BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Telegraph Editor
STARKE — Bradford County commissioners’ interest in acquiring the fairgrounds was rebuffed by the fair association’s president during a special meeting Oct. 16.
In an email that arrived 16 minutes prior to the meeting, Bradford Fair Association President Bob Milner said the board had no interest in deeding over the property and buildings to the county in exchange for the commission settling its $1.5 million debt.
County commissioners were acting with concern that the fair association’s inability to repay its loan to Community State Bank — money that was used to pay for facility improvements — would result in foreclosure and an uncertain future for the fairgrounds.
Milner said the fair association will pursue its plans to raise funding through private donors and a fundraising campaign.
Clerk of Courts Denny Thompson said if the fair association wants “to cut off their nose to spite their face, then let them have at it.” The statement followed Thompson’s comments at a prior meeting on Oct. 5 that the county should take ownership of the fairgrounds in exchange for paying off the debt and lease the property back to a fair board with a majority membership of that board appointed by the county commission.
“I’m not comfortable with somebody going forward from this that made a million and a half dollar decision on “we thought, we were told, and we were led to believe,’” Thompson said, referring to the fair association acquiring the loan and expecting to receive a state grant to repay it.
“I wouldn’t invest any of this county’s money unless we have whole ownership and control,” he said.
That was the message delivered when Milner and Fair Manager Dale Woodruff met with county staff, including County Manager Scott Kornegay. Milner responded in his Monday morning email.
Milner said the meeting called Oct. 5 in which he was allowed to explain the fair board’s position to the county commission resulted in even more misinformation, despite the bank vice president explaining there had been no move toward foreclosing on the property.
“Unfortunately, that resulted in a number of uninformed naysayers to spout their usual baseless and ludicrous opinions about the BOCC and the fair board on various social media sites, and apparently, some commissioners are listening to these folks,” he wrote, defending the board’s financial track record with its annual audits as evidence.
Turning over the $8 million in assets the fair association has built in exchange for the county paying off its loan is “obviously not acceptable to the fair board at this time,” he wrote.
“We have received early support from some friends of the fair, and we’ll be conducting a previously planned major fundraising program in the next few months, while still engaging various state officials to follow through on the initial intent for the state to provide a grant for the remaining $1.5 million the association should have received in 2020.
“I have asked the Community State Bank to not discuss the business of the fair association with anyone other than us as they should with any client. We are not a unit of local government, and they have agreed. Fortunately, they are working with us to renegotiate the loan in the meantime,” Milner wrote.
The fair board did not attend the Oct. 16 meeting, but Milner did leave the door open to work with the county on a mutually beneficial partnership in the future.
With the email read into the record, commissioners agreed there was nothing more for them to do at this time. Commissioner Chris Dougherty said they “would not consider moving forward with the same people in place and end up with the same result.”
“I do agree 100% if the county pays it off, then the county has 100% control over everything that happens at the fair from now for the fairgrounds, because that’s a very, very valuable piece of property to all the citizens of Bradford County and Union County,” Commissioner Danny Riddick said.
Commission Chair Diane Andrews said the board’s intervention was the result of being told foreclosure was taking place earlier this month.
“Our first thought was that we were going to lose the fairgrounds, and the board, in every attempt, wanted to make sure that that did not happen. That’s why we became involved. That’s why we stepped up to the plate and tried to correct that,” she said.
Hearing that the bank is continuing to work with the fair association was great, Andrews said.
“I hope Mr. Milner and the board will find the funding that they need, and we can move forward. I know that he said that they have plans, and I hope that they get to see those plans go through,” she said. “We all have a connection down there, and even though it’s not owned by the county, I think that everybody feels like it’s our fairgrounds. You know, we belong to it, because we put so much of our life in it.”
Andrews also acknowledged the ugliness on social media and called for relationship building between boards, families and with Union County. She highlighted some positions and decisions that have alienated people, including the elimination of the horse barn and arena. That hurt people’s feelings, she said, and the county commission’s intentions have not been to deepen that pain.
“We wanted to help. We did not want to hurt … these people we’ve known all of our life, these people we go to church with, these people we’ve grown up with,” she said. “They’re like family to us, and so we never meant to upset people and to hurt anyone’s feelings. We just felt that we were trying to help the county save what we feel is a very important part to our community.”
