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OC Fair executives accept gifts worth thousands
June 8th, 2009, 4:00 am · 24 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
Four of the Orange County Fair’s top executives accepted goodies worth nearly $4,000 last year, according to financial disclosure forms.
The gifts: food, baseball tickets, golf clubs, midway ride passes, that sort of thing. (Details below.)
The top goodie-getter was Doug Lofstrom, vice president for events, who accepted stuff valued at $1,375.50.
Next up was CEO Steve Beazley, who accepted stuff worth $1,275 including - we love this! - a tea set from the folks who manage Weird Al Yankovic.
“We take those forms very seriously and are careful to stay well below the limits of what is permissible,” Beazley said. “But we are an enterprising operation (of the state), and we do have to do a certain amount of business development.”
Feel for Beazley. The fair has had a hard couple of weeks:
- There’s the state’s desire to sell it off as “underutilitzed property.”
- The news that it has lost Cirque Du Soleil - and the $500,000 it generated - to that cheeky upstart, Irvine’s Great Park (which will give it the space for free).
- Its finances have taken a beating over the last six months, with projected cash reserves shrinking by $5 million and employees taking unpaid time off.
- The juxtaposition of all this with CEO Beazley’s proposed 5.2 percent raise prompted the fair board to defer Beazley’s raise last week. His pay will remain at $136,483.
Without further ado, we present the presents:
- Doug Lofstrom, vice president, events: $1,375.50
- That’s a $150 golf club and a $100 gift basket from TelPhil Enterprises, the firm that runs the swap meet (despite not being the highest bidder)
- $312.50 in golf and $60 in meals from LSA Associates in Irvine, the noise-monitoring consultant
- $250 ride pass and $100 in meals from Ray Cammack Shows, which has the ride contract for the fair
- $200 in meals from Ovations, the food and beverage concessionaire
- $100 in meals from Creative Artists Agency, entertainment agency in Nashville
- $100 for baseball game tickets from Haitbrink Asphalt Paving Inc. in Co
rona
- Steve Beazley, CEO: $1,275
- $250 ride pass and $100 meals from Ray Cammack Shows
- $100 Christmas gift basket from Tel Phil
- $125 in Angels baseball tickets from FD Olson, construction builder
- $250 in baseball tickets from the Angels
- $200 in meals from Ovations
- $100 dinner from CAA
- $100 tea set from Imaginary Entertainment, manager for Weird Al
- $100 in Angels baseball tickets from noise consultant LSA.
- Jerome Hoban, vice president, operations: $850
- $125 at El Torito Grill from Lopez Works of Trabuco Canyon, parking lot sweeper
- $250 ride pass and $100 in meals from Ray Cammack Shows,
- $100 gift basket, OC Marketplace (Tel Phil)
- $200 meals, Ovations
- $100 baseball tickets, Haitbrink Asphalt Paving
- Mark Entner, director of event sales and services, $400
- $200 banquet from vendor Welk Resort in Escondido, which sells timeshares
- $200 in food from Ovations
See Lofstrom’s disclosure form here: lofstromdoug; Beazley’s here: beazleysteve; Hoban’s here: hobanjerome ; .and Entner’s here: entnermark.
See you on the midway!
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These clowns would fit right in in Sacramento.
These people have no shame. The more you shame them the more they stick their greedy stubby fingers into the grab bag. Why should they be allowed to take ANY gifts? SInce when should GIFTS be part of their job? We know what happens when execs start taking GIFTS. Sooner or later there is some sort of payback. That’s basic human nature. PROHIBIT ALL GIFT-TAKING ON PART OF THESE OPPORTUNISTS!
Is there any implication of any wrong-doing?
Doesn’t the state allow for a certain dollar amount for gifts? Did these guys exceed that threshold? Isn’t it strange that the Register would leave out this key piece of information?
Typical Register reporting: leave out any information that might make the story less scandalous.
Boring……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
No “Code of Ethics” required to be employed by the O.C. Fair evidently.
Whatta scam!
recordjerk -
Perhaps you read over Mr. Beazley’s comment. We’ll repeat here for you:
“We take those forms very seriously and are careful to stay well below the limits of what is permissible,” Beazley said. “But we are an enterprising operation (of the state), and we do have to do a certain amount of business development.”
So, then what is the story? That the OC Fair management received gifts that are perfectly acceptable and allowed according to the law and there is no reason that they should be criticize or dragged before the public because they have done nothing scandalous other than working for the Fair which seems to be OCR’s favorite whipping boy now that Sheriff Carona is gone?
Why does Beasley have to explain that they have done nothing inappropriate unless you are inferring that he has? You know there is no story here and yet you persist in publishing this kind of tripe because you know only telling part of the story instead of the whole story will inflame your readership a la ocobserver.
I was hoping for real gifts to be reported on in this article not merely “thank you” gifts.
On the pay raise as mentioned he is paid far less then his counterpart just a few miles down the road (underpaid). I am surprised that he is staying with the OC Fairgrounds.
How much does the fair have in reserves and what were the reserves three-four years ago compared to today? Remember we are in a recession so things will operate a little upside down.
Give the readers some numbers to compare against and the least concern of mine is mere “thank you” gifts. Better be careful sending even a thank you card as the value of that might appear on some public record forever.
recordjerk -
Public documents, public officials, doing public work.
Why *wouldn’t* we keep an eye on this stuff?
