Updated. Is the Flathead County Fair a rogue operation? That’s a legitimate question given this damning paragraph from Lynette Hintze’s story, Supporters want fair boss reinstated, in today’s InterLake:
When someone asked about the bylaws under which the board operates, [acting fair board chairman] Woolard said there was once a copy but it had “disappeared.” County officials were trying to track down the bylaws after Wednesday’s meeting between Scott supporters and the commissioners.
Disappeared? There once was a copy, but now there is none? Sounds like a verse from a folk song. But no one would say it sounds good.
I’m sure a copy will be unearthed. Eventually. Perhaps even quickly. Whether it will be the most up-to-date copy is anyone’s guess. And I’m sure that once the county attorney reviews it — and he should do so at once — he’ll find numerous deficiencies.
The simple fact that the bylaws were not readily available suggests not only that Jay Scott’s dismissal was justified — maintaining such records was his responsibility — but that there is a considerable amount of dry rot and good ol’ boy insouciance in the fair’s administration, and at both the day-to-day operational level and the board level.
As the grandson of a chairman of a county fair’s board (in another state), I’m only too well aware of how independent and casual and insular fair boards can be. As long as they escape public scandal, and most do, they operate with considerable autonomy, protected from outside scrutiny by the political power of the agricultural community.
Significant elements of that community now are circling the wagons, defending Jay Scott and demanding his restoration as the fair’s boss. It’s an impressive display of cultural loyalty, but it’s also an impressive display of near Pavlovian resistance to scrutiny, change, and public accountability.
Update. After re-reading the last sentence in the paragraph above, I realized that the group seeking Scott’s reinstatement may well believe that by demanding an explanation for his dismissal they are seeking public accountability from the fair board. I’ll grant that one can look at it that way. But their focus is really on just this incident, and what they’re seeking is a return to the status quo ante, to the days when Scott evidently was not held to a satisfactory standard because the board was too comfortable with how things were done.
I generally don’t like blue ribbon commissions, as they’re generally a mechanism by which elected officials dodge taking a position on controversial issues. But in this case, I think the Flathead County Commission should give serious consideration to appointing a commission, with plenty of outside membership, to look at the operation of the Flathead County Fair, and recommend measures for bringing the management of the fair into the 21st century.