City has powerful hand in potential fair move

City has powerful hand in potential fair move
By DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star

At one point in the heat of the debate over whether the state fairgrounds should move east, two State Fair Board members suggested the city of Lincoln may have a powerful lever.

That lever is the matching funds the city must ante up annually in order for lottery funds to be released.

The constitutional amendment that Nebraska voters approved in 2004 requires Lincoln to pay a 10 percent match in order for the State Fair to receive about $2 million in annual state lottery proceeds.

State Fair Board members raised the possibility that Lincoln could hold its matching money hostage in order to help persuade the board to move.

The idea of combining the State Fair with the Lancaster Event Center on 84th Street has been supported by the mayor’s arena task force and a private business group called the 2015 Visioning Group that offered to contribute up to $6 million toward a move. The State Fair Board was unmoved, staking out their position that the fair should stay put by a 10-3 vote.

But would Lincoln leaders actually consider withholding matching funds to force the State Fair Board to the table?

Mayor Coleen Seng’s office wouldn’t really say.

Seng’s chief of staff, Mark Bowen, said the suggestion was raised by others, but the city hasn’t talked about it.

“We don’t have any comment at this point,” he said.

However, he noted that the city’s match was $270,000 last year and is budgeted at $275,000 this year — “substantially higher than expected.” The match was originally projected to be about $200,000.

“We’re clearly being asked to pay more based on what the estimates were,” he said.

And since this issue may spill over into the next administration, how do the two official mayoral candidates feel about pulling such a lever?

Republican City Councilman Ken Svoboda said that’s a political card he probably wouldn’t play.

“I would hope it would not come to that,” he said. “I can’t imagine playing that trump card.”

The location of the State Fair is a state issue, he said, but Lincoln’s contribution makes it a huge stakeholder, so it should have some say in the fair’s future and perhaps more representation on the State Fair Board.

The other candidate to be Lincoln’s next mayor, Democratic Sen. Chris Beutler, agreed holding the money hostage would be a “negative approach.”

“I don’t think that’s the way to go,” he said. “I think you need to deal positively with the Legislature and with the two fair boards and simply emphasize how there is a possibility here for a win-win situation. The university could get the grounds and State Fair could be better than it ever was.”

He said most Lincoln residents would probably agree it was a mistake when the Lancaster Agricultural Society and State Fair Board parted ways years ago. That should be remedied if it can be done in a “financially reasonable” manner, he said, to enable the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to expand its research programs.

In any case, there are plenty of political hoops to jump through, including convincing the Legislature Beutler served in for two dozen years. State lawmakers and the governor would have to sign off on a move since the state owns most of the state fairgrounds land and state law requires State Fair Park to host a fair.

How does Beutler think lawmakers will respond to the issue, if it’s raised in the upcoming session?

“I think the Legislature’s going to want to know all the facts,” he said. “If this is presented as a win-win situation; if those statements can be backed up with the facts, I think the Legislature will listen.”

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.