A divided gathering of the Island County Fair Association ended in a stalemate Monday as a months-long effort to change the group’s bylaws went down in defeat.

Recommended revisions presented by a bylaws committee were rebuffed by the association’s officers and a majority of members in attendance. The majority went instead with the recommendations of its officers, as the 60-some members in attendance reviewed bylaws, line by line, through the first two-plus hours of the meeting.

After members approved line-by-line changes, the officers distributed a draft of the member-approved bylaw changes for a final reading. That draft, though it was prepared in advance of the meeting, contained the association officers’ recommendations, not the committee’s.

Members supporting the bylaws committee immediately asked why it was that bylaw revisions voted on earlier that night were already in the document.

“I’ve attended meetings at all levels of government, but I’ve never seen a situation like this,” said Steve Erickson, of Langley. “I mean, this really does smack of railroading. I’ve got to say it.”

Fair association president Gina Smith explained that her group had to have something for the final reading. Not all the changes and edits to the proposals had been approved. Changes made during the evening would have to be penciled in, she said.

Before the final vote, Marti Anamosa, co-chair of the bylaws committee, stood up and told the membership that changes made to the bylaws, in effect, eliminate the opportunity for community input.

“It really galls me to do this after spending more than a hundred hours working on this,” she said. “But, I’m going to recommend a no vote.”

“I just feel the fair is being taken away from the people of Island County.”

Anamosa got her wish, but only because final adoption required a two-thirds supermajority of members. In a vote of hands, counted and recounted, the adoption failed with 39 members approving and 23 disapproving the new bylaws.

It’s the third time in recent years that an attempt to revise the association’s bylaws failed.

After the meeting, Smith said the group wasn’t so much rejecting the committee’s recommendations as it was re-organizing them and setting them in a context that makes more sense for the operations of the association. The bylaws committee originally had six members, she said, but through attrition it came down to the work of three members, none of whom had much experience with the fair or the association.

Anamosa, an attorney who frequently works with non-profit groups, said she felt blind-sided by the fair board. The committee had asked for and received board input throughout the process and incorporated most of their ideas, she said. Then, last month at an association meeting in Coupeville, several recommendations of the committee went down in defeat.

The board should be accountable to the membership when it comes to funding and policy issues, Anamosa said.

Paul Smith, an appointed member of the fair board representing South Whidbey, and husband to Gina Smith, said the committee’s proposals went too far. He said some of the provisions included in the proposed bylaws would have tied the hands of the board.

“We can’t wait for a two-thirds majority vote to make a decision at the fair,” he said. “We (the association members) made the revisions back to where we thought they should be. We felt the board should have the say when it comes to the fair.”

The defeat of the new bylaws was neither a loss or a victory for either side, he said. “It’s a lose-lose for everyone.”

The fair board remains accountable to the membership in the same way that county commissioners or legislators are accountable to the people, Gina Smith said. The association does not have control of the fair, but members have plenty of opportunity for input. Seven of the 11 board members of the board are elected by the association.

The sharp division and animosity between the two factions is a reflection of a political dispute that took place at the fair last year, Paul Smith said. In that dispute, a board member stopped a vendor from distributing Democratic Party materials from a food booth. It’s been Democrat versus Republican ever since, he said.

A few members of the association made snide references about one political party or the other in catcalls back and forth. As a Democrat, Smith said he resents the politicizing of the fair proceedings by either side.

So does Anamosa.

“The division seen (Monday) night is obviously related to the blowup last year,” she said. “It’s being seen as a Democrat and Republican dispute, but I don’t see it that way.”