By Carmen Porter,
BCHA Board Member & Fun Show Committee Chair
For many years, the Boulder County Fairgrounds offered public sessions from November through April, which was a wonderful but unfortunately underutilized opportunity for the equestrian community to bring their horses to the indoor arena to practice for the low cost of $5/horse. With the recently approved updated Boulder County Fairgrounds Policy Manual, all those public sessions have been cancelled.
If you were one of the users who took advantage of this, it is a big loss, as there is no other indoor public arena opportunity for practice. Some of you may not have been aware that public sessions at the indoor arena existed and might have used them if you knew. Every year we try to remind the equestrian community about public sessions, but this year when we contacted the fairgrounds office to confirm the dates, we were informed that the public sessions have been cancelled.
Traditionally, the public sessions consisted of Tuesday evening roping, Wednesday all day open riding, Thursday evening barrel racing (as well as a day in the exhibit building set up for dog agility course practice). The cancellation of all these public events was proposed in the presentation of the updated fairgrounds policy manual to Boulder County Parks & Open Space Advisory Committee at their meeting held on May 23. POSAC advises staff and the county commissioners on management of county Open Space properties, and the fairgrounds are one of those facilities. As such, POSAC has quite an influence on decisions related to all open space properties and the county commissioners generally approve their recommendations. After reviewing the policy manual update, POSAC wanted the public to have an opportunity to comment on the cancellations before making a final decision, and the vote was put off until after proper public notice so that the public session users would be given a chance to comment.
A fairgrounds user meeting was held June 20th for those who hold events at the fairgrounds, attended by approximately 28 people. This was the time when the public who were in attendance at this meeting were informed by the fairgrounds staff of the plan to cancel the public sessions and that comments could be directed to POSAC.
At the June 27th POSAC meeting, the update to the policy manual was again reviewed, and approved by the committee. Review of the meeting video indicates that few comments were received specifically addressing the cancellation of public sessions. POSAC recommendations go on to the Boulder County Commissioners for final approval, and at the July 30th commissioners meeting, the updated Fairgrounds Policy Manual was approved routinely with no comment or discussion, and as a result all public sessions are now cancelled.
If you feel that you missed your opportunity to participate in the decision-making process because you were not aware of any of this until after the fact, you can consider writing or emailing POSAC or the County Commissioners regarding this. The decision is final, but Boulder County values input from the public and opportunity for robust input should have been part of the process.
Comments to the POSAC members can be filled out online at this link https://bouldercounty.gov/government/boards-and-commissions/parks-and-open-space-advisory-committee/
Commissioners can be emailed at commissioners@bouldercounty.gov
This recommendation for the cancellation of the public events was made after an evaluation of the fairgrounds budget. Unfortunately, the fairgrounds must operate on a fairly stringent budget compared to the popular and high demand for the facilities. In recommending the cancellation of the public events, the staff assessed the cost, manpower, overtime, and equipment/water/utility resources required to maintain the facilities for public use and weighed those against the relatively low usage. Attendance per public event averaged slightly less than 10 per event. An additional consideration was that in the interest of equity, other public users would like public access to the fairgrounds facilities for such events as pickle ball or drone flying and that is seems unfair to give the horse community public sessions and deny others, although one could certainly argue that equestrian practices in a facility designed for equestrian use is much more in alignment with the purpose of a fairgrounds facility.
Considering the cancellations, this is an important reminder for the equestrian community to keep in touch with decision making processes regarding Open Space and regulatory issues that affect the horse community, and to express our opinion when we get are given a chance. Again, the best way to do this is through the links provided above.