EDITORIAL - Summer has finally arrived, and that marks the official kickoff of fair season! Many of you and millions of others around our state will visit your local fairgrounds this year to participate in one of California’s longest-standing traditions. But in recent years, state funding for fairs has been all but eliminated, threatening their very existence.
In 2011, at the peak of California’s historic budget crisis, the Legislature completely eliminated the $32 million in funding to the California Division of Fairs and Expositions, which oversees the state’s fairs. Though the cuts were devastating, fair organizers learned to adapt to their limited means the way many other state programs did during that difficult time.