Veterans Memorial Building — County Building Involved in Agreements
Sonoma County supervisors are set to vote Tuesday, September 15, on whether to give the fairgrounds’ longtime operator a one-year contract instead of the usual five, a stopgap move officials say is needed while they figure out how to fill the financial hole left by the end of live horse racing. The county has contracted with Sonoma County Fair and Exposition Inc. to run the Santa Rosa fairgrounds since 1955, and the current five-year deal, last renewed in 2021, is set to expire.
County Administrator David Guhin is recommending the board renew the operator’s contract through September 30, 2027, rather than lock in another five-year term, according to The Press Democrat. Guhin has said the loss of horse racing has hit fair attendance and revenue hard, and the shorter deal is meant to buy time to negotiate a new long-term agreement while the county completes planning for the fairgrounds’ future. That future contract would also consolidate a tangle of existing arrangements — including the fairgrounds operating agreement, Veterans Memorial Building agreements, parking arrangements, and a Verizon telecommunications lease — into a single framework with clearer roles and responsibilities, the paper reports.
Nearly 90 Years of Racing Comes to an End
Racing at the Sonoma County Fair was called off after the 2024 season, closing out a tradition that had spanned almost 90 years. The decision followed the permanent closure of Golden Gate Fields in Albany in June 2024, according to the Daily Racing Form. Golden Gate Fields had long served as Northern California’s primary commercial racetrack, and its shutdown, paired with a sharp decline in the region’s racehorse population, left Santa Rosa without a viable circuit to plug into…