Gunstock management returns: County Delegation appoints new GAC member, accepts commissioner resignations, including Strang

GILFORD — Denise Conroy was sworn in as the newest member of the Gunstock Area Commission Monday night at 8:16 p.m. Following her appointment, the present members of the Belknap County Delegation voted 9-1 to accept David Strang's resignation. Strang made a verbal commitment to resign during Sunday’s meeting of the GAC. With Strang’s resignation, per a vote made by the commission Sunday, Gunstock’s senior management team was immediately rehired.

In an interview after the meeting, General Manager Tom Day said he was sure the mountain would be able to meet its commitments to Soulfest. Festival representatives, as announced by Commissioner Doug Lambert on Sunday, had threatened a lawsuit against the mountain if the mountain did not offer its full array of services, something Gunstock’s staff said it was unsafe to do without senior management. The return of the management team means that the festival will take place as originally planned and the mountain will likely avoid legal action.

Sunday, Strang said he would resign with the condition that the delegation first appoint a new member of the commission, so that upon his departure, the GAC would maintain a quorum of membership. Strang asserted that if he were to resign during Sunday’s meeting, as Commissioner Jade Wood encouraged him to do, the GAC would immediately be rendered ineffective by a failure to meet quorum and would not be able to take any further action regarding the mountain.

Ten members of the county delegation were present at Monday evening’s meeting. At the outset of the meeting, Rep. Harry Bean was unanimously voted acting chair of the delegation for the meeting, Rep. Gregg Hough as vice chair under the same circumstances, and Rep. Juliet Harvey-Bolia as secretary. 

Also in attendance were Reps. Thomas Ploszaj, Richard Littlefield, Travis O’Hara, Douglas Trottier, Mike Bordes, and Jonathan Mackie. Rep. Tim Lang, who attended the meeting remotely. 

Bean, Hough, Harvey-Bolia, Ploszaj, Littlefield, O'Hara, Trottier, and Bordes are up for re-election this fall. Lang is running for state Senate. 

The delegation unanimously accepted the resignations of former Commissioners Gary Kiedaisch and Peter Ness. 

The delegation then heard the applications, formal and informal, of several applicants to fill Kiedaisch’s term, set to expire in November 2023. 

Applicants present to make their case to the delegation included Denise Conroy, a former chief executive officer whose husband is a ski instructor at Gunstock, Robert Durfee, who served on the GAC from 2004 to 2019, and former Attitash General Manager John Lowell, among others.

During the voting period, delegates in favor of Conroy cited her extensive resume as well as her relative lack of incoming baggage. Conroy stated that she moved to the area a few years ago and had not been involved with the GAC until she attended its July 20 meeting. Delegates in favor of Durfee advocated that he had solid experience on the GAC — which might help support existing commissioners Wood and Lambert, who are relatively new to the commission. Ploszaj alone supported Lowell.

With 10 delegates voting, a candidate would be approved with six votes. Conroy received seven during the second round of voting after Ploszaj and Lang changed their votes from the first round into her camp.

The delegation then voted to accept the conditional verbal agreement to resign made by Strang during Sunday’s GAC meeting. This motion was made with a statement by Hough. Strang did not submit a letter of resignation. Ploszaj was the lone vote, “with regret,” he said, against the acceptance of Strang’s resignation.

Seven sitting members of the delegation, as well as Raymond Howard Jr. who resigned his seat in July after moving out of state, were absent from the meeting. This included delegation Chair Rep. Mike Sylvia, who is also running for re-election in the September primary. 

At the close of the meeting, Bean told Day that he hoped his team was ready to hit the ground running.