Gunstock’s donation to Sununu campaign raises questions

GILFORD — A $500 donation check to Gov. Chris Sununu's campaign from Gunstock Mountain Resort was released late last Wednesday evening, along with a statement by Rep. Mike Sylvia, chair of the Belknap County Delegation. Though a small amount, the donation raises questions about how Gunstock makes political donations and whether it ought to.

The check, signed by Gunstock General Manager Tom Day, was given to Sununu's campaign in September of 2020, and is written from an account in the name of the Gunstock Area Commission, the five-member county body that oversees Gunstock’s operations and finances.

The GAC approves Gunstock’s annual budget, and also conducts an annual audit of Gunstock’s finances each year, performed by a third-party auditor. The audit for fiscal year ending in April 2022 was paused in June by former GAC Chair Peter Ness.

Sylvia released his statement about the donation the day after the commissions' public meeting last week, where GAC members Jade Wood and Doug Lambert had demanded the resignations of now former Commissioners Ness and David Strang to the cheers of a large, passionate crowd. The management team, which resigned amid growing tensions with Ness and Strang, said they would return only with the departure of Ness and Strang from the GAC.

At the meeting, Strang said that the return of management would not be a solution to Gunstock’s problems, citing the upcoming results of the audit and an internal investigation. He was booed by the crowd.

In his release, Sylvia said that the GAC were “the ones who had uncovered this financial malfeasance,” and cited Gunstock's annual audit. The check is dated Sept. 18, 2020, and would not be included in this year’s audit, which Ness declared had been paused at the June 23 GAC meeting. The current status of that audit is unknown; no findings have been publicly presented to the GAC yet. 

Gunstock Chief Financial Officer Cathy White said all of Gunstock’s checks read “Gunstock Area Commission DBA Gunstock Mountain Resort,” and therefore the commission’s name is always on Gunstock’s checks.

Reports of a second check from Gunstock of $1,000 to Sununu’s 2022 re-election campaign have also surfaced. This check has not been made public nor is it clear if Day’s signature is on the check.

Sylvia did not respond to requests for comment on the potential second donation. The Belmont representative is up for re-election this fall. 

Why was the check written? 

Both Day and former General Manager Greg Goddard said Gunstock makes annual political donations of about $500-$1,000 through its associations with Ski New Hampshire, a trade association for 32 of the state's alpine and nordic ski venues as well as other industry partners. 

The way in which Ski NH makes and facilitates political donations is multi-faceted. 

According to Ski NH President Jessyca Keeler, the organization budgets a portion of the dues it collects from member mountains every year for political donations. Notably, the dues of publicly owned mountains Gunstock and Cannon, which is owned by the state, are not included in this allocation. 

Ski NH also works with a lobbyist, which Keeler said, “is a common practice for trade associations, and the purpose of having a lobbyist is to essentially have eyes and ears in Concord.”

Sometimes, Ski NH makes donations to sitting officials to express support. These would not include direct checks from individual mountains to politicians. 

Additionally, “our lobby firm sometimes hosts events to raise funds for candidates or current office-holders that Ski NH and its members are invited to,” Keeler said in an email to The Daily Sun. “We often contribute, as do many – but not all – of our members.” 

Bruce Berke — founder of Sheehan Phinney Capitol Group, the lobbying firm that works with Ski NH — said Sheehan Phinney “makes the opportunity available” for its clients, which includes Ski NH and its member areas, to donate to certain political candidates, including Sununu. 

Whether or not Gunstock makes a donation, Berke said, is “a decision made by the folks at Gunstock.”

Day said it was his understanding that all of Ski NH’s participating areas made a small, annual donation to the sitting governor and said the payment was coordinated by Ski NH’s lobbyist. The check was made out to the Friends of Chris Sununu, care of Berke.

“When I was GM of Waterville, and Shaheen was governor, I signed checks to Jeanne Shaheen,” Day said. And at Gunstock, for now Gov. Sununu, “I wrote one in 2020. I wrote one in 2021. It’s a standard thing that we have done.”

Day characterized this donation not to support the governor’s re-election campaign, but to the governor generally as a sitting office-holder. 

