By Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – “If you are comfortable coming to the Fair, we welcome you.”
That was the message from Sioux Empire Fair Manager Scott Wick to the Minnehaha County Commission, and all county residents, at the regular commission meeting on Tuesday, June 23.
Their 81st annual fair, which will be held from Aug. 1 to 8, will “look different,” Wick explained, as the carnival, vendors and exhibits will be reduced. Also, they are going to great lengths to keep the event clean.
Wick said that the biggest change will be the absence of 4-H participation.
Because of regulations from the national 4-H board, local clubs won’t be able to take part as they have in the past.
However, Wick said that there would be FFA and Open Class shows.
He also told commissioners that grandstand entertainment would be cut back this year.
While there is usually a grandstand show of some kind every day of the fair, this year there will only be entertainment on five or six nights of the eight-day fair.
Wick did add that of now, all “ground entertainment” is committed for August.
Ground entertainment refers to acts and entertainment NOT in the grandstand.
This is a photo taken of a picture shown to the Minnehaha County Commission of one of the 11 support columns at the Bridlewood Barn on the Sioux Empire Fairgrounds which has rotted away to the point of making the barn dangerous to use. (Photo by Dave Baumeister)
As always, the carnival will be active, but there will be fewer rides, allowing them to be spaced out more.
Although Wick was not at the meeting, he told people over the phone, “We are going to have as much as we can. The Fair will look a little different, but we are excited to have it.”
In related business, commissioners declared the Bridlewood barn on the southeastern side of the fairgrounds to be surplus property so that it could be torn down.
Mark Kriens, the county’s director of facilities, spoke about work that had been done in looking at how best to repair the WW II-era structure.
He had figures that showed the cost to repair 11 of the 24 support columns for the building would be over $100,000.
Those columns are currently rotting and would need to be replaced immediately.
In addition, Kriens said Bridlewood needs new siding, which was not figured into the $100,000 estimate.
On the other hand, it would only cost $17,000 to tear it down, and $85,000 to build a new pole barn of comparable size.
And right now, people with the Fair are not even certain they would need to replace the barn.
With those numbers on the table, commissioners were quick to declare the structure as surplus and call for its removal.
Future elections
Now that things had calmed down from the city, school and primary elections, Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz presented information for the next step in future voting.
He said he is looking at putting together a committee to assess the actions needed to address absentee ballots.
According to Litz, with over four months before the November general election, there already 95,000 requests for mail-in ballots statewide.
And 25% of those, over 20,000, are for Minnehaha County.
These numbers are based on the ballot request letters sent to every registered voter in the state by South Dakota Secretary of State Steve Barnett.
While some may think those request-letters were just for the recent primary elections, there was a spot on them where people could ask that ballots be sent to them for various upcoming elections.
So, when 95,000 asked for primary election ballots, they also checked the box to receive a general election ballot.
Again, with over four months to go before the election, this number represents over one fourth of the total ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election.
Litz explained that ballots mailed in were collected with all absentee ballots, which, by state law, cannot be opened until 7 a.m. on the morning of the election.
Because no one was expecting the nearly 30,000 absentee and mail-in ballots earlier this month, Litz hopes his staff and the new committee will take care of any issues they had – or may have –before November.
The Minnehaha County Commission has its regular meetings each Tuesday at 9 a.m. on the second floor of the county administration building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
These meetings are open to all, and public comment is always encouraged.
