Mt Washington Commission to seek third party mediator assistance

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peakbagger

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Today's Berlin Sun (paywall) 7/27) has an article that the Mt Washington Commission is seeking the assistance of a third party mediator to resolve ongoing issues on the summit. For the last few years, the laid back "men's club" of the commission has been less than cordial to the point where meetings have gotten contentious. The proposed Cog hotel was definitely in the regional news but access to summit is an ongoing issue between the two businesses that depend on access to the summit building. There has also been a contention regarding property rights in the state owned summit circle and funding of the OBs by the tourism firms for running the summit museum.

Now that the water and sewer upgrade appears to be funded with federal Covid dollars, the issue of summit access by the Autoroad and Cog will no doubt come up again. The Cog currently cannot load and offload as many guests at the summit during peak hours than they can transport with the recent fleet upgrades and track work. They had proposed expanding their facilities at the summit on the state owned land to the potential detriment of the summit access to Autoroad customers and summit operations. This proposal was withdrawn from the Coos County planning board (but the drawings are still in the quick link section of the planning board website https://www.cooscountynh.us/planning-board). This would increase the profile of the summit development to the NE substantially from afar. I have not seen any visual simulations from afar but expect they may be requested if it ever goes before the board again. Without an upgrade, the cog is basically stymied from handling more passengers at the summit during peak hours despite the potential for increased ridership. The Cog, exclusive of the summer of Covid, has been setting record ridership year after year for several years since the diesel electric conversion and no doubt the Cog owner wants to hand off the potential for future growth to his successors.
 
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Good summary. Probably best to get egos and party's of conflicting interest out of the way in the negotiating of the process. I have not read the article but will pick up my free copy of the Sun later today. Any mention or idea of whom the so called third party would be? Hopefully they can find some one as transparent as possible.
 
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