Fair Heads for Equestrian Center in Cost-Cutting Move

Despite growing community support for the Hansen Dam Recreation Area as a permanent home for the San Fernando Valley Fair, the event will move to a new location this summer, a top fair official said Saturday.

Budget constraints forced fair organizers to move from Hansen Dam to the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, where the fair will be held July 9 to 12, said Sal Buccieri, president of the fair’s board of directors.

Although Lake View Terrace community leaders said they are disappointed, Buccieri said the move does not mean that officials of the state’s 51st Agricultural District Assn., which sponsors the fair, have abandoned hopes of putting down permanent roots at Hansen Dam.

“It was just a case of pure economics,” Buccieri said of the fair board’s vote Friday to approve a contract with the equestrian center. “Hansen Dam was a beautiful spot for us, and we’re going to continue to pursue that.”

The fair has been without a permanent home since 1988, when it was evicted from its longtime headquarters at Devonshire Downs to make room for a development planned by Cal State Northridge, which owns the property.

A plan to hold the then-weeklong event at Pierce College in Woodland Hills fell through at the eleventh hour in 1989 because of homeowner protests, and a smaller, three-day version was hastily organized at Hansen Dam. The fair had been held at Hansen Dam for the last three years and in 1991, with an attendance of about 50,000 people, had begun to attract large crowds as it had for years at Devonshire Downs.

Buccieri said the state notified the nine-member fair board in January that it had to reduce costs. Holding the fair at the equestrian center will save about $100,000. The board also on Friday set a cap of $70,000 for this year’s fair budget, about half of what it cost to put on the event at Hansen Dam, he said.

Moving to the equestrian center means the association will not have to spend several thousand dollars to put up tents, trailers and other facilities for the event, Buccieri said.

“The facilities are already there,” he said of the equestrian center. The association also will save $30,000 in fees it paid to the city of Los Angeles for the use of the Hansen Dam site, Buccieri said.

He said the fair will be able to reinstate a horse show and rodeo, which had been discontinued since the move to Lake View Terrace. “It was an offer we just couldn’t refuse,” Buccieri said.

He said fair officials will continue to negotiate with the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department, which leases the property from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for a 58-acre site at Hansen Dam.

Although skeptical before the fair came to the community, homeowners near Hansen Dam have embraced the fair as the type of event they want in their semirural community.

“Our association basically likes the idea of having something positive in the community,” said Phyllis Hines, land-use chairwoman for the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn.

“We’re very disappointed,” she said of the move.

“The real losers will be the kids in our community,” said Lewis Snow, longtime community activist and a founder of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn.

Snow said he is “ticked off as hell” because he believes the Parks and Recreation Department has thrown up roadblocks to keep the fair from operating.

Not only did the city notify the fair of a fee increase this year, city officials also had said the fair would need an environmental impact report if it attempted to hold a July 4 fireworks show at Hansen Dam, homeowners and fair officials said.

City officials were unavailable for comment Saturday.