Citing Financial Crisis Caused By COVID-19 Del Mar Fairgrounds Cuts Majority Of Its Staff

Speaker 1: 00:00 Officials with the Del Mar fairgrounds say the venue is struggling to survive after months of lost revenue due to COVID-19. The fairgrounds income is down nearly 90% after the closure of the San Diego County fair last summer and other revenue generating events in the latest cost. Cutting move. The fairgrounds reduced its staff this month from over 150 employees to 62, with many of the remaining staff in maintenance and security positions. Meanwhile, the city of Del Mar is hoping to negotiate for a section of the state owned fairgrounds to build at least 51 affordable housing units. Joining me is San Diego union Tribune, reporter Phil deal. And Phil, welcome to the show. Speaker 2: 00:43 It's good to be here. Thank you. Speaker 1: 00:44 Tell us more about the layoffs at the fairgrounds. Were the employees given advanced notice? Speaker 2: 00:49 Uh, yes. The fairgrounds general manager announced back in June that they were going to make these layoffs and they're required to give a lot of advanced notice so that people can, uh, make plans and consider their options, maybe retire or move to a lesser position or things like that. Speaker 1: 01:08 They still have enough employees to manage. Let's say new events, if they should be allowed. Speaker 2: 01:14 Uh, they say that could be a problem. I mean, they're doing the best they can with what they have. But, uh, like you said, a lot of the employees that are still there have maintenance jobs and security jobs and they don't really help plan events. Speaker 1: 01:28 Much of the activity at the fairgrounds has been forced to close, but not all of it. There's a drive-through scream zone that's going on right now? How is it Speaker 2: 01:38 The screen zone they say has been sold out every night since it opened. So it's exceeding their expectations, but it's going to end on October 31st. So, uh, while it's doing well, now they're looking for what's next. Speaker 1: 01:53 And what other things have the fairgrounds been doing to generate income Speaker 2: 01:57 During the time that they normally have the fair, all the vendors were there and sold food, take out food. So you could go and buy kettle corn and things like that. And that was pretty successful too. They leased some of the parking lot for parking to the big companies like enterprise, because, because of the whole COVID crisis, not very many people are renting cars. So they add a lot of surplus inventory and needed to store it. So the fairgrounds is one of several places across the state that they stored those vehicles. Um, and they're doing other things they have like in music concerts, and they're looking at other possibilities. Speaker 1: 02:38 How dire is the revenue situation at the Del Mar Speaker 2: 02:42 They continue to lose money. And I think it varies a good bit from month to month, but the acting general manager, Karly Moore said at their meeting this month that they lose something like $600,000 a month, which is a lot money and they don't have that big of a reserve. They they've never had a lot of money in reserves. They spend all their money on events and invested in facilities. So this is it them Speaker 1: 03:13 Now the 22nd district agricultural association that runs the fairgrounds has been reaching out for support from the state and elsewhere for a little bit of help. Are they getting any Speaker 2: 03:25 Well, they did get some money from the state budget this year in that for the first time in a long time, the governor included money for all the district agricultural associations across the state. And there's like 50 some of them. So they all had to share it. So I think Del Mar ended up getting close to $8 million, total that all of that money though is used toward the layoffs. I mean, it helps pay things like pension plan money and things like that. I believe. So it was all related to the layoffs. And as soon as the layoffs are done, which is now that money will end, they've also applied for other things that haven't really panned out. So that's the gist of it Speaker 1: 04:08 Just last week, the city of Del Mar made a formal request to the fairgrounds board to begin negotiations on an affordable housing project. On a section of the fairgrounds. This is different from the temporary homeless housing being considered at the fairgrounds earlier this year. What does the city of Del Mar actually asking for? Speaker 2: 04:27 Well, they are working on the final points of that, but they are looking for affordable housing that would qualify for the mandatory housing that all communities are required to have or provide by the state and the cities don't actually provide it, but they assist with developers to build it essentially. So there's a couple different ways they could do that. They might be able to annex a little bit of the fairgrounds property to make it part of the city, or they're just looking at all the possibilities, but that's, it, it would be permanent affordable housing and they haven't decided on a location yet. They're looking at places like, um, there's an RV park there and there's, uh, a couple other places on the perimeter of the fairgrounds that they are considering where they might be able to do this. Speaker 1: 05:18 No. What the likely response from the fairgrounds would be to the affordable housing plan? Speaker 2: 05:24 Well, they have said that they would consider it that that's one of the options available to them. And it's definitely a long-term plan because it would take years to do this. And the money that the fairgrounds would make would probably be from leasing the property to somebody who would build the housing and maintain it and operate it. So it's definitely a long-term thing. And also like the governor, governor Newsome said early this year that all state property needs to look at these sorts of things to make more affordable housing available in the state. So that's another Speaker 3: 05:58 Reason for doing it. I've been speaking with San Diego union Tribune, reporter Phil deal, and Phil, thank you very much. You're welcome.