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Cross-posted from the Fans of the OC Fairgrounds blog, originally posted as “Nearly Half of a Billion Dollar Price Tag for OC Fairgrounds Master Site Plan Proposal: Little Discernible Public Benefit From Over a Decade of Continuous Construction” Title streamlined by the Orange Juice Blog.
The latest Master Site Plan proposal from the OC Fairgrounds (aka Orange County Fair and Event Center or OCFEC) proposes to use $170 million in bonds to fund a decade of construction projects which only create construction work for the sake of construction work and additional parking. Analysis provided by the Master Site Plan process proposes a $170 million bond issue at 6% with annual debt payment of $15 million for 30 years, which is $450 million.
Is this proposal worth nearly half a billion dollars to you? Read on:
Phase 1: More than double the size of the Administration Building built around 2010. Increasing the size of the Administration Building removes the campground between the Administration Building and The Hangar. Cost: $22.93 Million
Phase 2: Demolish existing livestock barns, build storage space for Spectra (onsite caterer who holds the ABC license and operates the Orange County Market Place), build a livestock barn for temporary animal use during the OC Fair and for emergency evacuations. Cost: $21.82 Million
Phase 3: Demolish the Equestrian Center and build a 245 space RV park/900 space parking lot. Cost: $16.1 Million
Phase 4: Demolish the building with the flower exhibits during the OC Fair and the Century Barn, build an outdoor kitchen, build new offices for the Orange County Wine Society, build a new Century Barn and an Education Center. Cost: $27.4 Million
Phase 5: Put a fence around the property. Cost: $9.4 Million
Phase 6: Move the Main Entrance about 200 ft closer to Newport Blvd. Cost: $50.81 Million
Phase 7: Build a parking garage at the corner of Fairview Rd and Arlington Dr. Cost: $27.4 Million
Public Wants & Needs Ignored in Current Proposal
In the only meeting where the OC Fairgrounds bothered to ask the Public what they wanted for their Fairgrounds, the Public said they wanted more open space, agricultural, educational, and community use and work toward resolving traffic issues and fitting into the surrounding neighborhoods better. Plans brought forward look like those in charge looked at what the Public who own OCFEC wanted and did the exact opposite.
The Public wanted more open space so more parking was created. The Public wanted more agriculture so the single largest agricultural use at OCFEC, the Equestrian Center, is being demolished to make a 245 space RV park. Members of the Public expressed an interest in being able to use parts of OCFEC as parks and recreation space so a fence to keep the Public off the property they own is proposed. OCFEC Board Directors (Ashleigh Aitken, Barbara Bagneris, Nick Berardino, Sandra Cervantes, Doug La Belle, Gerardo Mouet, Newton Pham, Robert Ruiz, Stan Tkaczyk) have brought forth a plan which ignores what the Public asked for and which will stick the Public with nearly half a billion dollars in debt payment to pay for something they did not want and which has no discernible bnefit to the public.
Revenues Need to Double or Even Triple to Make the $15 Million Annual Debt Payments
Current OCFEC operations generate about $45 million a year with about $6 million in profits. Getting to $15 million in annual profits to make the debt payment requires annual revenues of about $115 million which is achieved by more than doubling the current revenues which means significant increases in business at OCFEC which will harm the surrounding neighborhoods with more traffic, noise, night lighting use, and related issues. Neighbors will be asked to endure over a decade of construction work which will require more than doubling the business at OCFEC, to the harm of the surrounding neighborhoods, just to foot the bill. It is entirely unclear how the Public benefits from any of this, especially when the Public is stuck with the $450 million bill for this mess.
Building Trades Benefit from Construction for the Sake of Construction
Moving the Main Entrance 200 ft closer to Newport Blvd is something that was not requested to improve safety or was requested by the Public. However, spending $50 million on this make-work project creates a lot of building trades jobs. So does erecting a parking garage, building a 245 space RV park after the Equestrian Center is demolished, and erecting the fence around the property to keep the Public off the property they own. Not surprisingly, Director Robert Ruiz who is on the Master Site Plan task force and was instrumental in drafting this proposal, is the elected Secretary-Treasurer of Laborers Local 652, a division of Laborers International of North America (LiUNA.) LiUNA is engaged in the construction business including demolition, building, paving, and a wide variety of other occupations which will be employed for over a decade by this Master Site Plan proposal. Robert Ruiz is up for election in June 2018 and has timed this well as the Master Site Plan comes before the Board for one (1) meeting in April 2018 before being approved and the CEQA and EIR process started after approval at the May 2018 meeting.
While the building trades benefit for years, the Public pays with their hard earned money, damage to the neighborhoods around OCFEC with over a decade of construction, and the required fundamental changes to the OCFEC business model,which will be needed if there is any hope of paying for this construction for the sake of construction. Sacrificed will be what agricultural character remains at OCFEC.
Building trades profit and the Public loses.
Contact Information to Follow Up on Issues
Contact the Fair Board by emailing Board Clerk Summer Angus and asking her to forward the email to the Board sangus@ocfair.com
Contact the Governor’s Appointments Secretary Mona Pasquil Rogers atmona.pasquil@gov.ca.gov to discuss OCFEC Director performance issues. Fair Board Directors are appointed by the Governor and may be removed for cause by the Governor at any time. (Cal. Food & Agriculture Code § 3959-3960.)
