QUOTE
Benson critics banished from former gov.'s golf club
May 6, 2005
STRATHAM, N.H. -- Some critics of former Gov. Craig Benson have been banished from an exclusive golf club Benson owns.
Bill Gilmore of Rye told the Portsmouth Herald he paid $55,000 dollars to join the Golf Club of New England a few years ago but later quit. So he was surprised last week when he received a letter telling him not to use the club under any circumstances, even as a guest of a member.
Gilmore suspects the letter was retaliation for anti-Benson newspaper ads he paid for during last year's election, but he's not positive.
Spokesman Brad Sweet said the club is a private business and declined to comment.
Prominent Republican Bonnie Newman, who also publicly opposed Benson's re-election last year, received the same form letter signed by the "GCNE management team."
"(Club) bylaws allow for the discretion of the management of the club to decide who may use the facilities of the golf club at any time," the letter read. "After careful review, the club has made a decision to exclude your use of the club under any circumstances; these circumstances would include, but not be limited to, as a member's guest or as a guest of an outside event."
"I'm not a member, I've never been a member, and I never wanted to be a member," said Newman, who lives in North Hampton and is a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "I can only assume (the letters are) political vindictiveness."
Benson took sole ownership of the club during bankruptcy proceedings last summer. He had been an initial investor in the club, along with former Tyco International Ltd. chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski.
May 6, 2005
STRATHAM, N.H. -- Some critics of former Gov. Craig Benson have been banished from an exclusive golf club Benson owns.
Bill Gilmore of Rye told the Portsmouth Herald he paid $55,000 dollars to join the Golf Club of New England a few years ago but later quit. So he was surprised last week when he received a letter telling him not to use the club under any circumstances, even as a guest of a member.
Gilmore suspects the letter was retaliation for anti-Benson newspaper ads he paid for during last year's election, but he's not positive.
Spokesman Brad Sweet said the club is a private business and declined to comment.
Prominent Republican Bonnie Newman, who also publicly opposed Benson's re-election last year, received the same form letter signed by the "GCNE management team."
"(Club) bylaws allow for the discretion of the management of the club to decide who may use the facilities of the golf club at any time," the letter read. "After careful review, the club has made a decision to exclude your use of the club under any circumstances; these circumstances would include, but not be limited to, as a member's guest or as a guest of an outside event."
"I'm not a member, I've never been a member, and I never wanted to be a member," said Newman, who lives in North Hampton and is a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "I can only assume (the letters are) political vindictiveness."
Benson took sole ownership of the club during bankruptcy proceedings last summer. He had been an initial investor in the club, along with former Tyco International Ltd. chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski.