Crews Give Fairgrounds Last Touches : Festival: Workers and state inspectors double-check 35 rides for safety before today’s opening of the 12-day event.

Supervisors and hired hands scurried Tuesday to finish erecting 35 midway rides before today’s opening of the Ventura County Fair, while state inspectors examined each attraction to ensure its safety.

Tony Rila, a manager for Davis Enterprises, which provides most of the midway rides this year, intermittently handed out orders, answered questions and surveyed the work of his crews.

“We’ll make it,” he said Tuesday, standing in the chaotic center of dozens of rides and concessions that were still taking shape. “The hard work’s over now.”

State safety inspectors who checked the rides said Tuesday that many of the attractions still had small items that needed correcting before they opened today. But Rila was unruffled.

“They want the rides safe, just like we do,” he said.

The frenzied pace of Rila and his crews was evident throughout the 62-acre seaside fairgrounds near San Buenaventura State Beach, where superintendents of 10 departments and fair buildings presided over last-minute touches and contest entries.

The fair runs today through Aug. 25. Admission is $6 for adults and $3 for children aged 6 to 12. Children under 6 are free.

Sue Kleine, superintendent of the Agriculture and Community Services building, said she was nervous that entries in the fresh back-yard produce category would plummet this year because of the drought and late-spring rains.

“You never know until you open the door the day before the fair how many you’ll get,” she said. “But there has been a steady flow with everything from avocados to Indian corn to zucchini.”

Kleine estimated that she had more than 2,000 entries.

In the Home Arts building, Supt. Lucinda Connelly estimated entries at about 3,000, a slight increase over last year. She commands a team of up to 200 volunteers who put together displays to show off baked and canned goods, antiques, handmade quilts, crocheted dresses and pillows.

“One of the last things we have to do is make sure that things are protected so no one destroys them,” Connelly said. “People like to touch fabric, and the oil from the hands of 300,000 people can just ruin it.”

Among other items, Connelly recommends that visitors look for a hand-painted porcelain doll with wizard’s clothing of blue-and-black velvet.

Across the lawn in the Professional Arts building, Supt. Marcia Weaver’s work was done. The paintings were hung and the ribbons awarded. Weaver praised contributions from Art City, a colony of artists in Ventura’s west end that for the first time contributed several stone sculptures.

“I’ll be interested to see the public’s reaction this year,” Weaver said.

In the Floriculture building, landscape architects misted lawns and picked up tools, the last evidence that the lushly landscaped plots were flat bare dirt only a week before.

Chuck Robinson of Earthly Pleasures of Ventura estimated the value of the 1,500 square feet of rolling dichondra lawn, rare Japanese pines, rock waterfall and tunnel at $50,000.

“But part of that is because some of the Japanese black pines are $700 to $800 each,” he said.

Meanwhile, the carnival inspectors expected to work through the night if needed to make sure the rides were ready, said Robert L. Stirling, safety engineer with Cal/OSHA.

“You worry about it all the time, even after you leave,” he said. “Every ride has the potential for danger or it’s no fun.”

Stirling and David N. Ferguson, safety manager for the California Fair Services Authority, a self-insurance agency for the state’s county fairs, moved through the midway, tagging exposed electrical wiring, loose doorjambs and other safety violations. They climbed under the blue steel bars of the new roller coaster.

“Before they start it up, I’ll get up there and walk the track,” Ferguson said.