Contact CEO Kathy Kramer kramer@ocfair.com
Contact VP of Operations Ken Karns who is charge of the Master Site Plan kkarns@ocfair.com
Contact the Costa Mesa City Council to share your concerns regarding safety and traffic issues resulting from replacing the Equestrian Center with a large parking lot and/or RV park.
Mayor Sandra Genis sandra.genis@costamesaca.gov
Mayor Pro Tem Allan Mansoor allan.mansoor@costamesaca.gov
[This has been chosen as your Weekend Open Thread: talk about this or whatever else you’d like unders reasonable bounds of discretion and such,]
*We love it when they re-arrange the deck chairs. It is always expensive, always unnecessary and always some brother-in-laws idea….that gets paid double from existing pay scales. The project always goes over budget and at the end of it all….five years from now they have to do it all over again – probably restoring what they already destroyed.
So, lets get down to it: (1) Are they going to remove the Dirt Track Motorcycle Racing?
(2) Why have they never had Rodeo Events at the Fairgrounds? (Probably because the stacked Fairgrounds Board will never allow it. (3) How come they haven’t taken a step by step approach to the number of Jewelry Events, Christmas and Plum Craft Events, Easter Events and put them all under ONE Large Building which can be sectioned off to any size necessary? (4) Why don’t they have monthly Gun Shows? (5) Why can’t they offer additional Restrooms and better eating facilities for the Week-end Fairs? $450 million dollars is a lot of money NOT to get any of the above. Maybe even make some
Bull Rings for Non-Deadly Bull Fighting like in Portugal….along with various Mexican
Vaqueros and their horse events too. Make something Partially Cultural for a change!
How about Chinese Ti Kwan Do and Karate events? How about The Chinese Show they have in LA every year? Is it just impossible to bring anything cultural to The OC?
Even for $450 million dollars? They need to put about $100 million into Promotion and Advertising for Events at the Fairgrounds…..including Musical Events, like Mariachi Conventions and Native American Indian Pow Wows! Guess our OC Fairground Board Members never heard of Buffalo Bill or Geronimo? You look under Imagination in the Dictionary….and you won’t find any of their pictures….that is for sure!
Answers to your questions:
(1) No. Speedway is continuing.
(2) There is one week of rodeo events during the OC Fair each and every year. Grandstand seats are available free with OC Fair admission on a first-come, first-serve basis with reserved seating available for an additional charge.
(3) The events you mentioned are booked by independent promoters who determine the schedule for their events. The Fair Board chose to build machine-shed style buildings instead of building a nicer buildings with movable interior dividers. The existing buildings could be demolished and replaced with buildings with movable interior dividers on the same footprint to get more bang for the buck.
(4) Talk to the Fair Board. This event is held by an outside promoter. Contact the Fair Board by emailing Board Clerk Summer Angus sangus@ocfair.com and ask for a response.
(5) Food is provided by Spectra which also sells the alcohol. I eat before I go and bring a wrapped snack in case I need a bite to eat. Each large exhibit building has bathrooms for the building which are small and not very nice considering how much money has been spent on them. Better food and better restrooms are needed.
I agree with you that there are many improvements which should be made before nearly half a billion dollars is spent on make work projects to create building trades jobs. The latest Master Site Plan proposal is an example of just putting something on paper to put something on paper.
Events are booked by how much money they bring in. Event booking has been outsourced to San Francisco based Tandem which receives a 25% commission on each event booked. People from San Francisco make the first decisions for what gets booked at the OC Fairgrounds. (BTW – Nick Berardino, who fought against outsourcing of OCEA employees in Costa Mesa, thinks outsourcing to Tandem is a good because state employees can’t do this job even though state employees booked events for years.)
I agree that there is a lack of cultural events at the Fairgrounds and at the OC Fair. You would never know that there are large communities from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Persia/Iran, Armenia, Turkey, China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Ethiopia, Peru, Phillipines, and many other countries (please let me know who I missed!) by looking at the events at the Fairgrounds and what goes on during the annual OC Fair. When the Tet Festival moved to the Fairgrounds and became the 3rd cultural festival in addition to Japan Fest and the Scottish Festival. The Fairgrounds and the OC Fair needs to embrace and celebrate the diversity of the OC communities. As it is, it’s a too white and stuck in the past.
If this current Master Site Plan is not ripped up and the process started over with full community involvement on the same level as the Board, Executive Management, staff, and contractors like Tandem (outsourced event booking) & Spectra (catering & alcohol), we need to organize to remove the Fair Board and Executive Management to save the OC Fairgrounds.
*First of all, thanks Reggie…..good responses all. We have found that companies like Spectra and Tandem….continue without competitive quality or competitive pricing for
their spots….due to two things: (1) They make sweetheart deals with the Fair Board
Members and (2) The Fair Board Members are lazy….and do the nodding doggie in
the window act……to get to be on the Fair Board …..Next Year! The Fair Board needs
constant rotation…..which would require Tandem and Spectra to Prime New Pumps in order to continue less than exciting results. No Fair Board Member should serve more
than Five years. If they can’t rip off the system in five years…..then they are really worthless.
My takeaway from all this is … that Reggie should be appointed to the Fair Board.
*Dr. D., excellent…Reggie might even get some free Burgers and fries from Spectra. Just kidding Reggie…..we agree with the good Doctor D!