Grant County may limit fair board's authority over vendors

MOSES LAKE — Grant County commissioners are likely to remove the fair board’s authority to manage vendors after complaints.

The decision comes after a meeting of 30 to 40 vendors with Fairgrounds Manager Vern Cummings. The fair board presently approves vendors, reviews applications, collects a portion of the money for the county and monitors them to make sure they are not breaking any rules.

“Right now, the fair board comes in and does the fair,” Grant County Commissioner Cindy Carter said. “They provide oversight for the vendors. (The vendors) do not want oversight from the fair board. They want it from the fair office.”

Fair Board President Dick Pulis said he wasn’t able to comment on the specific complaints made by vendors, adding the potential decision prompted the board to schedule a special meeting Tuesday, May 4, at 7 p.m. in the Huck Fuller Building at the fairgrounds.

“Whatever I said would be my opinion and not the board’s,” he said, adding he wasn’t entirely surprised by the potential decision. “I think we’re all interested in resolving this … There are a few fair board members that are upset.”

The vendors meeting with the fairgrounds manager and Grant County Commissioner Carolann Swartz included the Moses Lake Lionesses, the Ephrata Lions and other area non-profit groups selling food at the fair. They complained about interactions with the board during fair, Carter and Swartz both said separately .

“One comment was there was aggressive behavior from the fair board members,” Carter said. “We just had some personality clashes between the vendors and the fair board, so the ?commissioners had to step in.”

The issues were echoed in complaints about the Spring Fair and Home Show by Christie Obershaw, a Special Olympics concessionaire. She wrote fair board members told vendors what to charge in a letter to the commissioners.

“They were threatened with police removal and non-renewal of contract if they did not comply. They were not breaking any of the rules of the contract, and, yet, they were treated very disrespectfully by the board members,” she wrote.

Obershaw’s complaints continued with her accusing fair board members of saying the vendors didn’t own their buildings.

“I, for one, have spent a good deal of my own money on equipment and things to fix up my booth. This veiled threat, however softly it was presented, did not go over very well with me or any of the other vendors,” she stated.

Swartz said some vendors threatened to avoid the fair unless something was done. The vendors decided they wanted the fairgrounds manager and his staff to handle the contracts, rather than the fair board.

Carter said this is going to be worked into the fair board’s contract. The commissioners and the board are in the process of negotiating the expired agreement, which gives the board the authority to run the fair.

“That’s probably something we need to work out. It will probably be for just this year,” she said. “I think that’s the direction we’re going to go. If we want vendors there, that’s what’s going to happen.”