Actually, not so much missing but so much going on with the GAC and the Delegation it’s been hard to keep up. But to be expected – Wood and Lambert have adopted an Obama tactic that we all first saw at the start of Obama’s first term – too much happening over so many areas of governance in too little time. That’s when the term “Dense Pack” arrived to our politico-terminology and it was derived from Saul Alinsky’s Rules #3 and #8. No one on the Right had ever seen this before and the pressure was 360 all the time. So, too, here (thank you, Brian Beihl!).
However, I finally got some time last night to process it. While I don’t have the time to put it all up right now, let me put up the two parts that are of most importance (because of lack of time):
The Blindside – right out of the TV reality show Survivor, we see how Commissioners Doug Lambert (of DGF Industrial) and Jade Wood (also NH GOP Area 5 Vice-Chair) engineered that an agreement that Commissioner Dr. David Strang thought was in place (that former General Manager Tom Day and Operations Manager Peter McGonagle would return to the Gunstock Mountain Resort to ensure that Soulfest (which Day has hated for a long time anyways) would come off without a hitch.
Instead, while Strang starts to talk about that agreement, Lambert reads a prepared statement that those two would ONLY come back IF ALL of the Sr. Management were rehired AND Strang resigned. Blindsided and stabbed in the back. And while the pressure point was Soulfest (which, in my opinion, they didn’t care if it came off or not – it was just a political ploy to clear the “GAC political table” to get back in building that hotel), this whole thing was meant, not for an operational issue but for a political one. But I’ve already stated that whole thing a number of times.
Faced with this, Commissioner Dr. David Strang, attending the meeting remotely, offered to resign for the good of the Mountain. Please note that this has been taken out of consequence in actions and meetings held afterwards in trying to state that Strang said other things when he didn’t. Here is the transcription of what Strang actually said:
If the Delegation holds an emergency meeting to name additional Commissioners such that a quorum in not jeopardized, and the Commission can continue to function, then I will be happy to tender my resignation.
TWO points: the County Delegation must act, and that act must be that multiple Commissioners must be appointed. Thus far, the “act” was held during an illegal meeting and only one new Commissioner was “appointed”. Thus, the conditions were not met.
However, that doesn’t seem to matter as everyone BUT Strang (and those that actually LISTENED to what he said) have all been claiming that he resigned. Not true.
Then hapless NH State Rep Harry Bean, acting outside of his authority and experience in quoting the Law, stepped in as well and “stepped in it” stating that he had already set the wheels moving for that meeting. Problem is, he didn’t have the authority to do so under RSA 91A (only the Chair can call an “emergency” meeting and a political disagreement is NOT an emergency) and with his call about having the votes, tried to conflate having the votes (RSA 24:9-d, which would require a SEVEN DAY notice) with RSA 91A’ 24 hour notice.
And it didn’t help that County Attorney Andrew Livernois (who in my estimation is trying to wangle a judgeship out of Sununu so his “grey area letter” gave cover for that meeting) by ALSO mangling a plain reading of both RSAs. And now they’ll all be ending up in court (Sept 20th) over this whole thing.
And it will be the taxpayers that will get hosed over it all.
