Syracuse, N.Y. — Joe LaGuardia, former long-time marketing director of the State Fair, has died at age 63.
LaGuardia died early this morning at Boston University Medical Center where he was being treated for a blood disorder, according to Tom Young, former Syracuse mayor and friend of LaGuardia’s.
“It’s an awful shock,” said Young, who worked with LaGuardia when Young was State Fair director. “Everyone expected he was going to recover.”
LaGuardia worked at the State Fair for 32 years where his responsibilities included booking concerts and handling publicity. He lost that job in 2007 when the State Fair changed directors.
He subsequently worked as executive director of the Syracuse Lakefront Development Corp, retiring from that job in 2010. He served on the boards of the Syracuse Chiefs and the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame. He also was a past president of Bellevue Country Club.
“He was passionate about his work and he was a real professional,” Young said. “He was equally passionate about the civic activities he was involved in.”
LaGuardia lived in Syracuse. He and his wife, Carol, have three children and three grandchildren.
Young said funeral arrangements have yet to be made.
St. Paul, MN – KISS and MÖTLEY CRÜE have just been confirmed for the 2012 Grandstand Concert Series sponsored by Sleep Number.
KISS & MÖTLEY CRÜE will co-headline this concert at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 29. Tickets are $81, $71 and $51 and go on sale at 1 p.m. this Saturday, March 24.
KISS performed at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand in 2010 and MÖTLEY CRÜE performed in 2005, both to sold-out audiences.
Tickets will be available at www.mnstatefair.org or etix.com or by calling (800) 514-3849. In addition, the State Fair Box Office on the fairgrounds will be open from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 24 and then close until regular hours begin June 4. For State Fair Box Office information call (651) 288-4427.
Tickets for the following shows, announced last week, go on sale Saturday, March 24 as well: The Happy Together Tour 2012 (Aug. 27) on sale at 10 a.m. and Alan Jackson (Aug. 24) on sale at noon.
Additional acts will be announced in the coming months. Visit mnstatefair.org for more Grandstand information.
The 2012 Minnesota State Fair runs Aug. 23 – Labor Day, Sept. 3.
A woman who lost her partner in last August’s stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair said Wednesday she feels “angry” and “let down” by the contention that she and other Sugarland fans are partly to blame for their injuries.
Urschell, 49, and her life partner, Tammy Van Dam, 42, were among 12,000 other fans at the Aug. 13, 2011, concert when a massive storm struck and blew over the temporary staging. The crush of equipment broke Urschell’s clavicle, severed her toe and lacerated her kidney.
Van Dam was among seven people killed.
Survivors, like Urschell, and families of those killed have filed a civil suit alleging negligence by Sugarland, producers and stage riggers. But Sugarland’s attorneys say fans should have done more to ensure their own safety, adding that the collapse was an “act of God” and that fans voluntarily assumed risk of injury by attending.
But the plaintiffs’ lawyer Kenneth J. Allen says that’s nonsense and argues that when the storm was certain to hit the stage, band members were more concerned with finishing the show and moving on to the next one in Iowa City.
“They convinced 12,000 people that despite the appearance [of threatening weather], it was safe. The band was going to perform. The show was going to go on,” said Allen.
FRANKFORT, KY. — Senators who support the job Harold Workman has done as president of the State Fair Board filed a bill Wednesday that would require confirmation by the state Senate of a governor’s appointments to the board.
Sens. Paul Hornback and Joey Pendleton, both farmers, said while the bill will not block an ongoing effort to remove Workman from the job he has held since 1993, it will give the Senate some say in board membership in the future.
“If I’m going to be the whipping boy that’s going to have to listen to all this controversy, then I want to have a little say in who gets put on the Fair Board,” said Pendleton, D-Hopkinsville.
Hornback, R-Shelbyville, said, “This is a show of support for Harold Workman and a statement that the Fair Board is not a political toy to play with.”
The Courier-Journal reported Wednesday that one board member said she had been contacted by Board Chairman Ron Carmicle last week and told that the governor wanted Workman ousted as president and chief executive officer.
