Latest Headlines on OCRegister.com
[x] Close
OC Watchdog ~ Your tax dollars at work.

Archive for the 'OC Fair' Category

« Previous Entries

County lawyer: OC fair board violated law

November 17th, 2009, 2:04 pm by Jennifer Muir

Has the Orange County Fair Board gone too far in its efforts to preserve the Orange County Fairgrounds?

Orange County’s head attorney believes it has. In an Oct. 30 letter to the state attorney general asking for an investigation into possible illegal activity, county counsel Nicholas Chrisos raises questions about whether the fair board illegally used public money to pay for lobbyists charged with influencing the state’s sale of the fair grounds.

Board members also have formed a nonprofit foundation that could buy and operate the fairgrounds, and Chrisos says the public contracts were aimed at ensuring their foundation would be qualified to bid — essentially using public money for personal gain. Here’s how he figures:

“If past practice holds, members of the Foundation Board would enjoy some (even if minimal) perquisites, such as free tickets to the fair, parking passes,” the letter says. “Those are financial interests.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: County government • OC Fair | 14 Comments »

Pacific Amphitheatre pulls out of nose-dive, makes money

September 29th, 2009, 5:00 am by Tony Saavedra, Register investigative reporter

pacampWhen it comes to the Pacific Amphitheatre at the Orange County Fair, less is really more. 

The fair ended the latest 23-concert season with a profit of $659,606 — that’s after losing $1.3 million over the previous six seasons.

How’d they do it? By simply getting rid of the opening acts (saving $800,00), going after fewer blockbuster performers and cutting down on freebies, resulting in lower ticket prices. Fans gobbled up the tickets, with a total paid attendance of 133,561. That’s about 30,000 more than last year. Ticket prices ranged from an average $4.88 for Three Dog Night to an average $46 for Duran Duran.

With the shorter shows, concert-goers got to spend more time enjoying other fair activities, like the Lucha Libre Mexican wrestlers.

“We hit all our targets,” said fair chief executive officer Steve Beazley, who changed the format this year and crossed his fingers.

The Watchdog has blasted Beazley in the past for the amphitheatre’s lackluster performance, so it is only fair  to durangive him credit when the venue has a good year. Ten of the 23 acts still lost money, however, so Beazley still has some work to do.

The biggest money-maker at the Pacific Amphiteatre this season was Duran Duran, which generated a profit of $150,070  — even after charging the venue $300,000 to perform.

The next biggest show was the Black Eyed Peas, which charged $250,000 but ended with a profit of $148,511 and nearly filled the 8,000-seat venue. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: OC Fair • • • • • • • • | 16 Comments »

‘Don’t sell fair!’ letter to governor denounced by some employees

August 28th, 2009, 10:14 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

arnoldThe letter calling on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to block the sale of the Orange County Fair has been angrily denounced by several members of the unions whose names appear on it.

As we told you Thursday, some folks are plenty nervous as the fair pursues its metamorphosis from public agency to private nonprofit, but that letter was not endorsed by them all, and did not reflect the views of many. At Thursday’s fair board meeting,  Service Employees International Union rep Kevin Peralta said he knew nothing about this letter, fair spokeswomanRobin Wachner told us.

Wachner went on to address specifics in the letter:

As a result of this article, may of the union staff, who were not contact ed in advance of this letter going out as stated in the article , are upset about its contents and the fact that they are being lumped in with those that did have prior knowledge of it . We are collecting some of the emails from staff stating as such. I plan on sending these to you and perhaps there can be a follow-up article on this matter.

And a few clarifications I know you did not write this letter but FYI : Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Employee unions • OC Fair | 2 Comments »

‘Stop sale of the OC Fair!’ Union employees fear losing civil service privileges if fair goes private

August 27th, 2009, 7:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

UPDATE: Several fair employees say they did not vote to approve this letter, and they do not endorse its contents. Read the fair’s response here.

ferris-wheelAs the Orange County Fair pursues its metamorphosis from public agency to private nonprofit, some of its 100 or so union employees are plenty nervous.

The abolishment of the fair as a state entity “will end our civil service employment status and will present us with the challenge of unemployment,” says an emotional letter by the unions addressed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“We will be forced to rely on state subsistence to feed and shelter our families, further burdening the State of Californiaassistance programs. As we transition from a benefit to the State, to a liability of the State, we are questioning who is gambling with ours and our family’s futures?” (Read the entirety of the union’s letter below.)

