advertisement

How board candidates differ on DuPage County Fairgrounds

What's the future of the DuPage County Fairgrounds?

Ask Michelle Moore and Tim Elliott, the candidates seeking the Republican Party nomination in the March primary for a District 4 seat on the county board, and they offer sharply different ideas.

The county owns the 42 acres of land next to the government complex in Wheaton and leases it to a nonprofit group that organizes the fair. That deal is up in 2020.

Moore, of Wheaton, said she would consider moving the fair elsewhere and turning the land into a "community farm or sustainable gardens" that could be run by volunteers, produce fresh food for the underemployed and get support from corporate donors.

"I think that would be a really good and honorable use for that land," she said.

She said she would consider jointly hosting the fair with Kane County on a site "somewhere in between or maybe even at the Kane County fairgrounds" on Randall Road in St. Charles.

"Their facilities are more updated," said Moore, an attorney who works as a municipal prosecutor. "We wouldn't have to spend a bunch of money to update and renovate our space and our existing buildings that are there if we were to work collaboratively with Kane and do a Kane-DuPage County Fair."

Elliott, of Glen Ellyn, calls the idea of converting the fairgrounds into sustainable green space "a disastrous use" for a "valuable piece of real estate." He says the fair ought to stay right where it is.

"But I think that's going to require capital investment," said Elliott, an attorney for the College of DuPage and a Glen Ellyn village trustee. "The facilities have become outdated. They're in poor shape. We're having to do hundreds of thousands of dollars just to eliminate code violations out there."

That investment shouldn't rebuild structures to their current use, Elliott says.

"If we can put in space that would allow us to have conventions, meetings, receptions, better indoor space - we already have the parking. We already have the infrastructure," Elliott said. "Let's come up with something to fully utilize the facility, and, oh, by the way, we can have the county fair there once a year, too.'"

Both Moore and Elliott say their ideas need vetting, but they both agree the fairgrounds are underutilized.

"Most weekends are booked out there, whether it's the Civil War memorabilia show or exotic pets (expo)," Elliott said. "But on weekdays, it's a ghost town out there, and that's what we need to work on."

The fairgrounds have fallen under heightened scrutiny because Wheaton inspectors found more than 600 code violations on the site along Manchester Road six months before the start of the 2015 fair. Most were minor, but 51 violations were deemed serious enough to prevent building occupancy or use of equipment.

The county sought the inspection after a task force studying potential development toured the property and flagged possible issues.

Fair organizers scrambled to pull off what they called a "Miracle on Manchester," spending roughly $268,000 to fix many of the violations and make other upgrades ahead of the five-day event in July. But remaining violations left the fair without grandstand seating and prime views for the rodeo and demolition derby.

The winner of the GOP March 15 primary will face Khizar Jafri, a Wheaton Democrat, in the November general election. District 4 covers all or parts of Addison, Bloomingdale, Carol Stream, Glen Ellyn, Glendale Heights, Lisle, Lombard, Wheaton and Winfield.

The county leases the fairgrounds to the DuPage County Fair Association. That deal is up in 2020. Daily Herald file photo
Michelle Moore
Tim Elliott
Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.