Back in the rough-and-tumble 1980s, the Tennessee State Fairgrounds wasn’t for the faint of heart. A federal grand jury investigated charges of kickbacks and extortion at the property’s lucrative flea market, one of its managers was found shot dead in a Memphis apartment, and another went to jail. All the while the Fair Board was dominated by James “Mack” Smith, a liquor store owner from Goodlettsville both loved and feared, and the target of a federal probe into whether he helped secure police and fire promotions in exchange for political donations to his friend, Mayor Richard Fulton.
When Mayor Phil Bredesen was elected in 1991, he sought to get rid of cronyism at the fairgrounds. In a controversial move, he removed not only Smith but all the board’s members one by one, replacing them with his own appointees. Then, in June 1998, Bredesen eased the way for his longtime aide, Jennifer Hill, to run the place.
It seemed like the end of the story. Bredesen cleans up the fairgrounds, while the Fair Board and its manager keep the operation profitable, well-run, and honest. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way.
While wild charges of corruption no longer plague the fairgrounds, the place is at the crossroads. Revenue is down, turnover is high, the fun, lucrative days of auto racing are coming to a close, vendors and farmers are up in arms, the buildings are falling apart, and finally, Fan Fair, one of the fairgrounds more profitable events, may be taking off after next year. Indeed, the Fair Board even broached the possibility of selling its property and going out of business altogether until Mayor Purcell stepped in and said that he didn’t want that to happen.
There are also concerns about how both Jennifer Hill and the Fair Board spend money. In July 1998, Hill’s second month on the job, she bought more than $19,000 in new office furniture, immediately raising the eyebrows of many of her employees. Then, in February of this year, the board unanimously voted to tear down Smith Hall, which interestingly enough is named after Mack Smith. Although it would have cost a hefty $19,000 to repair the aging building, it was nevertheless valued at $58,000, an asset that is now off the books. In addition, that same month, the board authorized up to $30,000 in purchases of portable bathrooms and showers to make up for the loss of Smith Hall.
The board has also shelled out over $270,000 to consulting firms to help devise a master plan for the facility. In August of this year, the firm told the board that implementing the plan would cost anywhere from $15-30 million. In its last meeting, however, the board voted to spend only $5 million, mainly on basic infrastructure improvements. That raises the question of whether a pricey master plan was really needed in the first place.
Board member Tom Curtis defends the spending decisions. About Smith Hall, he says that the building was woefully antiquated and that no amount of money could have made it fully operational.
As for the money the board spent on the master plan, he notes that while in hindsight the total seems high, officials originally foresaw a future for the fairgrounds that was much larger in scope. The expected departure of racing at the fairgrounds took away a revenue source and prompted the board to narrow its vision.
Other expenditures might be harder to defend. In the last two years, the fairgrounds allowed the victim’s rights group, You Have The Power, to rent $1,100 worth of meeting space at the facility free-of-charge. Interestingly, the founder of You Have The Power is Andrea Conte, wife of Mayor Bredesen and a friend of Hill’s. According to fair officials, Big Brothers is the only other nonprofit group that received free rental space.
Hill defends the freebie for You Have the Power, saying that while it’s a private nonprofit group, it’s funded primarily by Metro agencies.
Hill has other problems to face. Bill Phillips, Mayor Purcell’s chief of staff, has spent a good deal of his time so far meeting with disgruntled members of the county’s agricultural community, who were so upset after this September’s state fair that many have considered not coming back. The Davidson County Farm Bureau is seeking Hill’s removal, while members of the Nashville Area Agricultural Club took an unofficial vote last October to urge a change in the management of the state fair as quickly as possible.
The fair’s livestock exhibitors are especially bitter at the amount of red tape that they claim plagued the event this year. In one letter to Purcell, they claimed they weren’t allowed to promptly unload their animals from their trucks. Had the weather been warm during the fair, their animals would have died, they said.
For many, the situation has become intolerable. “If she stays, a lot of the exhibitors won’t be back next year because of all the red tape and just how they were treated last year,” says Bill Strasser, president of the Davidson County Farm Bureau. “If we keep pushing, maybe the mayor can ask her to resign.”
Hill and members of the board say they’ve had to make necessary changes in how the facility is run and that has rankled some of the fair’s longtime participants.
“It’s not just resistance to change, although that’s part of it,” she says. “Many of them don’t know that we’ve made many positive changes.”
According to a promotional sheet distributed by Hill, those changes include better accommodations for some of the livestock, a new supply room, and better security. Her detractors say she may be overstating some of her improvements. Another one of the changes she itemizes, a new $25,000 bathroom, is simply a converted house trailer, they point out.
Councilman Earl Campbell says one main problem with the fairgrounds is that few of the people in charge know what they’re doing. “I get so many letters from people who complain that they’re being mistreated,” he says. “I just wish they had someone out there who had fair experience.”
Campbell may have a point. Not only does Hill herself have no experience in fairs or event management, two of her top aides are similarly new to their jobs. David Lewis is in charge of maintenance at the 117-acre fairgrounds, a $36,000 job. According to his resume on file at the fairgrounds, Lewis has never worked in facility maintenance. His last two jobs include working at a car dealership and running his own lawn service.
As manager of the flea market, a $37,500-a-year job, Deborah McCanless runs the most lucrative component of the fairgrounds. Last year the market’s revenues topped $1.5 million. But like Lewis, McCanless lacks experience. According to her job application, for the last seven-plus years McCanless worked as an office manager.
Perhaps most significantly, the five-member Fair Board lacks experience in the kinds of activities that comprise the fairgrounds. The facility is not a high-brow place. In addition to the yearly state fair, other events include the Nashville Speedway, gun and knife shows, auctions, and caged-bird shows. The board, however, is decidedly gentile. Consisting mainly of attorneys and white-collar businessmen, the board has trouble relating to many of the salt-of-the-earth people who make the fairgrounds tick.
In one recent board meeting, for example, a promoter talked about how some of the planned infrastructure improvements might affect her event. Although she was probably speaking for a host of other promoters as well, board chair Richard Riebeling cut her off mid-sentence and wouldn’t allow her to talk after that. As a result, the promoter and some of her already frustrated colleagues left the meeting steamed.
The board’s Curtis says you don’t have to have experience in fairgrounds-related activities to know what’s good for business and what’s bad. “We’re all well-qualified to make reasonable decisions to operate the fairgrounds,” he says.
Indeed, board members have made some very smart decisions. They’ve asked Metro to audit the operations; they’ve at least tried to think long-term, and they’re not afraid to consider radical ideas, such as getting out of the fair business altogether. Perhaps most important, they run an operation free from even a hint of corruption. But nevertheless, the perception that they’re out of their element is both pervasive and debilitating.
Take Mike Kent, the promoter for the popular Middle Tennessee Civil War Show. Angered at a host of rule changes, price hikes, and what he claims to be inefficient management, Kent actually misses those rough and tumble ’80s. “Everything ran smoothly the first 12 years I was there,” he says. “We’re unhappy and disappointed with how the fairgrounds is being run.”