We spoke with fair CEO Steve Beazley about all this a few weeks ago. He says that the fair will still require workers, whether it is public or private; that unions are common in the private sector; and the fair’s employees will be as free to belong to one in the private realm as they were in the public realm.

But there’s that public pension thing (which we’ve been spending a good deal of time on as of late). If the fair is no longer public, will fair employees no longer be eligible for CalPERS, the gigantic (and some would say very generous) state public employee retirement system? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Employee unions • OC Fair | 55 Comments »

‘Al’s Brain’ is declared a success, and OC Fair will produce more ‘feature exhibits’

August 11th, 2009, 6:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

al-and-paul

First, we throw you this gossipy bone (and then we’ll tell you about the science applied to “Al’s Brain,” and results of $12,000-worth of polling, and the fair’s big visions for the future):

It was spring. The script for Weird Al Yankovic’s somewhat controversial 3-D movie contained the crucial line, But Al, how does the brain work? It would be delivered by “a celebrity,” the script said.

But who? The $2.5 million project’s premiere at the Orange County Fair was just three months away.  And Weird Al wanted none other than Paul McCartney to deliver the line. (McCartney, reportedly a Weird Al fan, had nonetheless declined to grant Al permission to turn “Live and Let Die” into “Chicken Pot Pie.”) 

In April, McCartney was headlining the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. So Weird Al rushed to the desert with camera and crew, barged into the former Beatle’s dressing room, Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: OC Fair | 28 Comments »

What did you think of the $2.5 million ‘Al’s Brain’?

August 3rd, 2009, 2:00 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

als-brain2So! We at The Watchdog got a gander at the Orange County Fair’s $2.5 million foray into film production this weekend.

Accompanied by husband, 5-year-old daughter and childhood friend/actress/feng shui expert, we  eagerly watched the somewhat controversial 3-D movie ”Al’s Brain.” 

While we were wondering if, when and how the fair would earn its money back on said production, the rest of our entourage giggled and gave it the thumbs up.

They liked:fabio

  • Cameos by Paul McCartney and Fabio (a good sportsmanship award goes to Fabio for setting himself up as the butt of the joke, ‘Is it true we only use 10 percent of our brains?’);
  • the crazy animation on how neurons and synapses work;
  • Weird Al’s goofy song about dendrites and axons; 
  • the way Al plucks his brain from his skull;
  • the intro reel that plays before one enters the main attraction, and includes a bit about cutting off one’s mother’s head;
  • and the air conditioning (though not necessarily in that order).

They disliked: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: OC Fair | 24 Comments »

OC Fair neighbors - who think they’re entitled to free tickets - are out of luck this year

July 24th, 2009, 12:00 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

ticket-boothWe’ve heard from many ticketless neighbors of the Orange CountyFair after our recent story (Neighbors still get OC Fair freebies worth up to $400,000), all eager to get their hands on the 20 free tickets that the fairs gives to those within a one-mile radius. (It’s part of the fair’s good-neighbor policy.)

“Well, I live less than a mile from the fair, and I’ve never been offered free tickets!” we heard again and again.

We suggested that these folks contact the fair directly for details on how that one-mile radius is drawn (as our story meant to explore the fair’s free-ticket policies, and not how neighbors could get same).  Here’s what Chris Rix has learned: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: OC Fair | 8 Comments »

Neighbors still get OC Fair freebies worth up to $400,000

July 16th, 2009, 6:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

ferris-wheelSome things have changed since the Orange County Fair was scolded for giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of event tickets in violation of state rules (in what could be seen as an unlawful gift of public funds)… and some things remain the same.

Fewer primo concert tickets are going to board members:

  • It used to be a stunning 26 tickets per director, per concert;
  • then dropped to six tickets per director, per concert, last year;
  • and now, in keeping with a Fair Political Practices Commission decision, “the board’s current policy is that they may receive one concert ticket each for self, spouse, and any dependent children,” said very busy fair spokeswoman Robin Wachner.
  • These tickets are not considered gifts (which the FPPC limits to $420 per year), but are “for the performance of their duty as a board member,” Wachner said. (The FPPC gave agencies the latitude to decide whether tickets are gifts, or if board members earned them.)

Its Mr. Rogers-esque “good neighbor” free ticket policy, however, remains unchanged.  Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: OC Fair | 60 Comments »

« Previous Entries