INDIANAPOLIS – Contention over who runs the Indiana State Fair — with roots in a legal change made three decades ago — emerged during the legislative session in a spat about fair date language added, removed, and re-inserted into a proposal in the hours before Sine Die.
Ten words slipped into the 112-page House Enrolled Act 1120, a property tax turned administrative bill, giving Indiana’s finance-oriented State Fair Commission the power to set fair dates and strip that authority from the fair-focused State Fair Board.
The commission maintains that the change is fiscal, but board supporters say it’s a step toward “takeover.”
“It is a fiduciary decision,” said Anna Whelchel, spokeswoman for the Indiana State Fairgrounds and Event Center. She said the edit ensures consistency in the fairgrounds’ governance structure.
But Sen. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg, said the board “was slighted by this. What seems like a simple little change in a multi-page bill (is) not maybe as simple as what everybody thinks.”
Read the entire Leslie Bonilla Muñiz story for the Indiana Capital Chronicle, here.
