Forum Editorial: Fairgrounds is good conversation to start

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Although it’s far too early to have a real conversation about the possibility of a dedicated fairgrounds in Nodaway County, there are some basics that have held true for the idea, and that have stopped it from becoming a reality before now.

There is no proposal yet — only a proposal to think about a proposal. So we are far, far from talking about anything specific.

But when we do have that conversation, and as a community, we should, the roadblock will not have changed over the intervening decades as this conversation has come up and down and up again: money.

Whatever new shape any new proposal about a fairgrounds takes will ultimately bend back to money. Typically, that has been enough to kill serious chances at a fairgrounds previously.

No doubt a feasibility study is the right first step, one that will determine just how much revenue a fairgrounds in Nodaway County might expect to bring in. But it’s important that supporters realize that whatever the estimates are, they are extremely unlikely to be enough to make the fairgrounds self-sufficient. Instead, the revenue should be viewed as a helpful addition, while the fairgrounds itself would be a public service and driver of economic activity through tourism.

More importantly, a feasibility study will help us gauge just how much private funding, and public funding, a fairgrounds might take to finally become reality.

At that point, we can have a real discussion about whether it will be worth the cost.

However, as we’ve said in this space before, you only need to look around to see that now’s the time to take on initiatives we haven’t been able to get going for years; from the overhaul of South Main Street to the Carl & Cheryl Hughes Fieldhouse to the consolidated 911 dispatch center — Nodaway County is making progress by leaps and bounds and breaking down decades-old barriers through a combination of public funding and private donors dedicated to making our community as unique to others as it is to us.

All of them, though, started with a conversation about getting to a finish line that was far off and at the end of a path shrouded in a fog of uncertainty.

So, why not start the conversation about one more?