Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/oc-fair-and-events-center/)
Fair Board directors at their first nighttime meeting on Thursday didn’t vote to approve any ticket price hikes at the fair gates for this summer, following public backlash and uncertainty by some directors that they had enough information to make such a decision.
Potential admission price hikes come as some community members ask: does the OC fair really reflect Orange County? Or is it losing its way as a callback to the county’s farming origins and drifting instead toward a more Disneyland-like business venture focused on vendor contracts, concerts, and being a major event venue?
As a local housing and homelessness crisis continues to claim lives, Orange County officials may soon look to the 150-acre county fairgrounds for help by sheltering homeless people on the property.
Staff say increasing minimum wage and looming employee pension costs will make the admission price increases necessary.
Fair officials appointed Michele Richards, a former executive staffer who’s promising a new era of transparency for the state agency amid years of controversy leading to the October ousting of Richards’ predecessor, Kathy Kramer.
OC Fair Board Directors have ousted their embattled CEO, Kathy Kramer, following recent controversy over her fundraising relationship with a private Christian college and news she’s leaving the county for another fair agency in Washington early next year. Kramer is alleging board retaliation for participating in a 2018 investigation into allegations of misconduct by two former board members.
Orange County Fairgrounds CEO Kathy Kramer joined the fundraising board for Vanguard University, a private Christian college, in 2017. Since then, the fairgrounds has paid the school over $100,000 in contracts and sponsorship deals brought up to the fairgrounds Board of Directors by her staff.