Fair board, BOCC discuss finances at workshop

SANDPOINT — Fair board members aired their concerns and frustrations to the Bonner County Board of Commissioners at a Nov. 18 workshop to discuss the state of the fairground’s finances.

Utilities

The biggest topic of discussion was the fairground’s utilities bills. While the fair has historically paid their electricity bill, the county has been paying for the fairgrounds water and sewage, potentially since the fair's inception, according to Bonner County Commissioner Asia Williams.

According to Williams, the county has spent $38,345.27 on the fairground’s water and sewage bills since the 2023 fiscal year.

The fair board said it has not budgeted to pay the utilities bills for the 2025 fiscal year and asked that the county continue to pay until the costs can potentially be budgeted in next year.

The fair does pay for the utilities of the University of Idaho extension office, which uses a building on the fairgrounds.

The fairgrounds currently does not charge fees for water usage because the fair board has never paid or been responsible for a water bill, fair board officials said.

“We have never paid or seen a water bill so historically we have never passed that on to any customers that are at the fairgrounds,” Fair Board Vice-Chairman Jody Russell said. “The only thing we have charged for is the electric use and we (set) that based on what we have paid in the years before.”

While raising rental rates on fairgrounds facilities to offset the utilities cost was discussed, Fair Board Chairman Tim Mahan said he worries about the consequences.

“We are kind of caught between servicing the community and making money,” Mahan said. “We could raise rates, but we are going to price part of the community out of being able to use the county fairgrounds.”

Fair Manager Mark Knapp said events will go away if the fair increases its rental rates. He said that the community has given the fair board feedback that they will not rent fairground space if rates are increased, potentially leading to events like Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elks Foundation, or 4-H events going away.

“I had a lady ... two weeks ago crying in the office because she doesn’t know how she’s going to be able to be able to do (an) event because of the water thing.” Knapp said. “She’s going to watch an event that she’s been doing for 40 years go away if those rates are passed on to her ... heritage, tradition, all those things will go away. People just won’t rent out the property.”

He said that the fairground buildings were already “behind the eight ball.” That they were past the point where it was possible to raise rates and bring in enough money to fix them.

Williams asked the fair board if they currently or had ever had a one-year, three-year, or five-year plan from which they are working.

The fair board said they used to, when Rhonda Livingstone was fair manager, but it had been some time since they had one.

Williams encouraged the board to create or locate their one-year, three-year, five-year plans so there was a way to show the community that the fair has a plan to move forward and eventually take over the bills Bonner County is currently paying for them.

Fair Board Member Ben Wood said that while the fair has had its fair share of setbacks, the fair now has a full board and a full staff and is in a better place than it has ever been to move forward with creating a plan.

Playground and RV dumping station

The fair board said that there are certain costs that they feel should not be the fair’s responsibility to cover. Specifically, there is a playground and an RV dump station that were placed on the fairgrounds despite fair board members being unable to find any documentation to show that a previous fair board had voted to approve the construction of either on fair property.

“The playground does not belong to the fairgrounds.” Mahan said. “The dump station does not belong to the fairgrounds. It happens to be within our borders, but I don’t think that we should be paying the bill on those things.”

The big concern for the fair board is what happens when the dump or playground break and the fairgrounds does not have the money to cover the cost of repair which, in the case of the RV dumping station which is old and at risk of breaking according to the fair board, could be quite costly.

As an example, Wood explained that the electrical line that goes from the sheriff’s office to the playground is currently damaged and estimated to be a $3,000 expense to fix.

“Who pays that bill?” He asked.

Williams asked the fair board if the dump station is used by those that stay at the fairgrounds.

Knapp responded that some do but, in his observation, the majority of those that use the dump station are community members who know it is free.

There was some discussion of creating a fee for the use of the dumping station to generate revenue for the fair.

However, Wood said that he felt the dumping station and water filling station was a benefit to the community because it was free — especially for Bonner County’s off-grid residents — and asked if the commissioners would be willing to take the cost of the station on because of that benefit.

Bonner County Commissioner Ron Korn raised concerns that it was not Bonner County residents using the dumping station.

“Do we know who is using it?” Korn asked. “Are they 7B plates or are they Washington plates and Oregon plates and are they everybody who is traveling from Boise up to Canada, stopping and using that? And when you say it is for the better of the community, I don’t know if I can buy that or not without having facts.”

Williams said that she heard what Wood was saying about it being a benefit to the community but did not know if it was fair to pass the costs associated with the dump to the whole county when it was only used by a small subset of the community.

Moving forward

“Have we accomplished anything?” Wood asked toward the end of the two-hour workshop.

“I think that you have accomplished something,” Williams said. “Because the board can’t make a decision here. This was a workshop to hear what your guys’ perspective was.”

While there were no clear solutions brought up during the meeting, Williams said the key action items moving forward, as she understood them, were: a request to be looked at by the board of commissioners regarding the county paying the fair’s water and sewage bills year by year, indefinitely; A request for the board of commissioners to determine who is responsible for the RV dump station; and the extension office meeting with the county comptroller to determine if it can pay for its own utilities starting next fiscal year.

“I think that in closing, you guys have made a lot of progress, and it is a lot more of a cohesive board and I think you and your minds have the direction of the fair,” Williams said. “I think we need to start putting it into the documents that allow us to follow along with what your goals are and the vision of the fair.”