Master Plan Pending : District to Review Stance on Holding Fair at Pierce

Los Angeles Community College District officials retreated Thursday from an administrative ruling that had threatened to prevent next year’s San Fernando Valley Fair from being staged at Pierce College.

Chancellor Donald G. Phelps said the district is willing to discuss allowing the fair to rent 30 acres of Pierce farmland before a land-use master plan is prepared for the 400-acre Woodland Hills campus.

District trustees ruled in September that all future development projects at Pierce should be postponed until that long-range plan is completed.

College administrators said earlier this week that the trustees’ stance seemed to preclude approval of a fair lease for July--even though such a contract was endorsed last week by a Pierce faculty review committee.

Fair officials immediately objected on the grounds that next year’s fair would have no permanent effect on the campus. They said no alternate location for the 1989 fair is available.

Phelps said he will arrange a meeting of Pierce officials, fair organizers, district administrators and Woodland Hills residents next month so that the fair’s proposal can be further discussed.

“Hopefully, it will lead to some resolution or consensus as to the disposition of the fair,” said Norman Schneider, a district spokesman.

No Consensus So Far

Schneider said Phelps, who has headed the district since September, believes that discussions of the fair by residents and Pierce officials have not resulted in such a consensus.

He said the trustees’ call for a master plan for Pierce still stands, although trustees indicated to Phelps that they may be willing to consider the fair contract before such a study is finished.

Pierce officials say the earliest that a master plan can be finished is next summer. However, fair officials have said they need a firm commitment on the college site by February. Fair manager Mel Simas said Phelps’ intervention has left him hopeful that the fair will have a home in 1989. It must vacate its former site at Devonshire Downs in Northridge after the first of the year.

“I hope things can be worked out. A break in the tradition would probably mean a death warrant for the fair,” Simas said. “This has been like a roller coaster for us. We’ve been up one day and down the next.”

Woodland Hills homeowners said they will continue to oppose the fair. The fair’s use of the Pierce campus is being considered for only 1989, but residents argue that the fair will try to locate there every year if it is allowed to use the site next summer.