The Shuswap Agriculture Association (SAA) is considering ending its lease with the city for the south Salmon Arm fairgrounds.
At a special SAA board meeting held Thursday, Jan. 16, a motion was tabled that would have given the board approval to negotiate the lease back to the city.
Following an earlier interview with the Observer, Jim McEwan, the association's manager of the Salmon Arm Fair, contacted the Observer to clarify the motion was defeated. However, the concerns that led to it remain.
"We lose $40,000 to $50,000 a year maintaining the south fairgrounds – that's a significant amount of money for a non-profit," said McEwan.
"It’s not a great benefit to the ag. association to have that lease right now. There’s not a lot of events that happen on the south fairgrounds.
"Twenty years ago there was a lot of activities on the south fairgrounds, a lot of 4-H activities, horse shows, and there’s not as many now. You've got ROOTSandBLUES, you’ve got the demolition derby which has come back. There's not a lot of revenue that comes in to offset the expense of maintaining the fairgrounds."
The lease negotiation would have involved determining the fate of the buildings on the south fairgrounds. While the land belongs to the city, the buildings are owned by the SAA.
"The way the lease is drafted, we ‘ve got 180 days to remove the buildings if we so desire," said McEwan. "After that 180 days, we don’t have a choice – the buildings stay as they are. We don’t have the money to move the buildings and, to be totally honest, they’re too important to us and ROOTSandBLUES."
Another significant cost tied to leasing the south fairgrounds is insurance.
"The insurance is a significant amount of money…" said McEwan, noting insurance has increased significantly over the past decade, as have material costs for ongoing maintenance.
"There are some buildings in need of significant investment," said McEwan. "Most of them we don’t use on the east side of the south fairgrounds, behind the main barn – the old heavy horse barn and the light horse barn, we don’t used them they’re basically used for storage. They’re probably on their last legs."
McEwan noted these financial challenges are not unique to the SAA.
"This is similar to ag. associations across B.C. – probably across North America," commented McEwan. "As a non-profit organization, it’s a very expensive proposition to maintain fairgrounds, and many fairgrounds are in disrepair because ag. associations don’t have the revenue to maintain them properly. Many have signed their leases back to he city; in other cases the city has provided funding so they can maintain the fairgrounds. In this community, there isn’t additional revenue from the city."
McEwan said the Shuswap Agricultural Association has a good relationship with the city, "and I don’t think anybody on our board wants to see any issues come up harming that relationship."
"Yeah… we’d like to get money from the city to help fund the expense of maintaining the south fairgrounds, and we respect the fact there’s not a lot of money to go around," said McEwan. "The city has a lot of asks from a lot of organizations."
The above story was updated with a correction.
