KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – Kalamazoo County will be working to bring back a full-blown county fair next summer but its future remains unsettled.
County Parks Director Dave Rachowicz says they will assume the job of organizing next year’s fair which will bring back rides and food booths, if they can secure a contract with a carnival company.
“So that would entail us hiring a fair coordinator, some part time seasonal staff and the support staff to do that,” says Rachowicz.
They will dismantle the fair board and replace it with an organizing committee that can do the work without the need for county bureaucracy.
“So that we can be a little bit more nimble, and really make decisions for you know what type of events we’re gonna do what themes are gonna be on what day, you know sort of trivial things.”
They also set the dates for August 2nd to the 8th, that’s a week earlier than in the past.
Board vice chair John Taylor says this is an interim arrangement.
“That our long term-three to five year plan should be to assimilate what other counties are doing by having a large nonprofit,” says Taylor, adding “Anybody out there in the public that that wants to take over a fair, please give us a call.”
Rachowicz says they project a tentative $400,000 budget for the event.
The past few years, the event has been reduced to just the 4-H activities, which is primarily what the annual fair was created for, and why it has continued for well over a century and a half. Making it into a larger community carnival is designed to show city-dwellers where hamburger and all the food we eat comes from.
Some county commissioners have expressed “fair envy,” wondering why other counties can pull off such events, and they can’t.
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