EDITORIAL: State Fair will create whopping $64.56 million boost to region

A recently conducted study by the Chamber of Commerce on the impact of the State Fair moving to Grand Island should open some eyes, especially those who perceive the move as a bad thing for the city.

The study reveals that the $40 million spent on improvements at the Fonner Park site will yield a total of $64.56 million in economic output activity. Only $8.5 million is required from Grand Island to launch the move. In addition, the study reveals that the construction phase will create 565 jobs and spin-off activities will create a total of 904 jobs in the region.

This revelation of economic output and employment gains is significant to Grand Island and Hall County. The region will receive a significant boost as a result of the city ponying up $8.5 million as part of its commitment to bring the fair to Grand Island.

It is one more thing to consider as state voters are being enticed by a band of petition-peddlers looking to halt the move of the fair.

The barrage of false information from Lincoln and Omaha interests intending to bring the State Fair back to the Capital City is annoying at best and outright repulsive at worst. The eastern Nebraska effort was launched nearly two months after the governor signed the bill allowing the State Fair to move to Grand Island. It was nine months after the University of Nebraska expressed its desire to build a research park on the current fairgrounds in Lincoln. It was six months after a series of legislative hearings where testimony was given detailing the facilities at Fonner Park as far better than the crumbling infrastructure at the current fairgrounds.

Lincoln offered up eight sites in that city as potential areas to relocate the fair. None of them were acceptable to the State Fair Board or the state's elected legislators. Extensive debate occurred in the eastern Nebraska newspapers and within Lincoln's City Hall during public meetings. Hours of debate on the floor of the Legislature found Lincoln interests lobbying to keep the fair in that city. Eventually, even the Lancaster County's elected legislators voted to move the fair. Fonner Park was the best place for the fair. In every venue, public support and comment were solicited and encouraged.

Those individuals who are now asking for voters to sign petitions bringing the relocation issue to the ballot were asleep at the switch during this entire process. The few who did oppose moving the fair simply had no options that were better than Fonner Park's facilities and potential. As a result, they have been reduced to spreading false information about the State Fair and Grand Island.

Most prominent is the continued lie that the Grand Island will use property taxes to fund the $8.5 million to relocate the fair to G.I. Mayor Margaret Hornady and others have loudly proclaimed often that there will be no use of property taxes to fund the move. It was never intended to be funded with property taxes. Never -- period.

They also claim that the fair should stay in Lincoln so horsemen can have a place to stable their horses for the several days of the Omaha race schedule. That is absurd. They also say that moving the fair to Grand Island will kill horse racing in Nebraska. Again, that is balderdash of the highest degree.

They also say that moving the fair to Grand Island will cause Lincoln to lose taxes from motel and restaurant taxes. Reasonable and intelligent people can be excused for laughing out loud at that limp excuse. Lincoln businesses have fed at the trough of outstate Nebraskans having to travel to Lincoln for events throughout the year. It is unfortunate that some motels will lose room sales in Lincoln that week, but the overpriced rooms will be full most other weeks.

The fair was in Lincoln for 107 years. It had a good run, but the poorly maintained facilities and lack of support by Lincoln and Omaha interests in the state's agricultural industry have led the elected officials in the Legislature and governor's mansion to send the fair to Grand Island. It will do well at Fonner Park and when the petition-wielding individuals stop spreading lies across the state, the proper planning of the fair can proceed.