Sacred Cow:  Mason County Fair Inc.

Hamburgers anyone?

By Keith Biggs

 

Sacred Cow by definition is a person, institution, idea or ideology that is immune (usually unreasonably so) from criticism or opposition.  Mason County Fair Inc., the non-profit corporation that controls the County owned Mason County Fairgrounds, and is commonly known as “The Fair Board” is apparently considered a sacred cow by some.  I discovered this when I went to the County Commission to find relief from excessive noise coming from a commercial motocross operation that has been allowed to use the Fairgrounds.

 

Some background information about the Fair Board/Fairgrounds:

The Mason County Commission acquired the Fairgrounds in the late 1960’s.

The Fair Board was incorporated in the early 1960’s.

The County Commission has allowed the Fair Board to control the Fairgrounds without any formal (on paper) lease, contract or agreement since the county acquired the property (see Co. Comm. FOI response).

The County Commission does not appoint members to the Fair Board.

The County Commission has given over $150,000 of county tax money to the Fair Board in the last ten years.

The Fair Board has never paid any money to the County Commission.

The Fair Board provides no financial accounting of its activities to the County Commission.

The Fair Board allowed hundreds of tons of dirt to be dumped on the Fairgrounds without any permission from the County Commission (didn’t even ask).   The Fair Board asks for and has received State tax money from The Budget Digest.

The Fair Board submitted a 2005-2006 Budget Digest request or $407,500 to redo the Fairgrounds – Co. Comm. President, Bob Baird, told me that he became aware of the Fair Board’s request was when he saw it mentioned in a Charleston Gazette article July 4, 2005.  Shouldn’t the Co. Comm. be making decisions about County property rather than the Fair Board?  This funding request is in direct competition with requests made by the County Commission and municipalities in the county.

 

During my quest for some moderation of the motocross noise nuisance from the County Commission, I have had personal attacks launched at me during a Commission meeting and elsewhere.  For example, when I took the County Commissions responses to my Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to Tim Maloney, editor of the PP Register, his response to my attempt to get news coverage of the issue was, “ so you don’t like the Fair?”.  I took this to be a clear signal that Mr. Maloney, whom I had never met, had been predisposed in matters regarding the Fair Board and me.  The Fair Board wouldn’t have any association with the Register, would it?  Whenever a sacred cow is criticized the first response of the cow or its friends is to attack its critics (the Karl Rove method).

 

Some of the Fair Board/County Commission animosity toward me stems from a federal Clean Water Act lawsuit I filed in 2000 to bring attention to the discharge of raw sewage from the Fairgrounds sewer system and to get funding to fix the sewer system.  An unfortunate by-product of my suit was that County Administrator, John Gerlach, failed to notify the County’s insurance company of the suit within the time period required by the insurance company resulting in the County Commission being responsible for any costs associated with the suit (no insurance coverage for the suit).  This fact has been concealed so that I could be blamed for the Commission having to pay the $30,000 lawyer bill out of the general fund.  I should have realized at this point that I had been poking on the sacred cow and its friends.  It should also be noted that Prosecuting Attorney, Damon Morgan, represented the Commission in legal proceedings related to my suit while he was an officer (vice president) of Mason County Fair Inc. (Fair Board/polluter) which served as an agent of the County Commission.  (see Morgan letter re: DEP compliance order)  How can a principal of a corporation acting for the County Commission serve as the Commission’s attorney in a federal case without disclosing the conflict to the court?

 

By the way, the funding $875,000 for the upgrade of the sewer system was applied for by Mason County PSD in April, 2002 and received before August, 2002 (a record short time from application to award).  To this day, nearly three years after the funds were obligated for the sewer system, neither the County Commission nor the Fair Board has put any pressure on the PSD to get going with the project and correct the continuing violation of the Clean Water Act by the Fair Board/County Commission.  Enough for flaws – this could go on forever.

 

This sacred cow takes tax money from the County and State, returns very little of value, appears to be accountable to no one and will attack if questioned.  The citizens of Mason County deserve better.

 

When the sacred cow and its friends treat me as less than a citizen of this country, my response is to fire up the grill and make some hamburger.