Just days after starting a bid request for an operator to come in and take over one of Orange County’s only equestrian centers, local fairgrounds officials could cut the process short.
The fate of the 44-year-old stables has become an inflection point in the fairgrounds’ teeter between an agricultural callback to the region’s farming roots and a commercial event center.
Equestrians are calling for the site’s preservation, while fairgrounds officials – after taking over the center’s operations this year – question whether it’s publicly accessible enough to justify running it while losing tax dollars.
The debate has come to a point where equestrians are accusing fair officials of ulterior motives – questioning whether they plan on turning the site into a parking lot to boost revenues and, in turn, help pay for fairgrounds executives’ plans to expand their administrative offices.
Fairgrounds officials have denied that notion, opening up the opportunity for any outside interests to take over the operations and make the facility break even.
Yet just 10 days after releasing a request for potential new operators’ proposals (RFP), fairgrounds board directors are bringing the equestrian center’s fate back up for public discussion, at their next regular meeting on Dec. 14.
By the end of that discussion, fair officials could come to a number of possible decisions. Among them: To stay the course, or cancel the RFP process in favor of converting the site to something with greater public access.
It comes after an earlier November meeting left unresolved the question of whether the equestrian center – which is open to the public but exists for private horse boardings, limiting access and requiring visitor check-ins – presents a true public benefit.
At Thursday’s meeting, Fair Board members hope to answer that question once and for all, said Fair Board Chair Nick Kovacevich.
“We’ve ultimately got one big decision to make, which would then lead to a possibility of several outcomes – either the fairgrounds keeps running it at a loss and cancels the RFP; or we don’t want to keep funding it and continue on with the RFP; or we change the model to be a true use of public funds,” Kovacevich said.
Meanwhile, the prospect of cutting short the bid process – which could largely preserve the facility’s model as is – has raised equestrians’ concerns.
“We’re trying to rally troops as best we can in what, three days?” said Gibran Stout of the Equestrian Coalition of Orange County, who has been asking for more communication with fair officials about other solutions. “We have operators interested and they’re just making it more and more difficult.”
It’s not the first time the governor-appointed fair board has considered upending the equestrian center.
In 2018, proposals were floated to the fair board to severely cut down the center’s footprint – a move some board members considered a fatal blow to the horse center. The proposal eventually fizzled out.
[Read: Horses Likely to Stay at OC Fairgrounds]
While the equestrian center is open to the public, it exists for private horse boardings, which are costly. And while some horse boarders offer things like reduced cost vaulting lessons – as Stout does, for instance – fairgrounds officials have questioned whether there’s enough public benefit to justify operating the facility at a revenue deficit.
Or whether they’re subsidizing the equestrian center through an improper gift of public funds.
Other fairgrounds attractions like Centennial Farm and Heroes Hall operate at a revenue loss as well.
Kovacevich, however, said there’s a difference.
“You could go to Centennial Farms and see the animals and have an experience there. You can do the same at Heroes Hall. You don’t need to call, or make an appointment or anything. That’s not exactly the case with the equestrian center,” Kovacevich said. “You can’t go there and pet a horse because those aren’t our horses. We can’t open those horses up to the public because they’re not ours.”
At an outpouring of concern at board members’ last meeting in November, equestrians said there were a number of ways – like equine veteran therapy – to bring more programming to the facility.
At that same meeting, fair officials announced revisions to their RFP timeline, expanding the proposed contract term.
Yet while they denied having a predetermined goal to shutter the facility, fair officials have openly planned to shutter the facility by March 31, 2024 in the event they find no adequate proposal.
Now Stout wonders why fairgrounds officials even started the process in the first place.
“Why is (Thursday’s meeting) a conversation when you already said you’ll open it up for proposals?”
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