Beef Is Financial for Young Valley Fair Competitors

Danny Wahl has a beef with Los Angeles Community College District officials. And it weighs 850 pounds.

Wahl, 16, was despairing Thursday over a decision by college trustees to ban this summer’s San Fernando Valley Fair from Pierce College--a move that eliminates a livestock show and auction for which he has spent months preparing his steer.

Like hundreds of other Valley-area teen-agers who are raising crops and animals or preparing other projects for the annual fair competition, Wahl feels betrayed.

“I’m angry. I’m upset. I feel like throwing something at the college chancellor,” he said, stabbing a shovel into the manure on the floor of his Canoga Park corral.

“I paid $750 for my steer. I’ve paid another $250 for feed. I borrowed money from a bank to raise this animal. Now I’m worried about my investment.”

Organizers Worried

Fair organizers likewise had investment worries on their minds Thursday.

Officials of the 51st District Agricultural Assn. have amassed $13 million to pay for construction of permanent exhibition facilities for their 42-year-old event.

But they haven’t been able to find land to build on.

College trustees voted 7 to 0 Wednesday to reject a proposal to stage a 4 1/2-day test run of the fair at Pierce College in July.

They concluded that the potential educational benefits of the fair could be overshadowed by the effect fair-generated noise and traffic would have on the community.

Had the test run been a success, fair officials had planned to seek permission to permanently use a 30-acre portion of the college’s farm.

Fair manager Mel Simas said Thursday that association board members hope to find an alternative site in time to plan at least a scaled-down traditional fair with carnival rides for this summer.

The board will discuss a suggestion by the college district that it apply for permission to stage a fair without rides at Pierce--although that option lacks appeal for fair planners, Simas said.

“We think rides are part of the festive atmosphere,” he said.

The fair’s most vocal supporter, state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), pledged Thursday that, at the very least, an animal exhibition and auction will be conducted this year under the Valley Fair banner.

Robbins termed the trustees’ vote “a terrible tragedy” to teen-agers who have spent months raising livestock for this year’s fair.

“I think disaster will be avoided. But the 1989 fair probably will not go down as one of the historical high points of the San Fernando Valley Fair.

“If we have to set something up in somebody’s back yard, and I have to drive a school bus to pick up some of my contributors and supporters to come buy animals, we’ll do that,” said Robbins, who authored legislation that set aside money for construction of permanent fair buildings.

Robbins was joined Wednesday by several other Valley-area legislators in urging the college trustees’ approval of the Pierce College site. He said he would urge the Valley delegation not to take revenge on the college district by voting against future district appropriations.

At Canoga Park High School, meantime, officials Thursday were exploring the possibility of offering campus athletic fields for use this summer as a one-time agricultural exhibition site, said agriculture teacher Steve Pietrolungo.

Dozens of animals are being raised by students at Canoga Park High’s two-acre agriculture compound for judging at this year’s fair.

“I wish I’d known earlier that they weren’t going to let the fair go to Pierce,” said 16-year-old junior Elke Shattuck, who is raising a 910-pound steer named Bruno that she bought five months ago.

Difficult Sales

“If we have to wait until October to show our animals at the L.A. County Fair at Pomona, they’ll be overweight and hard to sell. We won’t even break even on what we’ve spent on them. The trustees certainly weren’t thinking of us.”

Sophomore Carley Estep, 16, said she was already worrying about the possibility that she and her family--who lent her $1,000 to buy and feed her 860-pound steer named Cobbs--will end up literally eating their investment.

Seventeen-year-old David Lewis said he feels that the fair would have attracted people to Pierce College who have no idea that the school operates one of the last urban teaching farms.

“My parents are concerned. They had to co-sign my bank loan for my steer,” Lewis, a senior from West Hills, said as he patted 850-pound Monster. He said he had planned to double his $1,500 steer investment and use the profit to buy a car for college.