Fair faces fiscal jeopardy
LAKEPORT >> The Lake County Fair is projected to be out of funds in March according to Sheli Wright, the fair’s chief executive officer, unless proposed legislative solutions to save the fair bear fruit or unless the state steps in to help.
Since 2011, the Lake County Fair, along with other fairs in the state, have primarily been selffunded and depend on revenues from special events, which are currently prohibited. Due to the pandemic, these event centers, along with other businesses have been hard hit. The financial impact is extreme and many fairgrounds, including Lake County Fair, are facing an uncertain future, Wright noted.
Wright reports her only full-time staff person will be laid off at the end of the month, leaving only herself and a part-time maintenance worker. (the fair’s business assistant will be laid off on Nov 30).
The most lucrative annual income producer besides the fair has been the Konocti Christian Academy (KCA), a private school located on the grounds. Wright said she is grateful for the relationship with KCA and was happy to accommodate their continued operation in 2020-21 as an on-site school by contracting for larger space in some of their bigger buildings. However, she reports this contract alone is not enough to sustain the grounds. The Lake County Fairgrounds, which is home to upwards of 200 events per year, is in jeopardy. Wright said except for a few sites for winterized RV storage, every available building on the grounds has been rented in preparation for winter.
Based on the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) last economic impact report, 238,000 people attended events on the
grounds in 2015 and due to the attendance of people to these events, the grounds brought in over $14.5 million to the local economy. Wright explained the events the fairgrounds hosts causes a ripple effect to the local economy. “The effect works like this, a family attends a race at the local go kart track, the family may spend money to enter the event, but the ripple is that they eat at the local restaurants, purchase gas, buy parts at the local part house, stay in the local hotel, etc.”
Fairs, which are not just for events but serve as disaster hubs in time of crisis, need emergency funding to be allocated by the state budget, or in the next budget package of federal economic relief. Without this support, many fairgrounds will close and the communities they serve will suffer.
According to Wright, other fairs in the state have worked hard to implement sustainable income with things like RV Parks and vendor contracts with long term income producing benefits. Some fairgrounds even have business and shopping centers onsite. “Those fairs that implemented these types of models are faring better as they
have reserves or long term rental contracts,” she said adding that “Lake County has not procured enough of these types of income producing contracts and did not save enough in their reserves for potentially two years of shut down, due to COVID.”
Despite the pandemic, the Lake County Fair was able to organize a virtual auction this year in lieu of the annual Junior Livestock auction.
“I am so proud of what the Jr Livestock committee put together in these COVID times,” wrote Blair Brookes, vice president of the Lake County Chapter of California Women for Agriculture and a long-time participant in and supporter of the FFA and 4-H livestock auctions, in an email shared by Wilda Shock, Chair of Lakeport’s Economic Development Advisory Committee this fall.
“The virus has already taken a significant toll on the future financial stability of CA fairgrounds. I have been in meetings and on calls discussing this for months, but tonight in that empty barn, the weight of it all hit me like a ton of bricks. I never want to see that barn empty again,” wrote Brookes.
Potential legislative solutions
Repre sent at ive Josh Harder ( D-Turlock) intro
duced the Protecting Fairs During Coronavirus Act (H.R. 7883) into Congress on Jul. 23, 2020. According to his website, the bill would create a new emergency grant program to help offset the massive revenue losses fairs throughout California are experiencing because of health care measures taken to combat the Coronavirus pandemic.
“We don’t want to lose a single acre of fairgrounds or see a single fair shut down permanently because of this pandemic,” said Harder in a press release this summer. “I went to the Stanislaus County Fair as a kid and even won some blue ribbons along the way,” noted Harder, adding that these fairs are more than just family fun, they are also an economic engine and job creators for rural communities. “We have to do everything we can to protect them.”
“The Western Fairs Association, the California Fairs Alliance, and our Service Member partners are in strong support of Representative Josh Harder’s efforts to include the fair industry in Congressional legislation to assist during this time of National Emergency,” said Sarah Cummings, President and CEO of the Western Fairs Association via Harder’s website.
However, according to GovTrack, an online search tool designed to track leg
islation, which is sourced primarily from the official portal of the United States Congress, the bill only has about a 1 percent chance of being enacted.
Another bill introduced by Rep. Jimmy Panetta (DCarmel Valley): The Agricultural Fairs Rescue Act ( H. R. 7883) introduced a week after Harder’s bill, seeks to to establish a program under which the Secretary of Agriculture awards grants to states or state departments of agriculture for the purposes of providing support to agricultural fairs for losses sustained due to CO - VID-19. Although the bill is only given a 15 percent chance of being enacted by the search tool, Wright is more optimistic pointing to the fact the proposed legislation has 51 co- sponsors including Mike Thomspon ( D- St. Helena) who in fact, also agreed to cosponsor Harder’s proposal.
“It appears that the Governor is looking to change the governance of fairs in California,” noted Wright. “California fairs are selffunded State institutions. Fairs have not been part of the Governor’s Plan of sup
port during the pandemic. The only funds in the Governor’s plan were to lay off employees.”
Tom Turner, President of the 49th District Agricultural Association and Wright met with John Quiroz, branch chief at CDFA Fairs and Expos. Wright said when they asked Quiroz should they lay off the remaining staff, he said they could wait to see when the state’s department of finance looked at their budget, which did not really give them direction from the state.
Quiroz did not return a call from the Record Bee seeking comments, but a letter from CDFA dated November 6 and addressed to fair managers, board members and fair stakeholders announced public workshops via zoom which have been taking place all of this month, with the next one to be held on Monday, November 23 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. According to the department, the purpose of these workshops is “to make recommendations for alternative operating models for fairgrounds.”
The letter from the state notes that specific issues to
be addressed in workshops include, but are not limited to :
• Governance structure for the most effective events and property management.
• The properties and their ability to optimize utilization for full year-round public benefit, including emergency response.
• Alternative asset management of the properties.
Advanced registration is required to virtually attend the workshop and those interested in doing so can log on to: //zoom.us/ meeting/register/tJUucO2trzgqHdwe6fz0G-1pWKuioar92uU
Wright said the Lake County Fair encourages the community to get involved in the Lake County Fair Foundation, contactlcff@ gmail.com, asking residents to please contact them, and to volunteer to help or become a sponsor for their favorite part of the grounds. Wright added that CDFA is advising that 2021 will be much like this year, so if there is any chance that any part of the fair gets off the ground in 2021, it will be an all-volunteer effort that makes it happen.