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The Humboldt County Fair is right around the corner and fairgoers will be happy to know that you can now safely sit in the grandstands along the racetrack without fear of the structure crumbling down on top of you. 

Members of the Humboldt County Fair Association, county supervisors and staff and project engineers gathered outside of the grandstands at the fairgrounds on Monday afternoon to officially announce that the emergency construction to make the structure earthquake-safe is complete and that the fair will be fully operational on opening day later this week. 

“We didn’t have any idea what it was going to look like; we just knew it had to be done,” First District Supervisor Rex Bohn said during the event on Monday. “[We’re] pretty happy with the way it worked out. The work is pretty magnificent.”

After learning in late June – just about two months before the fair’s opening day – that the grandstands had suffered some damage during the Dec. 20 earthquake, the Board of Supervisors held an emergency meeting and unanimously approved a $1 million funding request from the fair association to provide the emergency repairs. 

Michelle Bushnell, second district supervisor, also spoke during the event, saying that she had heard a lot of community concern over the board’s decision to approve the $1 million funding when the county’s budget is not in a great place. But, Bushnell said, she felt that this was an important enough project that the board needed to find a way to make it work.

The steel bracing can be seen here, behind Rex Bohn and others

“I think it’s really important that we start addressing things and not kicking that can down the road, because in the end it ends up costing a lot of more money,” Bushnell said. “Deferred maintenance is not something that we should do. We should address it as it happens and that’s what we did. I’m proud of our board for authorizing this, even though our budget is in trouble.” 

Brett Witchurch, senior engineer and Whitchurch Engineering, the company that led the maintenance project, told the Outpost that work began on the grandstands at the beginning of July and just finished up this past week. The work includes the addition of a steel base frame to the exterior of the sides of the building, which are attached to grandstands. Aside from the visible frame, most of the work will not be noticeable to the public and includes the addition of wood bracing inside of the building. 

Whitchurch added that this stabilization project only addresses the immediate safety concern of the structure being able to withstand another earthquake and that there is still a “pretty big task list” of repairs to complete on the structure. 

Tom Mattson, Humboldt County’s director of public works, said that there was a lot of damage from the earthquake and that the county still doesn’t have the final report outlining the extent of the damage. But there were a fair amount of visible issues, Mattson said, with parts of the building being cracked and pulled apart and bolts sticking out. It will be a while before all of the damage is repaired, but that, at least for the time being, the grandstands are safe for the public to use. 

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Mattson said. “But it won’t fall down on people.” 

And the news of the grandstands being safe comes not a moment too soon, with the Humboldt County Fair opening to the public on Thursday, Aug. 17. And although the fairgrounds include many other attractions and entertainment, the horse races are the fair’s main source of revenue. Plus, Supervisor Bohn pointed out, the racetrack and grandstands are also used for many other community events. 

“We spent a lot of money to get this fixed, but there are a lot of events that happen here and it isn’t just for horse racing,” Bohn said. “I’m glad our board recognized that and realized how important it was to the community.”