Commission election bill meeting headwinds

GILFORD — The move to have members of the Gunstock Area Commission elected by the voters is encountering headwinds.

The measure which passed the state Senate last week is being opposed by most of the current Gunstock commissioners, in addition to many members of the Belknap County Delegation, which is the body which currently appoints the commissioners.

State Rep. Harry Bean, of Gilford, said the proposal, issued in the form of an amendment by state Sen. Bob Guida, looked like a good idea at first, but upon further examination he found flaws in the proposal.

”The unintended consequences could be severe,” Bean said.

In particular, he said while under the current system one seat on the five-member commission comes up for appointment every year, if the Guida bill becomes law two, and sometimes three seats, would be up for grabs in one election.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.

But there are those on the delegation who see the bill as an improvement over the current system.

“I’m 100 percent in support of the of the bill,” said state Rep. Mike Bordes. “It gives power back to the people.”

The commission was created in 1959 as part of legislation governing Gunstock that was enacted that year.

Bordes said the big reason for the 1959 bill was to take political considerations out of the operation of the county-owned recreation facility. He said that having voters choose Gunstock Commissioners directly is the right move because politics have played too much a role in the naming of the last three commissioners.

Fellow state Rep. Tim Lang is also in support of the bill.

Because the measure dealing with the Gunstock commissioners was added only once the bill got to the Senate the bill now must be reconciled with the original House version.

Lang said when the House meets on Thursday the lawmakers will have three choices. They can vote to concur with the Senate bill in which case the bill would then move on to become law. Or they could vote not to concur in which case the measure would die. The third option would be to refer the bill to a conference committee of House and Senate conferees who would work to iron out the differences. The bill would come back to the House on May 26 for a vote.

“My guess is it will pass,” Lang said. “Perhaps in some modified form, but it will pass.”

But other Belknap County Delegation members are planning to vote against the bill.

State Rep. Dawn Johnson said having the delegation choose Gunstock commissioners is a good system.

“I stand by the current law and I see no reason to change it,” she said.

State Rep. Richard Littlefield said he feels the same way.

“The traditional way is what we should keep with,” he said.

On Friday the Gunstock Commission voted 4-1 to oppose the Guida measure.

Commissioner Doug Lambert proposed the resolution, arguing that the current system has worked for the past 60 years. He also said the change would eliminate any ability to remove commissioners for cause.

Commissioner Jade Wood called the current process of selecting commissioners “open and transparent” and that it allows questions to be asked of commission applicants which would not be the case if they were chosen by popular vote.

Commissioner Gary Kiedaisch, the one commissioner to vote against the resolution, said direct election of commissioners is appropriate because it puts the decision in the hands of the residents of Belknap County who “are the owners of Gunstock.”

Harry Bean suspects Guida’s measure passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote because of a widespread belief that the delegation is in favor of privatizing Gunstock.

At a County Delegation meeting last Tuesday, Bean introduced a measure to have delegation members essentially take a pledge opposing selling off Gunstock or leasing it out as a whole. Seventeen of the 18 delegation members supported Bean’s proposal. The one who didn’t was state Rep. Norm Silber. Bean said Silber told him his reason for not taking the pledge was because he wanted to keep an open mind on any lease proposals that might be put forward in the future.

Bean said recent controversy over appointments to the Gunstock Commission had helped Guida’s measure gain traction. But Bean hoped that the controversy would now begin to diminish.

Asked to explain, Bean said it was his impression that Commissioner Kiedaisch and former Commissioners Brian Gallagher and Rusty McLear "banded together” and thought as one. However, he said the present commission is composed of “people who are thinking individually.”