Mrs. Guardian attended the meeting along with former County Commish Glenn Koch, City Councilors Rob Hopper and Dennis Callsen and about 15 other folks interested in the future of the County Fair.
Mr. Koch and Mrs. Guardian wanted to know why the Fair was leaving Caldwell. Tim Lowber, Chairman of the Fair Board, stated the Fair had outgrown its current address nearly 20 years ago. In their quest to expand and improve the fairgrounds in its present location they tried to no avail to work with the city of Caldwell. At one point in time the Urban Renewal Agency offered up land near the north end of the Caldwell Airport near Sky Ranch along with funds from the Urban Renewal Agency. Fair Board members were excited to be able to stay in Caldwell and for the funding offered. The happiness and joy of the Fair Board was short lived when the Urban Renewal Agency pulled the funding for a "better use".
The Fair Board is on a 5-10 year timeline to develop the new site. They are hoping to get some "FAT CAT" donations, grants and possibly a bond election passed along with some help from the city of Nampa to get city services out to the new 81 acre site. THINK ARCHITECTURE and KEEFER/OVERTON ASSOCIATES have been consulted to help develop a plan for the project along with projected costs to make the new County Fair site a reality.
Mayor Nancolas' credibility on having 'no knowledge of the County Fair moving out of Caldwell' was called into question at this meeting. The difficulty of trying to work with the city along with rescinding of Urban Renewal funds forced the hand of Fair Board members to leave Caldwell.
Additionally, it was brought out that in 1990 Mr. Koch and a group of generous citizens put up the money to purchase the property behind and adjacent to the current fair grounds giving the fair room to expand. The city of Caldwell bungled the property gift of over 19 acres by putting in a meandering road and baseball fields. The good people who put up $1,000.00 each for the Fair to grow in place feel their good and generous gift to the Canyon County Fair was mishandled by city leaders.
The Fair leaving Caldwell is just one more example of ineptitude and how difficult it is to do business in Caldwell and just how content folks are to listen to but not challenge Mayor Nancolas on his swell words to all of us each year in his State of the City address. A more appropriate catch phrase might be the BLACK Magic of Urban Renewal.
Caldwell is a dying community anyways, move to the new location it is definitely better than their current one. I am so sick of the horrible traffic nightmare that is caused every time something happens at the fairgrounds, moving it outside of town is the best idea I've heard yet.
ReplyDeleteGood-bye Caldwell.
ReplyDeleteGA says
ReplyDeleteNancolas has been delivering the eulogy for downtown and Caldwell in general for the entire time he has been our Mayor. Just look at all the businesses that have closed up shop in Caldwell.
It's probably not unique to Caldwell but people just don't appear to have a lot of concern about governement affairs these days in most cities.
1. TRAFFIC = PEOPLE.
ReplyDelete2. PEOPLE = MONEY.
3. MONEY = DISCRETIONARY SPENDING
4. DISCRETIONARY SPENDING = BUSINESS VITALITY.
5. BUSINESS VITALITY = JOBS.
6. JOBS = PEOPLE
7. REPEAT STEP 2 THROUGH 7.
GET A CLUE ANONYMOUS.
It's all just a matter of time before the last of the downtown businesses close up shop and are bulldozed over to make way for a glorius new park and greenbelt (all funded by CEURA I'm sure) which will look nice as a backdrop to the police station and college. Won't that be a wonderful sight?
ReplyDeleteThe words "Caldwell is hard to try and do business" keep coming up all the time despite our Mayor telling us otherwise. I wonder how many people the Mayor has actually contacted who said Caldwell is a difficult place to do business or if this is just another "glittering generality" from our Mayor?
ReplyDeleteEven Gov. Jerry Brown has come to realize there is no magic in urban renewal..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_debra_j_saunders/jerry_brown_takes_on_redevelopment
Hear that? It's the sound of a town circling the drain......
ReplyDelete