Fair Board holds May meeting at fairgrounds

PLAINS – The Sanders County Fair Board met for their regular May meeting last week at the county’s fairgrounds pavilion.

With summer underway the fair board kept busy throughout the meeting on Wednesday evening, finalizing their agreement with the fair’s concessions group, while prepping to tackle the fair budget for the coming fiscal year.

Last week’s meeting was the first fair board meeting for Wade Rehbein, who joined the board following Bruce Icenoggle’s retirement in April.

After introducing Rehbein to the public, the board got down to business finalizing the lease agreement with the fair’s concessions group.

What had been a lengthy negotiation was drawn to a close, as the two parties were able to come to an amicable agreement following a special fair board meeting in late April.

The emergency meeting, held on Monday, April 27, was called after tempers flared and the concession’s group refused to sign the proposed leased agreement, which required the group of non-profits to pay a flat fee of 24,000, at the board’s regular meeting in early April.

During the negotiations at the April 27 meeting both the board and the concessions group agreed on a lease agreement where the concessions group would pay 20 percent of their gross sales at this year’s fair, using an average of gross sales from the last three fairs to determine a minimum and maximum of 20 percent of the 2015 gross.

After clearing up a few particulars to open this month’s meeting, the agreement was signed and the fair board transitioned to tackling the fair’s budget.

Despite the temporary revival of SRS Funds from the federal government, at a reduced rate, the county is still looking for groups to cut back on their budgets.

With the county budgetary process in its early stages it is at this point unclear the level of cuts the fair will receive.

With the possibility the fair may loose up to a mill in taxes from its budget, approximately $33,000, Fair Manger Mike Hashisaki proposed one way to make up the funds from a mill would be to raise ticket prices at the rodeo events and demolition derby by $5.

“That will give you approximately between 30,000 and 35,000 dollars,” Hashisaki said.

Another suggested proposal to make up funding from a mill was a modified parking fee that would charge those parking at the fairgrounds $5 a vehicle, wherein those within the vehicle would be issued a wrist band to come and go from the grounds throughout that day.

For those not parking on the grounds it would be $5 a person for entry to the grounds during the fair.

“Those are just things for you guys to consider. It’s easy fixes,” Hashisaki said.

Hashisaki will meet with the county commissioners to go over next year’s budget on Tuesday, June 2, following the meeting both the fair board and the county will have a better idea of where the fair’s budget will stand for the next fiscal year.

“There probably will be a cut there but how much, we don’t know,” County Commissioner Glen Magera said.

There was a lenghty discussion by the board on how to proceed and in order to further discuss the fair’s upcoming budgetary work the fair board called a special meeting to be held in early June.

The meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday, June 8 at 7 p.m. in the fairground’s pavilion.