I’m not suggesting that you don’t keep an eye on this stuff, but your average reader seems to assume that if you write about it, something must wrong and you do nothing to avoid or correct that assumption.
It is the difference between a watchdog and just an annoying dog next door that keeps you up all night with it’s incessant yapping.
Any public office holder who gets upset about the spotlight shining on them should do the taxpayer a favor and resign.People are looking at how every cent is being spent / wasted.The job of a decent newspaper is to uncover and expose all corruption.There is so much of it right here in ol ‘Orange County the Register dosnt have to make it up.
Yes they are public records and sometimes the information creates a comment storm from readers when they appear to be outside the normal.
As with this information the numbers really do not show things outside the normal business and it does show the readers who have been up in arms over activities of recent years a better picture of how the organization is improving (thank you Teri). Including being able to keep a CEO for less then what the market is paying just a few miles down the road in Del Mar.
I would like to see the numbers of the last few years so the new readers can clearly see the change and not just headlines.
Most blogs of Teri just place information out to the public and she tries her best to not go too far to oneside in her personal opinion and looks for reader feedback and is very professional at including their direction in followup reports (including publishing their writtings for readers to consider if she feels they have good value to the readers and present a valid argument).
Instead of coming out with gloves on I think it is time to just state opinion on the numbers and pose questions to the reader to consider in reviewing the article.
Yeah recordjerk. That’s why it’s called the OCWatchdog. Someone’s gotta keep an eye on these people. Digging up dirt on people and running them through the public eye is big time news now!! lol
Plus, the Fair Management was under scrutiny a few years ago for accepting gifts that were far in excess of the allowed limit.
When I receive gifts here at work I get the Executives approval and share them with the Employees.
How is this a scam, “oh really”? The entire management group took $4K in gifts..that is peanuts! Try adding up all the holiday baskets and gifts most people get…this is minimal.
And it was the unpaid Board of Directors that took all the concert freebies — not the Fair staff!
But, as usual, the Register writes in their alarmist manner, getting all the idiot commenters all riled up. The smarter readers and commenters here know that this story is a non-story. Can’t wait to see what comes next…
Why is this news worthy? I don’t see where these officials accepted anything outside the scope of what is acceptable for their business dealings. If they did, write about that and show us some evidence for it. Otherwise, I believe that a follow up story with an apology to the officials should be printed in your paper.
I’m ’so over’ the fair.
Teri Sforza, I appreciate your diligence in watching over these scoundrels. Keep up the fine work. I worry now that Norberto Santana has elected to depart the OCR. I’m sure there is a story behind that one that we would like to know about. Norberto did fine work. I hope somebody at the OCR can take over where he left off. I wonder if some of the public goons that he outted pressured the OCR to let him go. I hope not. We need a whole staff like Norberto. He will be sorely missed.
Hey ocobserver,
You are always so quick to condemn. Please explain to everyone else, what exactly did the Fair management do wrong? This story implies scandal, you react as though it is a scandal, where is the scandal?
Since the Register fails to do so, please explain to us where the wrong doing has taken place in this instance? How can they be labeled “scoundrels” regarding this story? Did they exceed the state mandated gift limit? Did they abuse their business relationships? Did they break the law?
Well the the Fair Board denied culpability in receiving concert tickets and we all saw how that went.
Fool me, once shame on you; fool me twice, and one of us is a fool. Twice over.
I’d just as soon err on the side of caution, especially since number 2 receiving gifts is up for a raise and bonus and hasn’t proven any kind of performance as yet.
The Board is not the same as the management team. The Board are governor appointed volunteers, the staff are state employees. And, as stated before, there has been no violations of any state code regarding the items in this story, so who cares?
why should these people receive or accept any gifts??? just run the fair, the contracts, etc properly. If you find it necessary to meet vendors, pay for your own meals! I pay for mine. You are not special.
Angel tickets, gift baskets, meal tickets, etc are wrong for all you to accept. The perception is “graft and corruption”.
Absolutely correct Live!
Evidently, “taking the high road” is not in their vocabulary.
ME, ME, ME, seems to be the theme here.
How many of you people actually work in business? These are small and typical gifts to manage and maintain relationships…it’s actually professional courtesy to a great degree especially if you receive great service. They didn’t get cars nor did they take cash payments for favors…this ain’t the NCAA recruiting scene. Gifts like these are part of business expenditures…for crying out loud, it sounds like the robotic masses are the ones complaining the loudest. Make it to management or c-level executive and come back to me when you know what it means to conduct business.
Teri, I must say you are being disingenuous when you try to pretend that you are simply “keeping an eye on this stuff.”
If you weren’t attempting to only paint the Fair in a negative light, you would also do stories on how the Fair spends its budget on giving free farm tours to 100,000 elementary school kids every year (free? sounds like welfare to me, right ocobserver?), or about how their recycling program that exceeds state mandates, or how they just got an award from the water district for their efforts in water conservation, or how the carnival company visits childrens hospitals during Fair and gives toys to special needs or terminally ill children, or how the Fair does a multitude of other great things for the community.
But, no, because, as everyone knows, a watchdog’s job is to bark and scare people, not to present an objective examination of the facts.
So, while upstanding citizens such as ocobserver praise you for your diligence, the rest of us wonder why OCR has abandoned journalistic integrity for the sake of scandal mongering and tabloid-style journalism.
Good job though. Maybe through your efforts all of the good that the Fair does will go away as a waste of their operating budget.