Q&A with Rob Hach, who is running for city commissioner of Devils Lake
DEVILS LAKE - Rob Hach may have grown up in Minnesota, but he is a Devils Laker through and through.
He came to the lake region in 1989 and started with the police department as a canine officer and progressed to detective before retiring in 2012. Currently working at Summers Mfg. Co., Inc. part time as the safety and health coordinator. Was elected to the City Commission in 2018.
Hach went in the United States Air Force in 1982 to November 198. He was stationed at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson Arizona, and one remote tour at Kunson Airbase, Korea.
Elections for this office will be on June 14.
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Why did you decide to run for office?
I am already currently a city commissioner, so I am re-running. I just figure I needed to continue on with what we have done as a city commission so far, and after four years, I feel like I’ve learned enough as a commissioner to be a little more effective than I have been the first four years, because it is something new.
What will be your main goal you wish to accomplish as city commissioner?
Continue the good things we’ve done so far as a city commission as far as keeping our taxes in check and making sure that we continue with the good things that we’ve done in the city as far as streets, maintaining streets and keeping our public safe. Continue on with good things at the fire department…I was a police officer here for 23 years, so I guess that is where my main focus is. Safety.
How will your experience working/living in the community prepare you for this potential role?
Because I have lived here and worked in the city for a long period of time, and being at the police department, I got to see all facets of the city versus the bad parts of things that happened in the city and a lot of the good things that have happened with the city, and I feel like I have learned how to treat people. That is where I stand, I guess.
What is your overall campaign message to voters?
Just to maintain what we’ve done as a city. Continue to try and keep out taxes as low as we can. Help build on the things we’ve built on so far with hiring city employees as far as our city administrator [and] city auditor. Continue building on that. Just continue to bring the city in the right direction as far as trying to get people here. Try and keep people from leaving.
I guess that’s my biggest question, is all the time I’ve lived here [for] 33 years now, Devils Lake hasn’t grown any and it hasn’t lost people, really. We’ve maintained the same population over the years. Maybe it’s me that has to ask the question more. Why don’t people want to move to Devils Lake?
What is one word that describes you?
Easy-going. I’m a people person. I believe in treating people the way you want to be treated, and that’s the way I was with the police department, and that’s the way I maintained my first four years as a commissioner, was to treat people the way I want to be treated. I guess, over the years, it has worked for me, and I think that’s how maybe I got elected the first time, the way I treated people when I was at the police department.
John Crane is a sports/general assignment reporter for the Devils Lake Daily Journal. Feel free to contact John at jcrane@gannett.com or Twitter (@johncranesports) with any story ideas. K. William Boyer is Managing Editor of the Devils Lake Daily Journal, you may reach him at kboyer@gannett.com or at 701-662-2127 or 850-261-7476 with questions or concerns.
This article originally appeared on Devils Lake Journal: Rob Hach is running for Devils Lake city commissioner