Keeler did not confirm this: she said it was possible that Day or Gunstock itself has a regular practice of making donations to the sitting governor, but it is not Ski NH’s practice to direct such a donation.

Goddard’s account of Gunstock’s donations, however, differed from Day’s. Goddard said he never recalled making a campaign donation directly to a candidate or official, only to Ski NH.

Are such donations legal? Are they appropriate?

It is normal for Ski NH member ski areas to make political donations on their own behalf when they choose to do so. But Gunstock's finances are not the same as every other ski area’s.

Disputes about the appropriateness of the donation stem from different understandings as to what extent Gunstock’s revenue counts as taxpayer dollars. 

Day reiterated a comment he made when the check was released last week. He said the donation was made as part of an appropriated line item in Gunstock’s budget set aside for donations. He did not view the donation money as taxpayer dollars.

Sylvia told WMUR when he released the check that, since Gunstock is owned by Belknap County, all of its funds are public money and that, therefore, the donation was “highly unusual.” 

Day disagreed about the nature of the funds and about the fact that the donation was out of the ordinary. He told WMUR that the donation was made as part of an appropriated line item in Gunstock’s budget set aside for donations.

Day asserted that Gunstock is still a for-profit business and emphasized that Gunstock generates its own revenue. “We don’t take any county money,” he said. 

The donation did not come out of the portion of Gunstock’s budget that is paid to the county’s coffers each fiscal year, nor did it have an effect on the amount of money the county received from the mountain and therefore, Day reasoned, no taxpayer money was used to make this donation.

The county owns Gunstock, and therefore all of its revenue technically belongs to the citizens of Belknap County. However, Gunstock’s budget, including the line item for donations, is approved by the GAC, whose members are appointed by elected representatives of the county.

The GAC’s enabling statute empowers the commission to “solicit, receive, hold, and expend any gifts, grants, or donations from any source made for any purpose set forth in this act.” If the GAC approved Gunstock’s budget that included a line item for donations, the donation to Sununu could be considered an approved allocation. 

Former Commissioner Gary Kiedaisch chaired the GAC at the time of the donation. 

“I was aware that Gunstock had a line item made for donations to various causes,” Kiedaisch said. “I was not aware that a donation had been made to Governor Sununu.” 

“A $500 donation is not something that would typically rise to review on the level of the commission,” Kiedaisch continued. 

In an interview, Sylvia said “there is no indication that the check was authorized by the commission,” but whether the commission was aware of the donation “remains an open question.”

Sylvia went on to say that there is a structural problem built into the GAC, where the specific expenditures within Gunstock’s budget have historically received insufficient supervision from the commissioners. “The GAC does not go through to see where all the payments are going,” Sylvia said.

Day was general manager of Waterville Valley before Sununu was president of its board of directors. Sununu resigned that post just before being sworn in as governor, but members of his family reportedly still sit on its board. The resort does not publicly list the membership of its board of directors.

When Day and his team resigned, Sununu advocated for their return and blasted Reps. Sylvia, Norm Silber and Gregg Hough, saying they and the then-remaining members of the GAC had “lost the trust of the citizens of Belknap County,” and “made bad decisions.” Hough vice chaired Monday’s emergency delegation meeting that brought about management’s return. Sununu also said Day and his team had job opportunities available to them in the state Department of Recreation if they were unable to return to Gunstock.

Sununu’s campaign has asserted they did nothing wrong by accepting the donation. New Hampshire RSA 644:4, which outlines legal political contributions, supports this conclusion. 

Enforcement of New Hampshire RSAs is the responsibility of Attorney General John Formella, whose office has only said that last week they received “various pieces of information regarding Gunstock” and are reviewing what they received to determine next steps. 

Sununu has since said that he “probably threw a little more gasoline on that fire,” but that Gunstock is a state interest and he was justified in putting a spotlight on “the individuals who caused the problem.”

Sununu also, affirming that he did nothing wrong by accepting the check, said, “If they want it back they can ask for it back.”

In an interview with The Daily Sun, Day said, “If I had even thought that it would cause any kind of issue, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Editor's note: This has been updated to clarify that Tom Day did not work for Waterville Valley while the Sununus owned the resort.