County delegation chair calls Aug. 8 meeting, earlier meeting canceled

LACONIA — A meeting of the Belknap County Delegation scheduled for Aug. 4 was canceled Thursday, in the same county notice that posted a new meeting scheduled for Monday, Aug. 8, at 9 a.m.

The Aug. 8 meeting, called by delegation Chair Rep. Mike Sylvia, would be to replace resigned Gunstock Area Commissioner Gary Kiedaisch. Kiedaisch, seeing no evidence that the county had accepted or confirmed the resignation he tendered last week, withdrew his resignation on Wednesday. 

Sylvia previously said the delegation would not meet again until mid-September. “Now that we have a deadlocked commission,” Sylvia said, it would be suitable to call a meeting to replace Kiedaisch. Sylvia is running for re-election to his seat in Belmont this September.

An Aug. 4 meeting, which had been called by 10 members of the delegation for the purpose of determining whether calls to remove Gunstock Area Commissioners Peter Ness and David Strang, can no longer occur because it lacks support from a quorum of the delegation. Reps. Gregg Hough, Dawn Johnson and Thomas Ploszaj rescinded their support for the meeting, according to County Administrator Debra Shackett. All three of those representatives are seeking re-election this fall. 

Commissioners Jade Wood and Doug Lambert, at Tuesday’s GAC meeting, voted opposite Ness and Strang on multiple motions and vice versa, paralyzing the commission between actions. Wood and Lambert demanded Ness and Strang’s resignations. Ness and Strang later walked out of the meeting. 

Lambert, and less so Wood, had mostly voted in alignment with Ness and Strang prior to Tuesday’s meeting. 

“If it is the pleasure of the Belknap County delegation to accept my resignation and refuse my offer to rescind it, I will not object to it,” Kiedaisch said. “I suppose they have every right to do that,” he added. Kiedaisch said he is unable to attend the Monday morning meeting because he will be in Maine on business. 

Hough said he rescinded his support for the Aug. 4 meeting because “the wording that went out [in the letter to the county administrator requesting a meeting] wasn’t the wording that I agreed to.”

Hough said the rough agenda, specifically the part that mentioned a potential vote on removal of Ness and Strang “if appropriate,” made him concerned for due process in the examination of calls for removal of the two commissioners.

“My understanding was that the Aug. 4 meeting would be a kind of pre-hearing,” to determine whether a hearing was warranted, he said. He did not feel the proposed agenda reflected that understanding. 

Hough said he remains open to the possibility that an investigation into Ness and Strang’s conduct might be warranted.

“We are just as in the dark about what is actually happening as everyone else,” Hough said. “But Gunstock needs to open.”

Rep. Tim Lang, who submitted the call for a meeting on behalf of the 10 representatives, had no comment on the matter. Lang is running for state Senate in District 2 this fall. 

Johnson said she had no comment on her decision to rescind support for the meeting.

Ploszaj echoed Hough’s reasoning for withdrawing his support. 

“The agenda was not described to me accurately, or I misunderstood it,” Ploszaj said. 

Ploszaj said he is open to hearing about the calls for Ness and Strang to be removed and the reasoning behind them, but not open to voting on that issue in the course of one meeting. He emphasized the importance of delegation members having sufficient time to do their “due diligence” on the matter. 

Ploszaj also said that the agenda for the Aug. 8 meeting did not satisfy him either. 

Hearing about Ness and Strang is not on the agenda for the new meeting, Ploszaj said, “but it should be.”