This is a letter from the Ravalli County Fairgrounds to the community we serve.
As a community resource, the Ravalli County Fairgrounds plays a diverse and complex role here in the Bitterroot Valley. As the managing director of this facility, I am writing this letter to our community to let you, the taxpayers, know what’s happening on your fairgrounds.
Currently we are in the process of paving the event center parking lot. An agreement to do so was entered into over eight years ago between the Board of Ravalli County Commissioners and the City of Hamilton. The number of parking spaces is linked to the square footage of the event center and as an annexed property in the City of Hamilton, we are subject to the city’s parking lot specifications. To accommodate the required number of spaces we have expanded the parking lot on the north side of the event center and there will be additional spaces adjacent to the agriculture and beef barns. There will be racks to accommodate 80 bicycles at the front pedestrian/bicyclist entrance. Vehicles will now enter and exit off of Fairgrounds Road which will ensure greater safety for all who visit our grounds.
Fairgrounds staff, the Fair Board and officials from both the city and county have worked diligently to integrate the paving with the joint city/county CTEP sidewalk project completed earlier this year. In the spring you will see another improvement project made possible with CTEP funding. This project will facilitate handicap and pedestrian access from the Fairgrounds Road sidewalk to a new sidewalk located along the edge of the front parking lot to new ramps for our exhibit buildings and outdoor restrooms.
Projects of this scope take time to plan and source funding; be assured that the work you see being accomplished today has been in the planning stages for many years. The Board of Ravalli County Commissioners set up capital reserve funds specifically geared for the Fairgrounds and other county departments a number of years ago in anticipation of identifiable expenses in the future and for emergencies. (Much the same as a family savings account.)
We look forward to the completion of this long awaited project and wholeheartedly thank our community for bearing with us during the dusty process. We also wish to thank Specialty Excavating and their entire crew for working with our event goers during the construction process in a caring and competent manner.
Deborah Rogala, Director
RC Fairgrounds