On Oct. 4, at a specially-called board meeting of the 14th District Agricultural Association, otherwise known as the Santa Cruz County Fair, the California Department of Food & Agriculture (CDFA) Deputy Director Michael Flores terminated me as the CEO of the 14th District Agricultural Association.
Dave Kegebein
District Ag Associations are state owned agencies with a nine-member board of directors that are appointed by the Governor so one might wonder how one individual bureaucrat from Sacramento can pressure the local board of directors. It’s really pretty simple, just show up at a fair board meeting with a team of 5 staffers dressed up in fancy clothes and intimidate, coerce, threaten and railroad the local volunteer board with a threat of state takeover and dismissal of the directors.
Of course, if you are a state official coming into a community to seize control of a beloved community asset you might feel a bit unsafe so you bring along two Highway Patrol officers and three sheriff’s deputies.
This was done to ensure the 20 or so people waiting for the results to be announced stay under control in case the community should become overly concerned and to have the law enforcement available in case the fair board chose to be uncooperative at which time CDFA could escort the fair board members off of the fairgrounds and initiate a takeover of operations.
I just completed my 11th county fair as CEO and I am proud of the results the amazing team of employees and volunteers I assembled and have led produced. Fortunately, as I depart, the fairgrounds is in the best physical condition it has ever been since the property was purchased in 1935 and the DAA articles of association were filed with the Secretary of State.
When I started in 2012 the fairgrounds, total annual revenue stream was about $1.3 million and the association did not have any cash on hand. As I reflect back on that time, the only possible description of conditions I can think of is total chaos. Multiple lawsuits pending and complete staff dysfunction. There had been 6 managers in the 12 previous years and facility condition had deteriorated to a very unsafe level.
Fast forward 11 years and in 2021, the DAA produced total revenues of about $4 million and has cash on hand of about $1.75 million. And the facility condition has been praised by the community, our many customers and users.
About the time I started as CEO, CDFA decided to have DAA’s with work with private accounting firms to obtain annual financial reviews and audits, which we have regularly completed.
As an employee of CDFA, I believe the agency had an obligation to provide regular procedural training and procedural auditing.
For my first 10 years, it was crickets, no follow thru from the state government bureaucrats to meet their obligation. This past year suddenly they chose to step up to the plate and do their job conducting a procedural audit. The auditor pointed out areas of red tape compliance that we were not aware of and we started implementing those measures.
While I was not informed of why I was terminated, I can only assume the largest issue was that the fairgrounds supplied diesel for my truck. I purchased a new pickup truck, when I started at the fairgrounds in 2012. It currently has 240,000 miles on it, of which approximately 200,000 of those miles were accumulated conducting fairgrounds business. Most people close to me say all I do is work so perhaps more of those miles were fairgrounds related.
At the state reimbursement rates which have varied over the years, I could have been reimbursed about $116,000 but I chose to only ask for fuel & oil consumed while paying for all other vehicle expenses myself, which according to the audit report is a much lesser amount of $35,000.
Over my 11 years I have contributed approximately $650,000 of various resources to the fairgrounds including two years of not accepting compensation and benefits, supplying multiple pieces of equipment for daily operations, and using my own truck for transportation.
I took on the CEO role to serve my community, expecting to only be there a couple of years and have really enjoyed my time in service. The concept of a state takeover of such an important local asset is something the entire community should pay close attention to.
— Dave Kegebein
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State Audit Scrutinizes Our County Fair