Carmicle said any claims that he had lobbied board members to support Workman’s ouster are “absolutely false.”
But Gov. Steve Beshear said Wednesday he’s been part of discussions among members of the board to remove Workman.
“I had several members of the board discuss the issue with me and I’m a member of the board also,” Beshear said in an impromptu interview prior to his appearance before a Senate committee to testify for his constitutional amendment to allow casino gambling.
Beshear did not answer questions about whether he initiated the move to replace Workman or if he wanted Workman replaced.
“I do understand his future is being considered by the Fair Board. And the Fair Board is the entity that makes that ultimate decision,…” Beshear said. “I’ll be discussing that issue further with the members of the Fair Board as we go along.”
The board is scheduled to meet Thursday. Though the issue is not on the agenda, Pendleton and Hornback say it still could be considered. “Some senators from both parties are talking about attending the meeting to show our support for Harold,” Pendleton said.
And the controversy threatens to cost Beshear some badly needed support on his top legislative priority — the amendment to allow expanded gambling that was approved Wednesday by a Senate committee.
Pendleton, who said he supports giving voters the right to decide the gambling question, said if Workman is fired on Thursday, “I will withdraw my support for putting casino gambling on the ballot.”
Pendleton said Beshear called him late Tuesday and told him he was not behind the effort to replace Workman.
And Pendleton said neither Beshear nor any supporter of the move to replace Workman has given him a reason why Workman should leave.
“Somebody better come up with a real good reason, and they’re going to have to do it pretty quickly,” Pendleton said.
Beshear said Wednesday he did not believe that the controversy will cost any votes for the casino amendment. “I don’t think any other extraneous matters like that will ultimately affect anybody’s decision,” Beshear said.
Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said the controversy has united senators of both parties in support of Workman and that he believes the bill filed by Hornback and Pendleton will pass the Senate unanimously.
“The governor needs to clear this up and clear it up immediately,…” Williams said. “I just think the governor needs to be candid about what he’s going to do and if he has enough influence to exert to get Mr. Workman fired, then he just needs to go ahead and admit that he’s doing that.”
FAIRLEA — Jeff Alberts spends a lot of his work time a few feet in the air — twirling, gyrating, spinning, firing off first in one direction and then in another one the next.
If it weren’t for a compromised equilibrium, Alberts likely would take his turn in all 52 rides along the colorful midway at the State Fair of West Virginia.
Underlings make sure every ride gets the once-over before the day is out.
So it is with America’s biggest carnival extravaganza, Reithoffer Shows, a family business launched in 1896 by Julius Reithoffer, who got it all going that year with a steam-powered carousel.
“I ride three or four a day for safety checks,” Alberts noted Monday.
“You can hear things. You can feel things. It’s just not me. I have six or eight men that do the same things that I do. And there is a foreman on every ride that inspect the rides. Some rides have five or six men on them. You’re getting six to seven sets of eyes on every ride every day.”
Alberts broke in as a “ride guy” and worked his way up the corporate ladder the past 27 years.
“I grew up with it,” he said, noting brothers and sisters likewise were part of the Reithoffer family.
Some safety experts say the best maintained rides are found on the carnival circuit since they are inspected daily, then dismantled and set up again as the show moves to the next spot, as opposed to those permanently anchored at amusement parks.
“We like to say that it is,” Alberts said. “I don’t want to knock any of the parks. They do a lot of maintenance. I have a lot of friends. We go to school with some of the biggest parks in the country, and their maintenance programs are second to none. But for the most part, I tell everybody, what would you rather ride, would you rather ride a ride that’s taken apart every week and set up every week so you see every internal part and everything and get inspected every single, solitary day by our employees and every two weeks they get inspected by different states and jurisdictions, or a park that gets inspected basically once or maybe twice a year by the governments of that state?”
Many Reithoffer workers bring their children on the summer tours. Until one of his children reached college age and a daughter began preparing for high school, Alberts’ entire family made the 31-stop summer run along the East Coast before resettling in Florida, home to most of Reithoffer’s payroll.
