A county fair's future on the brink
Life in the suburbs is vibrant and convenient. We're blessed with good schools, impressive housing, a diversity of religious institutions, comparatively safe streets, outstanding shopping, a growing corporate base and an expanding array of entertainment and cultural amenities.
An important part of that mix is a connection to our roots.
We pause with a smile at the thought, for example, of the Spring Valley Nature Sanctuary, a 135-acre jewel hidden away with its Volkening Heritage Farm on the shoulder of Schaumburg the 1880s peeking out of the shadows of one of Chicago's most modern and stereotypical suburbs.
The county fair is one of these charming and essential links to who we were, who we are and the agricultural legacy that underlies us all. Each summer, the suburbs rewind this tradition and play host once again to fairs in DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties, each fair with a similar flavor but an individual identity.
That each fair faces financial challenges during these tough economic times should come as no surprise. County fairs face financial challenges even in good times.
But nowhere do those challenges seem greater than in Lake County where, to put it bluntly, the solvency of the fair is at risk.
That the Lake County Fair is a victim of its own over-aggressiveness and wishful thinking is, in retrospect, quite obvious.
The fair association moved the fairgrounds from the corner of routes 45 and 120 in Grayslake two years ago to a new location on Peterson Road just west of Route 45 with visions of a modern rebirth that would more than pay for itself.
Instead, 20 acres of fair association land hasn't sold, the new location hasn't attracted year-round tenants, the fair itself has suffered an attendance decline and the fair association is at least $4 million in debt.
In short, the development of the new fairgrounds has been a “financial disaster,” said Greg Koeppen, a member of the fair association and manager of the Lake County Farm Bureau.
Board President David DeYoung took the fall for this last week, resigning after 13 years on the board. Clearly, he can't escape responsibility, but there is plenty of blame to go around. The wishful thinking was contagious.
As Koeppen said, “For the past five years, a lot of people have sat on their hands and not said anything, and I was one of them.”
At long last, the association seems headed in the right direction. It has called for audits of the past five years, the creation of committees to oversee finance, building and marketing and the hiring of a professional manager.
These steps make sense. The questions are: Will they be enough? And have they been taken in time? It is incumbent on everyone in the association to roll up their sleeves.