Maybe one of these epochs, I’ll finally get caught up on stuff. One of those was about my RSA 91:A Right To Know, issued on August 5th, concerning taxes paid by Gunstock Mountain Resort (Business Profits Tax, Business Enterprise Tax, Meals & Rooms Tax) as well as the top shareholders in GMR and any monies paid to GMR by other state agencies. The “responsive records” were sent to me on August 10th and for the exact data I requested – but no narrative or explanation; just the data. So back on the 10th, I asked for an expansion/definition:
From: Skip <Skip@granitegrok.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2022 4:13 PM
To: Cathy White <CWhite@gunstock.com>
Cc: Tom Day <TDay@gunstock.com>; Douglas Lambert <dlambert@GunstockCommissioners.org>; Jade L. Wood <JWood@gunstockcommissioners.org>
Subject: Re: 91:A Request for Taxes 08-05-22
Good afternoon,I am in receipt of your spreadsheet listing one of the taxes paid by Gunstock Mountain Resort – Meals and Room Taxes. Thank you for sending that.
I am curious, however as my RSA 91A demand was structured for the last 22 years:
This request is for the listing of payments for taxes to the State of NH by Gunstock Mountain Resort for the time period of January 1, 2000 through to end of day, today, August 5, 2022:
- Business Enterprise Tax
- Business Profit Tax
- Meals and Room Taxes
- The listing of the corporators/top five stockholders in this enterprise.
Might it have been an oversight that the list of the Meals and Room Taxes supplied as responsive records only go back to Jan 1, 2020? Should I expect to be receiving the earlier years in a second tranche? Thank you for your lawful response in this aspect of my Right To Know.
Secondly, I had also listed the BET and BPT amounts for the same period of time, yet, unlike the MRT amounts, nothing was listed – simply “N/A”. Am I to assume that N/A, in this response, means “Not Available”, which is to say “Denied”?
RSA 91-A:4 does state:
IV. (a) Each public body or agency shall, upon request for any governmental record reasonably described, make available for inspection and copying any such governmental record within its files when such records are immediately available for such release.
(b) If a public body or agency is unable to make a governmental record available for immediate inspection and copying the public body or agency shall, within 5 business days of a request:
(1) Make such record available;
(2) Deny the request; or
(3) Provide a written statement of the time reasonably necessary to determine whether the request shall be granted or denied and the reason for the delay.(c) A public body or agency denying, in whole or part, inspection or copying of any record shall provide a written statement of the specific exemption authorizing the withholding of the record and a brief explanation of how the exemption applies to the record withheld.
Since only the attached spreadsheet was supplied with no explanation or narrative accompanying it in your email body, please inform me as to why this information was not supplied as outlined above.
As to the last item, am I to assume, SHOULD I assume, that there are no shareholders involved with Gunstock Mountain Resort (e.g., “none” does mean “none”)?
Kindest regards,
-Skip
And I did get a reply the next day (which means I’m late by 6 business days in putting up the response (emphasis mine):
—— Original Message ——
From: “Douglas Lambert” <dlambert@gunstockcommissioners.org>
To: “Cathy White” <CWhite@gunstock.com>; “Skip” <Skip@granitegrok.com>
Cc: “Tom Day” <TDay@gunstock.com>; “Jade L. Wood” <JWood@gunstockcommissioners.org>
Sent: 8/11/2022 8:56:52 PM
Subject: Re: 91:A Request for Taxes 08-05-22Good evening Mr. Murphy.
Please be advised that the date was initially misread as 2020, not the 2000 as written.
The “N/A” reference does not mean “not available,” it means “not applicable,” as the Gunstock Mountain resort, as a publicly owned institution is not obligated to pay those taxes. This means that this particular answer on the columns listed as such will remain the same going back within your requested period of time.
You are correct in your assumption that there are no shareholders “involved with Gunstock” and that “none” does in fact mean what it says.
For the NH Meals and Rooms tax, it is different, however, and Gunstock DOES pay those when directly operating the food service operation, which has not always been the case during times when that was provided by a privately contracted outside entity.
We are continuing to look back on this data, as some of it is contained on an older computer system that will require some time to retrieve. As you are aware, we cannot create or provide records that do not exist on a particular format. Once we complete our research and analysis, we will finish our response to this request.
We cannot give an exact estimate as to the time of completion until the exact location and disposition of these records is known, other than that it may a week or two rather than a day or so.
Please consider this our response and acknowledgement of your request and know that this will be followed up as the requested information becomes available.
As always, we appreciate your continued interest in the Gunstock Recreation Area.
With warmest regards,
Doug Lambert
Gunstock Area Commission
So as it turns out:
Gunstock Mountain Resort, in not paying BPT or BET taxes, means that it is not a public corporation in the private sector – there are no profits on which to be taxed and there is no need to pay the Enterprise tax to be paid as it is a government agency. Thus, Commissioner Lambert has confirmed it is not a Private Sector entity.
Hmmm (twirling the small mustache I now thinking over a couple of things but also wondering if I should regrown the WONDERFUL handlebar mustache I had in college 40 years ago)… I think I’ll also have another question but I’m still waiting for the rest of the R&M tax information to be sent to me.
