While thousands of people enjoyed the Eastern Sierra Tri-County Fair over the Labor Day holiday weekend, it appears there’s been some problems behind the scenes of the Fair.
Sally Symons resigned as CEO of the Tri-County Fairgrounds on Monday morning, just hours after the Fair ended.
The 18th District Agricultural Association put out a press release late Tuesday evening announcing Symons’ departure.
The press release said, “On Monday morning September 7, 2015, the Tri-County Fair Board of Directors accepted the resignation of Fair CEO Sally Symons. Ms. Symons is no longer affiliated with the Fair in any way.”
It was signed by Paul Dostie, Tri-County Fair board president. Symons was hired in February of 2014.
Sierra Wave Media reached out to Dostie via email for more information Tuesday night, and Dostie responded, “There is nothing more that I can say at this time other than we accepted her resignation.”
It’s been a tumultuous year and half for the Fair office – early in 2014 an investigation began involving possible embezzlement funds from the Fair. In August of 2014, the Inyo County District Attorney’s office announced that Bishop-area resident Rebecca Bragdon had entered pleas of “guilty” to misappropriation of public funds from the Tri-County Fairgrounds.
The pleas arose from charges that she embezzled funds from the Fairgrounds when she was employed as an office manager from July 2012 through July 2013. The matter
was originally investigated by the Inland Division of the California Highway Patrol.
Restitution in that case was set at $25,979.82.
I’ll be shorter on my response to that one low_inyo. HOGWASH!
Trouble :There is more to Law Enforcement than that….they don’t all just sit around an office waiting on a call to respond to…and if they were to do that,it would cause a situation of red lights and sirens,speeding on the town streets to get to the problem at the fairgrounds….then… Read more »
that makes no sense Low….why wouldn’t the two on site LEO identify the perps? They would only have to control the situation on their own long enough for others to get there. Why have a plethora of LEO on-site for situations that rarely happen? that is plain and simple non-sense.… Read more »
Lack of law enforcement in Bishop is hardly a problem here. Their all within two minutes of there.
I’d like to know how much it costs to have so many law enforcement officers at the fair? In case they haven’t noticed, we have a fairly small town, if a problem arose they should be able to get there real quick. No need to have 10 or more LEO… Read more »
But on the other hand,if there was trouble there at the fair,the first complaint would be saying there wasn’t enough Law Enforcement there to correct ,prevent or fix the problem.
As a citizen of Bishop for most of my life and as someone who has had the pleasure of working with Ms. Symons, I am compelled to clarify some misrepresentations of the facts. First, it was under the previous CEO’s tenure that the embezzlement of public funds took place, not… Read more »
Sally really tried to bring in new events and categories to the fair. The sock puppets and pinatas were a nice addition to the old entries. There was very little participation from the community which is sad, but not her fault. Teachers, parents, and community leaders need to reiterate holding… Read more »
I hadn’t been to the tri county fair in quite a few years, not since my kids were young. But now I have a 4 year old grandson and when my wife told me she had tickets to the demo derby and that we were taking D Man, (grandson) well… Read more »
Smoke and weather also played a large part in many peoples’ decision not to attend the Fair this year, I’m sure – the blame doesn’t all belong to Ms. Symons. I saw her (don’t know her personally) trying to enliven the Fair by looking at how other fairs operate and… Read more »
I worked for many years for the Costa Mesa Orange County Fair under Becky Bailey, maybe Sally should have visit that fair to lea4n organizations and promoting business through the fair. This year our tri county fair looked absolutely bare, dark, not very exciting unless it was the kettle corn… Read more »
Lorijellybean, did you even attend the Fair? The turnout and quality this year was reason enough for her to “resign”. I know some would say that she wasn’t the only one responsible, but in reality she was. The CEO should have had the ability to bring disparate people together to… Read more »
DBCooper, no I didn’t attend the fair. I also do not know Ms Symons personally. I just was thinking out loud, so to speak, about how a forced resignation has no advantages over being fired. Especially when it’s just going out to the media anyway, so if it had been… Read more »
That’s quite a response.
Make them fire you so you can get unemployment.
Hmmm.
Wow.
DBCooper, this was drama from 2 weeks ago. Everyone else is onto the Bishop police Chief’s scandal now. Are you trying to keep this certain drama going? I already forgot about it and moved on like everyone else. And of course I’d make someone fire me if they refused to… Read more »
I read Tuesday that they asked her to step down, and she wasn’t given a reason. If it had been me, I would have made them fire me. There’s no advantage to resigning, unless they were going to offer a substantial severance package.