MURRAY, Utah (AP) – Dan Snarr, Murray’s outgoing four-term mayor, starts talking before he even sits down for a scheduled interview – and keeps talking for the next 2½ hours without coming up for air. He apologizes for this several times, blaming it on “ADHD,” but then picks up where he left off.
Snarr, who will turn 64 on New Year’s Day, got into politics 16 years ago, but he’s no politician. He doesn’t look like one, doesn’t dress like one, doesn’t talk like one, doesn’t work like one. He says what’s on his mind, and doesn’t worry about political expediency.
“I’m different, and I know I am,” he said.
Different? Name another mayor who sports a handlebar mustache that is 22 inches from tip to tip and moves up and down like wings when he talks. Name another mayor who punctuates his conversation with quotes from Socrates, O.C. Tanner, Aristotle, Martin Luther King and Joseph Smith. Name another politician who drives a rusty old car and gets up at 4 a.m. to plow snow and keeps a sprayer in his back seat, so he can kill weeds around town just to experience that warm feeling of progress that he craves.
He once asked an unsuspecting Murray resident what he thought about all the development in Murray. Snarr said he was fishing for a compliment; instead, he got an earful. “We’re lucky anything happens with that d--- mayor in charge,” the resident began.
Snarr listened, and when the man was finished, he explained why things were done the way they were in Murray, issue by issue.
“How do you know so much about this?” the man asked. Snarr replied, “Because I’m the d--- mayor.”
Snarr has not endeared himself to everyone during his four terms in office because he has brought change and development. He led the way to tear down the famed old smelter site with its familiar twin brick smokestacks and convinced the 17 owners of the property to sell to Intermountain Medical Center, which was built on the site.
He played a role in bringing three large hotels to the city, as well as the University of Utah medical campus, a large apartment complex and expansion of Fashion Place Mall. Dilapidated and sometimes boarded buildings were replaced by revenue-producing commercial projects. He laid the groundwork by sinking $42 million into improved electrical power and other infrastructure, which attracted the businesses.
“Murray suffered for so long without change,” he said. “We had to ask, ‘What do we need to do to make people believe Murray is a good place to do business?’”
He revels in progress. He drives around the city simply to look for problems to fix. What he saw for years were weeds. City employees cut them down only to see them grow back.
He sprayed the weeds instead and did it himself – and he’s still spraying. He carries a backpack sprayer in the back seat of his car, and when he sees weeds while driving around town, he pulls over and poisons them.
“He does that all the time,” said his wife, April. “People complain, but I see him do things no one else would do. No job is beneath him.”
Snarr, whose great-grandfather was an early settler in Murray in 1860, wants others to share in his sense of pride in the community and act. He believes in appearances, which is why he had the shrubs ripped out on State Street and replaced with flowers.
People ask Snarr why he is so aggressive in his job, and he says, “Because I like to get up and see progress in the making.”
Looking back, Snarr says: “I came from a poor family. I didn’t want to see my kids go through what I went through, but in some way, it’s a disservice. It makes you stronger to have adversity. It makes you a better person if you can find a way to overcome it.”
