New member joins fair board

The Great Northern Fair Board welcomed a new member and heard updates concerning the condition of the fairgrounds at its monthly meeting Tuesday.

Paul McCann attended his first meeting as a board member, taking the place of Chad Murnin.

“There’s a lot of things in motion right now, so I just have to get familiar with everything,” McCann said after the meeting. “(My goal is) to help if I can in the manner that everybody brings a perspective to the board meetings.”

Scott Doney, a board member, expressed his concerns about the condition of the fairgrounds.

“The roads up there — they actually need to be cut out and get down to the holes, rather than just filling them in. There’s holes up there if you go drive around — 8-10 inches deep,” he said. “We need to get the ball rolling by improving the grounds so that people want to use it so that we can generate income. … We got to make things presentable so that we show the public that we’re trying to make improvements up there, too.”

Doney also said built-up water on the grounds is not draining.

“We can’t have water running back towards the buildings, ”he said. “If you look at (the Bigger Better Barn,) the ground actually runs uphill, so the water is setting back against that door,” he said. “If we can get things to drain I think it’ll help us out quite a bit.”

Three people have applied for the fairgrounds manager position. The board has not yet finalized a decision of who will replace Tim Solomon, the current fairgrounds manager.

Solomon resigned from his position earlier this year after nearly 12 years. His resignation will go into effect March 31.

The next fair board meeting is scheduled for April 21.