Fair board gives approval

The Orange County Fair Board voted to endorse Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan that calls for local control of fairgrounds statewide.

The board voted 4 to 0 to approve Schwarzenegger’s 2004 California Performance Review. Board member David Padilla abstained. Members Mary Young and Dale Dykema were absent.

The board’s vote was largely symbolic, as it would not prevent a plan to sell the Orange County Fairgrounds to a developer for $56.5 million.

“This kind of creative thinking shows that this board is affirming its goals,” Steve Beazley, the fairgrounds’ president and chief executive, said in regards to endorsing the governor’s performance review. “It starts to show an effort of what the board’s intention is.”

Newport Beach-based Craig Realty Group, an outlet developer, came away with the winning bid in January. Officials from the state Department of General Services are reviewing the bid. They will decide in April whether the state will sell the fairgrounds.

The California Performance Review explores ways fairs around the state can maximize revenues, while keeping the fairs under local control.

The governor’s review suggests that fairs become public corporations with local management, bypassing the state government bureaucracy.

Beazley said one way of keeping the 150-acre fairgrounds at the local level would be to run it as a nonprofit organization, under a joint-powers agreement where two or more government entities share in its oversight.

Those options would keep the property in the state’s trust and require the board to follow open-meeting laws, he said.

Board member Joyce Tucker, who no longer supports the sale of the fairgrounds, said exploring ways to keep the property under local control would be a good alternative if the governor does not accept Craig Realty Group’s bid.

Padilla, who is also against the sale of the fairgrounds, abstained because implementing the performance review would mean creating a new entity, which would be outside his purview as a trustee of the state’s agricultural district, he said.