Ramsey County Fair teetering as county commissioners issue ultimatum

Since 1913, the Ramsey County Fair has shown off the best of the county’s agriculture and hospitality for up to five days each summer without charging patrons an entry fee. An all-volunteer board contracts with amusement rides and carnival-style attractions, music acts, farm vendors, food trucks and fireworks using the county fairgrounds in Maplewood.

This year, organizers said the fair is teetering on the verge of being canceled, and they’ve laid blame squarely at the foot of county management and the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners.

“We asked the government to be our partner and we got an opponent,” said Gary Unger, 81, who has worked the fair since he was 14.

Ramsey County Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt said discussions with the fair board opened two years ago, prompted in part by concerns about insurance liabilities. But those talks were put on pause because of the pandemic.

“We’re working with the fair,” Reinhardt said. “We want to make sure they have a fair this year. It’s really in negotiation, but we have every intention of having them have a fair there this year and going forward.”

CONTRACT OFFERED

On May 6, the agricultural society board that runs the county fair received a 12-page contract proposal — their first such written contract — with clauses indicating they would have to buy their own insurance, as the county would no longer indemnify the event.

In addition, they would have 24 hours after the end of the July 14-17 fair to leave the grounds as clean as they found them. Ramsey County would no longer allow on-site storage in the county’s “Poor Farm” barn, a red brick administrative structure that sits on the National Register of Historic Places. The county cut off the fair’s office space within the barn in 2018.

“We have no place for storage,” said Joe Fox, who has sat on the fair board since the 1960s. “There’s no way (to go off-site) without any financial support from the county. It’s not possible.”

The deadline to sign the contract was May 15. Fair officials refused.

“We said, ‘We can’t sign it the way it is,'” said Ron Suiter, president of the agricultural board. “The original contract, they gave us one day to leave the property just as we found it, which is too tight.”

‘CRUNCH TIME’

On Monday morning, Suiter received additional contract details from the county that he had yet to review, but he’s hoping terms will be more favorable. Still, there’s a lot of fine print to digest, and Suiter said no one on his board is an attorney. He’s running out of time to hire security, a fireworks vendor, music acts and more.

Technically, meetings of the agricultural society board require 30 days notice, and meetings of all 40 or 50 members take place annually. Does his entire membership need to review the proposed legal language in order to ratify it? He has no idea.

“It’s crunch time for us,” Suiter said. “We don’t even have time to retain a lawyer and go over it.”

Added Fox, “We’ll be the first county in Minnesota that does not have a county fair.”

$25,000 IN COUNTY STAFF TIME

A county spokesperson said officials haven’t had a written, formal agreement with the fair board before, but they opened discussions about putting details in writing in 2019, only to pause those conversations when the pandemic erupted. They’ve now resumed conversations after learning that the fair would be moving forward this July.

Their intent, she said, is to finalize an event agreement for pre-set-up, set-up and tear down, as well as a license agreement for year-round storage in two county buildings.

“Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the contract, so I can’t respond,” said County Commissioner Trista MatasCastillo on Monday afternoon. She noted that the county board received a staff update about the fair during a regularly-scheduled board workshop on April 19.

Staff minutes from the meeting indicate the event, while not directly subsidized by county funds, takes up an estimated $25,000 in county staff time and resources for mowing, utilities, clean-up and trash and recycling services. The county receives no event fees or parking revenue.

Jean Krueger, the county’s property management director, informed the county board that a staff review found that Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin and Washington counties do not subsidize their fairs, though Anoka and Dakota do cover some building construction costs. Of those counties, only Anoka County maintains a fair on county-owned land.

“There’s nothing in statutes that requires a county to do anything particular related to an ag society or a fair,” Krueger told the board.

She then recommended entering into a formal agreement for 2022, followed by a longer-term agreement thereafter, outlining security and insurance requirements and other responsibilities of each party. County staff time devoted to the fair would be limited to a maximum of 50 hours, and the county would charge the fair a fee from 2023 onward “to be equitable with other events,” Krueger said.

Ramsey County Commissioner Jim McDonough responded at the time: “You go back to 1954, and this process of this being set up by — I wish I had a better term — a good old boy’s club. … This relationship has been so murky with our ag society, we’ve basically taken on a lot of their responsibilities.”

ST. PAUL EVENTS ON HOLD

The fate of the county fair remains uncertain, but if it runs aground, the Maplewood-based event would join a list of community celebrations over the border in St. Paul on hiatus in 2022. Several took 2020 and 2021 off because of COVID concerns, only to discover upon regrouping that security costs and requirements administered by the St. Paul Police Department had risen dramatically.

Among the longstanding St. Paul events not returning this summer: the Little Mekong Night Market, the Cinco de Mayo parade on the West Side, Grand Old Day, Highland Fest, the Festival of Nations, the Rice Park Parade and the Dragon Festival on Lake Phalen.

Organizers of Rondo Days have said their annual celebration will be delayed until later in the summer, if it still comes together this year. Citing cost concerns, the century-old White Bear Avenue parade relocated from St. Paul to Maplewood, with the expectation it would lead into the opening night of the Ramsey County Fair.

Fair officials said it’s unfair of Ramsey County to treat a nonprofit, volunteer-driven, free family event that bears a century of history with Ramsey County as if it were a professional, profit-driven operation. Fair revenues are dependent upon the weather, and farm vendors have become harder to pin down for sponsorships as product sales have increasingly moved online.

Fox, who has served on the county fair board since 1966, said part of the problem boils down to communication. Turnover among top staff has severed relationships between longstanding fair board members and the county management, from Parks and Rec to Public Works, and issues that might have been resolved with a phone call in years past now go through more formal channels.

The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Foundation’s Fright Farm and 4H both lost their space on the second floor of the “Poor Farm” barn in 2019 as a result of structural issues, Krueger told the county board last month, and the county is winding down a nursing home erected on the fairgrounds in the 1980s. The University of Minnesota still maintains an office of its extension service on the grounds.