Panel queries fish, game official

BOISE – At a confirmation hearing Friday, North Idaho Fish and Game Commission appointee Tony McDermott fielded questions from state senators on everything from hunting access to his party affiliation.

McDermott donated $300 to the GOP for the 2004 election, but he said he’s not a Republican. “I have voted Democrat as much as I have Republican,” McDermott told the Senate Resources and Environment Committee.

State law requires that the seven-member Fish and Game Commission not have more than four members from one political party, but the commission currently has no Democrats. Four Republicans serve on it; the other three members are independents, as is McDermott.

The committee will vote on McDermott’s confirmation Monday, then forward it to the full Senate.

McDermott said he’s never been affiliated with a political party.

“I don’t like politics, particularly at the national level,” he said. “The animosity that I see there today, that just reinforced my belief that staying independent is the right way to go.”

Committee members quizzed McDermott about selling public land, improving the pheasant population, and the growing demand for public hunting areas.

McDermott said he’s opposed to selling public land – an issue raised by Sen. Brad Little, R-Emmett, after McDermott told the committee he favors more access to hunting areas.

“Would your categorical rejection of any kind of transfer of federal lands be as categorical if the net effect … was a land exchange that gave you a lot more access to these areas?” Little said.

McDermott replied that he would support selling public land if the sale could take the form of an exchange and increase the accessibility of hunting areas.

A Montana native, McDermott served in the military for nearly 30 years. He was a professor of military science for four years at the University of Montana in the 1980s before working in Seattle as the region training officer for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets.

He said his friend, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, tried to persuade him to stay in the military, but he refused and Powell offered him another stint as military science professor at UM.

“Looking back at it, it was probably a mistake,” McDermott said. “I should have got out and gone into a profession where I can make some money.”

He did just that after he left the university, selling real estate for 10 years before moving to North Idaho.