I was in attendance at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Gunstock Area Commissioners where the details of the initial first phase of the “master plan” were presented. It was certainly eye-opening.
Quite frankly, it was rather frightening when one thinks about the many years the area has been preserved and cared for with (mostly) careful stewardship by many good people. I came away with the conclusion that this proposal must be stopped until cooler heads and more careful thought can prevail. The whole “plan” as it was delivered was rather obvious in that it just seems to be a cover for certain corporate players and their hotel/restaurant plans.
Phase One is the primary carrot and the first foot in the door for the commercialization. When hearing the proposed numbers, it doesn’t require one to be a mathematician or economist to quickly conclude there is no sound financial possibility to ever come back and finish the other four phases, let alone this one.
Gunstock is currently making very good money now with the existing area. The only complaints are the slow Tiger and Pistol chairs. Let’s come up with a well-thought plan for those upgrades in order to sustain current levels of profitability and maintain the Gunstock we all love. I cannot believe all the locals actually “love” this plan, as it does everything they claim “privatization” would bring, except it dumps all of the financial risk onto the backs of local taxpayers.
Additionally, I am shocked that local residents haven’t had anything to say about the proposed development in subsequent phases on the backside in the Weeks property area.
In my many years here, our town has worked hard and spent lots of money preserving and protecting undeveloped lands in the town of Gilford. And now, at last week’s meeting, we were told by GAC commissioner Gary Kiedaisch that our Conservation Committee is “thrilled” with the idea. Really?
I know that many have been all ginned up over the whole proposed unicorn/rainbow plans for Gunstock (or, as Kiedaisch calls it, “the art of what’s possible”) but I strongly believe a pause to consider the reality of what’s going on is in order before we start something that, in the end, could cause the ruination of this special place we call Gunstock, as well as leaving Belknap County taxpayers holding an expensive bill of goods…