They built it on their parking lot? Stop being dumb. If you wanted to support the Fair Association you would have given them the land, which is largely swamp and not good for anything.

It’s going to take a large amount of money to get it ready to even be a parking lot, which you legally have to help replace (per the contract of purchasing the fairgrounds) since the land across the street was sold to James River.

— Clay Boger

First I would like to say thank you to the commissioners that voted for the parking. The new building was on a grant from a foundation and had to be placed where suitable for the county and city as it pertains to water and sewer. It is 9,600 square foot and takes up 1/4 acre. This is not a drop in the bucket (compared) to losing 15 acres across the street that was sold to James River.

I am glad to see Rowan County start to build at and near the fairgrounds, for this is progress. The event building can be rented for many things and will be an asset to our community.

— Johnny Love

As to address the poor planning, we had no idea the land was being sold until we asked for an easement from the county to run the sewer line. James River bought the entire property across the street. No one contacted the Fair Association and asked us if we would like to purchase that property.

When the association bought the fair property, the county said we had seven years to use the property across the street, and that lasted two years. James River has met with us and plans on helping us with parking for five years.

What we are trying to do is plan for the future by expanding the parking lot on property that has creeks and swamp.

There is no way the fair can afford to grade all of this at one time and will be done when monies are available. To clear an acre runs around $3,500, and that’s without seed or gravel. So, planning we have done many times as every where we turn there are new obstacles we have run into.

We are doing everything we can to make improvements to the fairgrounds and to have more events. We look forward to when the building is completed so we can offer people another place to hold their event. We have tried very hard to do everything right, but occasionally we run into situations that have been interesting, to say the least.

— Randall Barger