By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
The Wood County Fair Board will ask Wood County Agricultural Society members at the November annual meeting if they want to change how directors represent the county on the board.
Currently, directors represent one of three districts, with the districts each representing townships in the county. The proposal on the ballot is to do away with districts and let all directors be elected at large to improve effectiveness and recruitment.
District One includes, Middleton, Plain, Washington, Grand Rapids and Weston townships. District Two includes Perrysburg, Lake, Webster, Troy, Freedom and Center townships, and District Three has Milton, Liberty, Portage, Montgomery, Jackson, Jenry, Bloom and Perry townships and the city of Bowling Green,
The recommendation, made by Fair Board Director John Nissen, is proposed to potentially interest more people to serve on the board without the restriction of where they live. He also would like to see the board size reduced to 21, but for now, the proposed change to the constitution is to make all 25 of the board seats at large.
Anyone who holds a 2025 Wood County Ag Society membership card would have the ability to attend the annual meeting in November and vote on the proposal.
Director Bob Strow said he wasn’t opposed to the idea, but he suggested making smaller steps to start by making the four or five of the open seats at-large “to try to keep our districts and our townships somewhat represented.”
Nagel pointed out that “to be fair, if we had four at-large positions, theoretically, we would take one from each district away.”
”There is one of us (in District Three, which has no openings) who theoretically could lose that seat,” she said. “Who out of us sitting here is going to be willing to go to that at-large opening?”
“I’m not looking to kick anybody off now,” Nissen said.
Representation by township is already unbalanced, Strow said.
To go back to township representation, with no more than two seats per township, would pose a problem for the five Milton Township residents who serve on the board from District Three.
Moving Milton or Plain Township representation into District One “would solve a whole lot of our number problems in the first place,” Nagel said.
Township representation was originally how board members were selected “to get a balance within the county of people,” Strow said. “So right now, we’re kind of getting clusters” and the reason the representation was changed to districts rather than townships.
The problem is getting two people to represent each township has become difficult, if not impossible.
“In not arguing, but my question is, is there anything that we do that is based on a township?” asked Fair Director Nick Hannan. “It (the fair) is about the county as a whole. I’m not taking anything back to my township, so It doesn’t make sense why we would have anything by township. Are we losing out on good, potential board members” with the current system?
One problem with having all at-large is having too many people from one area of the county, losing diversification, Strow said.
“We’ll keep the number at 25. If we can’t fill them, then we’ll cut them,” said First Vice President Tony Violi.
“There is plenty of work that needs done,” Strow said. “You’re not getting a lot of new people to run besides people that are on the board. We need to figure out the underlying problem—why aren’t we getting people to run?”
The board agreed, In general, community involvement has dropped for various kinds of civic and volunteer groups.
“it probably comes back to it’s a different time now than it was 30 years ago,” Violi said.
”People that helped me in the fine arts building are all about helping, but they don’t have time for the fair as a whole,” said Fair Director Jon Shinew. “They can help here and there, but they don’t have time to dedicate. Life is busy these days.”
The board also discussed the need to review board policies such as an employee handbook, volunteer applications and an anti-harassment policy.
Members were asked to fill out and return the conflict of interest forms. “In the past they have been very confusing, and nobody actually filled anything out correctly. They always just say they don’t have a conflict of interest, but that’s not the case,” Nagel said. The new form has been updated and clarified for directors to fill in information such as what businesses they and their immediate family members operate, who provides their paycheck. “It doesn’t mean there’s a problem, but it lists what could potentially be a problem.”
Dave Johnston of Ohio Fully Integrated Technologies, who works with the fair board as an IT consultant, urged the fair board to resolve ongoing internet and network issues, including a security risk posed by the current ISP’s practices.
He announced a more affordable price option to replace the fair’s necessary network hardware. He identified a quote of $5,500 for the project, compared to the previous quote of$20,000 to upgrade the system. The fiber optic cable running through the fairgrounds belongs to the fair board, not the internet service provider, thus it could be used with any new provider, he said.
The swine committee held its public meeting. Jessica Nagel said the committee received emails with some comments resulting in the committee working to create a positive atmosphere in the barn, involving the junior fair members to get them happy and excited to be showing pigs at the fair and “to squelch some of the nastiness that happens during fair week.” The committee will continue to discuss doing pre-weigh ins for swine.
Nagel also asked for livestock committee chairs to appoint a member or a volunteer to represent each species on the livestock sale committee.
Entry fees on the table for still departments
Department chairs have been asked to determine what they are spending to operate the departments. “Those need to be figured out so we can stat to make decisions,” Nagel said. “When you look at the theoretical premiums that we pay out on some of our departments, they are astronomical.”
She presented the examples that the flower show paid out $2,600 over two shows and needlework paid $1,300, but that department also brings in money. The baking department paid out $800 in premiums, but brought in $5,000,” she said. She asked department chairs to take a serious look at their expenses to figure out what is being spent.
“I think we’re on the same page as Dave (Johnston)” about the need to be in control of the board’s assets, she said. ”There’s a lot of things that go into our budget that we don’t even account for.”
In other business:
- The board requested Aug.2-9 for its fair dates in 2026.
- Appropriations were voted to spend up to $15,000 for prizes for the Jan. 24 gun raffle.
- The fair board has acquired the domain woodcountyfair.com, in addition to the existing domain woodcounty-fair.com.
- A plan to install two large fans in the Pratt Pavilion was put on hold until the Wood County Fair
- The Farm to Market plans to add a couple of activities for 2026. The committee will apply for a Bowling Green Community Grant again for this year, Director Deanne Corken reported.
- Potential fairgrounds projects in 2026 were discussed, including reroofing one or two buildings, depending on pricing; waterline work near where the rides are located at the front of the fairgrounds, replacing filters for all the drinking fountains, and possibly fixing areas of asphalt. The maintenance crew has already started work to upgrade all the restrooms on the grounds.
