Jessica Cejnar Andrews / Monday, Oct. 9, 2023 @ 4:41 p.m. / Community, Infrastructure, Oregon
Curry County Commissioners Debate Their Level of Involvement on Fair Board, Delay Filling Vacancy
In addition to overseeing its operation, Curry County fair board members volunteer their time, especially during the fair, chair Bob Chibante says. | Photo courtesy of the Event Center on the Beach
Curry County commissioners delayed filling a vacant seat on the board of directors overseeing the fairgrounds.
Despite having three candidates to choose from Wednesday, Jay Trost and Brad Alcorn called for a workshop saying they wanted to learn more about how the Curry County Fairgrounds Event Center on the Beach operated.
Alcorn referred to miscommunication and confusion “with the fair in and of itself” and wondered why he or his colleagues couldn’t be a member of the fair board. Trost said he wanted to find out how the fair board was spending their transiency lodging tax allocation.
Director of Operations Ted Fitzgerald recommended a commissioner have a seat on the fair board, saying he felt the county should be present in the board’s deliberations on a regular basis and should have a vote.
“I’ve got serious concerns about the accounting. I’ve got issues about how things are being billed,” Fitzgerald told commissioners before he left Wednesday’s meeting early, adding that his position wouldn’t change. “A workshop will be instructive, but I think going forward it’s very important that the commissioners who represent the taxpayers directly on this have a role.”
The Curry County Board of Commissioners were asked to fill a seat left vacant when the occupant, Chris Bose, took the position of fair manager. The three candidates for Bose’s seat include Ida Swank, Amy Gaddis-Parker and Cindy Harwell.
Fair board chairman Bob Chibante asked the Board of Commissioners to move forward with filling the vacancy. Chibante said he and his colleagues were interested in a particular candidate with a skill set that “works very well, that we don’t have on the board.”
The Curry County fair board can conduct business with six members, Chibante told commissioners.
Chibante said having a county commissioner on the fair board was an interesting proposition, but he felt a liaison would serve the same purpose.
“They bring that information back to you and we work together,” he said. “Also (realize) that the majority of the fair board members do a lot more than attend meetings. I mean, you’ve seen me (volunteer) 100 hours a month down there just doing some work and getting it done, and I’m one of the few that can adjust my time to get it done.
Chibante said he and his colleagues pick up garbage, mow lawns and work with contractors.
One example Chibante gave was his serving as a project manager to make sure a contractor working on upgrades to the facility’s arena was “doing the work he’s supposed to do.”
“Project managers earn anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000 in this area,” he told commissioners. “To save money I volunteered to go down and measure how many square feet they’ve done.”
Fitzgerald took issues with this, saying that if the fair board has the money it should hire a project manager.
“If we’re going to be piecemealing everything around, then maybe we should redo it and take the TLT funds back,” Fitzgerald said. “There’s money coming in that if handled correctly can finance the build out in a way that won’t be achieving liability for the individual board members. I just heard that he’s assuming personal liability by being the project manager.”
Under Oregon state law, local government must spend 70 percent of their TLT revenue on tourism promotion and tourism-related facilities.
According to the county’s transient lodging tax report, for fiscal year 2022-23, roughly $501,167 went toward marketing and promoting Curry County as a tourist destination. About $445,482 went toward capital improvements at the fairgrounds, according to the report. Curry County received nearly $1.6 million in TLT dollars for the 2022-23 fiscal year.
Trost brought up the possibility of the Curry County fair board going out for a bond and using the TLT dollars it’s allocated to pay that bond back. He also brought up the possibility of the fairgrounds using loan dollars from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, though he added that paying off a bond would be much quicker.
“We did receive three good applicants and I don’t want to disparage them at all in this process,” Trost said. “But I also don’t want to rush into something before we have a full mutual understanding of how the fair views the event center, how the commission views the event center and how the TLT dollars fund — what they fund and how they fund those things.”
According to Chibante, however, the Event Center on the Beach and the Curry County Fairgrounds are one and the same. The Event Center on the Beach moniker was a marketing tool, he said. Contracts are signed by a representative of the Curry County Fairgrounds, though, Chibante said.
Chibante also took issue with the phrase commissioners and Fitzgerald used about getting things done piecemeal and a suggestion that a county commissioner sit on the fair board.
“You can have a commissioner who’s a liaison or you can have them on the board,” he said. “They’re still one person with one vote. They still have to convince everybody.”
CLICK TO MANAGE