed state control of federally managed lands.
Nevada's law hasn't been enforced and was picked apart by U.S. District Court judge in a 1996 ruling involving Nye County. The U.S. Justice Department sued Nye County over ordinances that called for the county taking ownership federal lands.
"It tends to heat up in Nevada more than in other places," Swinford said. "That's where the whole Sagebrush Rebellion started, and there's still a lot of local sentiment along those lines."
Flora may be the first federal official in Nevada to act so publicly on her frustrations. But she certainly isn't the first to feel frustration over shabby treatment from locals.
"I have felt that way many times," said Bob Stewart, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management in Reno. "It's a legitimate issue."
Sometimes it's an explosive one -- literally.
On Halloween 1993 someone tossed a pipe bomb onto the roof of the BLM's Reno office where it exploded.
In March 1995 a bomb exploded in a forest service outhouse in Elko. Two Nevada men later were indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the bombing.
In May 1995 someone planted a pipe bomb outside a forest service office in Carson City where it exploded, blew out the windows and caused other extensive property damage.
In August 1995 a pipe bomb planted inside a forest service ranger's van exploded while the vehicle was parked in front of his home.
Scores of other incidents have been less violent but more personal. Forest service employees say they have been denied motel accommodations in Elko County and that one employee attending a Elko social gathering with her young daughter was berated so harshly by another resident that it made the child cry.
"That's a real burden when you come to a new area where you're not wanted, and you're trying to do work for the American people," Smith said.
That is only aggravated by the fact that high-ranking agency officials say little or nothing about intimidation tactics endured by the rank and file and discourage employees to make their concerns public. Flora cited this lack of support as one of her reasons for leaving.
"There has always been much more going on than anybody knows," said CeCe Stewart, Flora's administrative assistant in Sparks.
"In the Reno-Sparks area, we get the ridicule. But our co-workers in Elko, well, for them it's worse. We've got a ranger who looks under his car for bombs," Stewart said. "Some employees have said it's like a battered woman's syndrome or something. They get to thinking that's the way it's supposed to be."
Most recently, the backlash in Nevada has been fueled by efforts to close roads on federal lands that historically have been used by ranchers and other rural residents.
On Saturday lawmakers will be in Elko to hear testimony from those who oppose permanent closure of South Canyon Road, a one-mile stretch on forest service land that was wiped out by a 1995 flood. Flora has said rebuilding the road would imperil the future of the threatened bull trout. Flora has received threatening telephone calls at home over the issue.
Forest service employees say the road controversy simply provides another excuse for bashing by locals who want the federal government to relinquish its control.
Forest service employees say they are bound by the agency to take the lumps and keep their mouths shut publicly. They say Flora's resignation is shining a long-overdue public spotlight on what has been a big problem for decades.
Forest service employees met in Sparks earlier this week and are writing a letter to U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck. It is expected to carry the signatures of all or most of the Sparks-area employees.
Some workers have penned their own missives to Dombeck. Maureen Joplin, a Humboldt-Toiyabe geologist, described Elko County as a situation "now careening out of control."
"The 'county supremacy' and fed-bashing, confrontational attitudes and behaviors infesting this remote population in Nevada have been allowed to escalate until federal employees are openly and continuously berated and threatened, both at work and in their private lives," Joplin writes.
"Gloria's resignation is a final wake-up call. When a county can intimidate federal agencies, openly flaunt federal laws and not be held accountable, the situation is no longer a 'local problem,'/thinspace" the letter says.
Dennis Grover, of the Nevada Freedom Coalition, said he and other federal land policy opponents should look at Flora's resignation as a step in their favor.
Grover's organization tried to collect enough signatures in order to present the 1999 Legislature with a petition that called for bringing Nevada's federal land under local control. They failed to get the 46,700 signatures needed.
Coalition members already are rallying for a 2001 initiative, and Grover said they will continue to push for what they want.
"There's no question of what we want to do," he said Wednesday. "We definitely will be keeping after it, and I believe the groundswell (of support) is increasing as well.
"Elko has come alive again," Grover added. "There's no reason to back off."
Eric Herzik, political science department chairman at the University of Nevada, Reno, said Flora's resignation could illustrate what happens when a government official develops an agenda from which she or he cannot be swayed, even when local public opinion is overwhelmingly against it.
"Both sides are pushy. She treated local interests rather brusquely, and it's legitimate for these people to protest," Herzik said. "Sure there's the yahoo element. But self-determination for locals -- is that such a bad thing?"
Herzik isn't condoning personal attacks but said they are a symptom of growing frustration among rural residents who must live with federal policy decisions but "have no voice."
"It's done in Washington (D.C.). It's done in urban areas by environmentalists who visit but don't live here," he said. "This, 'We're going to take care of you,' is incredibly paternalistic. Would Las Vegans like it if the federal government came in and started managing all the casinos?"
Ellen Pillard, the Sierra Club's political and legislative chairwoman for Nevada, said Flora's resignation is a loss for the state and its image.
"It doesn't make us look good. I think the majority of Nevadans don't support this type of intimidation," Pillard said. "These are people who are simply doing their jobs and are often neighbors in these rural communities.
"It's a real serious problem, as we've seen in other places around the country, when people take their frustrations out on employees in any level of government," Pillard added.
CeCe Stewart says she was born and raised in the Reno area, and it hurts to have neighbors snub her and her co-workers simply because they wear forest service name tags or uniforms.
"I am ashamed to be a Nevadan today," Stewart said late Wednesday afternoon. "And I'm ashamed of our leadership for not stepping in and stopping this nonsense."
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