Editor,
At the most recent meeting for commentary on the Fairgrounds Strategic Plan, facilitators almost sidetracked the public’s desire to speak out. However, the audience prevailed, and, as a result, we all heard some good ideas.
Improved camping facilities, an adequately-sized covered horse arena, adopt-a-building, a re-energized volunteer base, among others, all carry the potential to save the fair. Implementing ideas like these will neither make nor cost millions. They can preserve the fairgrounds though, both fiscally and in character. It appears that some of the steering committee and commissioners have been lured by economics; they have forgotten that public resources exist not as equity for gambling on business ventures, but to provide for the public good.
If the primary goal is to “save the fair,” then the plan ought to reflect that vision. Instead, this plan gives secondary importance to the needs of a rural agricultural fair. Mr. Landerman-Moore [the consultant hired to draft the plan] proposes to bulldoze our heritage, marginalize the animal facilities, trade our charisma for consumerism, and sell out the heart and soul of generations of volunteers. The plan destroys the fair it was claiming to save.
In the guise of “wanting to hear our good ideas,” the facilitators attempted to silence criticism and seemed to forget that experts required several months and $71,000 to draft a really bad plan.
We are just ordinary people, not paid experts, the public needs time to brainstorm a vision for a sustainable fairgrounds that maintains the island’s character. If the invitation to participate is sincere, we will come. However, until they abandon Landerman-Moore’s ill-fitting plan, we are forced to continue hammering away at it, diverting energy that could otherwise be directed toward a constructive future for the fair. So, if our commissioners really want our good ideas, they must reject the plan outright. If they really think the plan is salvageable, I suggest page 30, which reads, “This page intentionally left blank.”
Let’s restart this planning process with a blank page, build on our solid community foundation, and retain the heart and soul of our fair. After all, that is what draws people here.
ALORIA LANSHAW
Clinton
