Rift won’t stop fairgrounds work
CIRCLEVILLE — The Pickaway County commissioners say they are done messing around. After months — maybe years, depending on who you listen to — of trying to bring several sides together to approve a plan and help to pay for an overhaul of a worn-out fairgrounds, the county is moving forward on its own.
The plan is to fire up the backhoes and put shovels in the dirt at the end of the last day of the 2018 fair next summer. No price tag has been attached yet, but Commissioner Brian Stewart says that when the first phase is completed, the Pickaway County Fairgrounds (about 60 acres on the southeast side of Circleville) will have new indoor and outdoor show arenas and five new livestock barns to replace what’s there.
There’s rarely a week without a protest in Ohio.
The People’s Justice Project occupied Columbus City Hall to protest police-involved shootings. A southwestern Ohio rally decried the deportation of Maribel Trujillo Diaz, a Mexican woman who was living in Fairfield. Activists took a bus to Sen. Rob Portman’s Washington office in June to confront him about the GOP health-care bill.
These rallies are fighting very different causes. But they’re all coordinated with
The county has enlisted the Pickaway County Community Foundation to handle a corporate and community fundraising effort that will soon kick off in force. The commissioners had long ago approved $145,000 for design work from ms consultants — a company whose Franklin County projects have included John F. Wolfe Columbus Commons and the Easton Hilton — and have concept drawings. Stewart said firm plan details and final cost estimates will come next.
All of this comes on the heels of a flooded hog barn at this year’s fair in June that underscored conditions. It also follows a particularly contentious few months of back-and-forth between the commissioners, the county fair board, and an organization called Pickaway Sportsman Inc., a nonprofit group that for a decade has, through an annual event at the fairgrounds, been raising money with the intent to build at least a new indoor show arena/multi-purpose building there.
Pickaway Sportsman has nearly $ 1 million in its account, according to the federal forms it must file because of its nonprofit status. But the organization — largely made up of fair board members — will not help pay for the arenas and barns the commissioners have now approved, said Mike Rittinger, who is president of the nonprofit group and a fair director.
His group, Rittinger said, has always been clear that it wants the indoor arena/ multipurpose building built first and what it wanted it to entail. He said such a building would, in turn, allow for year- round events that help to raise money for other improvements. But he said the county commissioners have discounted their wishes and were unwilling to give the group enough of a say.
“No input, no money,” said Rittinger, admitting it has become a standoff. “I am gonna stand my ground.”
Fair board president Bob Black said that the 21-member fair board also has been ignored.
“We never told the commissioners we wanted a revitalized fairgrounds. We told them we want a building. But they look at us like we’re stupid,” Black said, who also is treasurer of the sportsman group. “We all want a new fairgrounds. We just want to have a say.”
Emails and letters show that the sportsman’s group and the commissioners have wrangled the past several months over such things as control of the design and specific location on the grounds of the indoor show arena/multi-purpose building, naming rights, guaranteed use of the building and free rent by the group, and even what bank must be used to hold the money.
Stewart said lack of agreement left the county at a crossroads.
“It really comes down to who’s in charge,” Stewart said. “The sportsman’s group thinks that because they raised a substantial amount of money, the entire project should be turned over to them. That’s not how public building projects work.”
The county owns the fairgrounds and, by law, controls the construction of buildings there. He said the decision for the county to raise money separately and build the barns first made sense.
“The purpose of the fairgrounds is to have a fair for the 4-H and FFA kids,” he said.
Joy Sharp, the Ohio State University Extension 4-H coordinator for Pickaway County, said her organizations have tried to take only a positive approach as the controversy has swirled.
The county runs a robust 4-H program with about 800 participants in 34 clubs and boasts four FFA chapters. She said she looks forward to improvements at the fairgrounds, and hopes all sides can find some middle ground.
“There is never a complete black and white on how things must be done. It’s about being flexible,” she said. “This will be a teaching moment for our kids on how to be good leaders and deal with change.”