“I always say every person through that gate is my kid,” he said. “I want to make sure every ride is safe enough for my kid. When you come to my fair, that’s the way I look at it.”
Alberts cringes at the ancient term “carnie,” one that dogged carnivals decades ago when fly-by-nighters came into towns under the cover of night and generally pulled up stakes a few nights later, leaving behind some sour feelings among the local denizens.
Today, it’s like any other business and Reithoffer Shows strives for a family image.
“It’s not the stigma, I’ll say, from 40 years ago,” Alberts said. “The ‘dirty carnival’ people. That’s definitely not what we are.
“A lot of us have a church we go to. Some of the fairs we go to, they have a church that they bring to us. A lot of us go to church every Sunday in the communities. This is our livelihood. We have our kids with us. We have a hard-hat protection policy. A fall protection policy. One of the toughest drug policies in the industry. I’m off two months a year and I go to safety school for three weeks of that. This is our business. This is our lives. We want people to come here and feel safe in what we do.”
One thing that hasn’t changed is the carnival-goers’ love of thrilling rides, and Reithoffer is only too happy to oblige them.
“Just like I like to say — it’s like jumping out of a plane,” he said, explaining why lines of spectators queue up for a few seconds of heart-pounding action. “The adrenaline rushes.”
At this week’s State Fair, the big attraction is the Wild Mouse.
“It was brand new last year,” Alberts said. “It’s one of only two traveling portable coasters that, while the car is going around the track, the cars spin. It’s the best ride here. You still have the old favorites — the Big Tornado. That’s from Germany. The only one in the country like it. We have the Freakout, which is like a hanging pendulum. We also have the Speed Ride. It’s basically a 120-foot propeller. You sit at the very end of it and g-forces on that are like no others.”
High fuel prices likely are discouraging long family vacations to parks in favor of close-to-home events like the State Fair of West Virginia, Alberts speculated.
“You figure,” Alberts said. “A year ago, we were complaining about it being $2.25 a gallon. Now it’s $4.50. We play in New York where it’s $5 a gallon. Just imagine your expenses being doubled. We probably run seven big generators at this spot. We use some city power, but mostly we’re an inclusive city. We need diesel fuel to run the generators. I’m glad that’s not my department. I don’t even want to know that bill.”
Alberts has been a mainstay at the State Fair of West Virginia ever since Reithoffer made its initial incursion into Greenbrier County about 14 years ago.
“West Virginia is my personal favorite,” he said. “I’ve gained a lot of friends that are people that live in town. When you come back and forth, you meet people every year and you become better friends with them.”
Following complaints by a gun rights group, and a law passed by the Florida Legislature last year, you can now carry your gun at the Florida State Fair.
“We have changed the policy to comply with the state law – it allows a person with a concealed weapon permit to come in with a firearm,” said Charles Pesano, executive director of the State Fair Authority. “We’ve changed some signs to reflect that.”
Instead of “No Weapons,” the signs now say, “No Unlawful Weapons.”
The policy changed Sunday, after Florida Carry Inc. and Marion Hammer of the Florida NRA complained to state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, said Sean Caranna of Florida Carry, a gun rights group.
At the same time, local members of the group complained to the State Fair Authority after a member of Florida Carry was denied admittance Saturday.
Pesano said the authority decided after meetings Sunday to change its policy.
“It was brought to our attention, and we quickly determined we wanted to be in compliance with the state law – we acted within minutes.”
It’s the first time in his experience, which covers eight state fairs, that fairgoers have been allowed to carry weapons.
“Since I’ve been here, the policy has been not to allow weapons on the fairgrounds just through good common sense,” Pesano said.
The change was required by a 25-year-old law in which the state Legislature took control of all firearms regulations, declaring local government ordinances void — an act known as “pre-emption.”
But the law wasn’t generally enforced, said Arthur Hayhoe of the Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
“That law had no penalties so a lot of local governments ignored it,” he said. “Some local governments dropped some laws, and a lot of them kept their laws.”
In 2011 however, the Legislature passed a new law imposing tough penalties — fines of $5,000 against officials of any local government that enforces a gun control law, along with removal from office by the governor and provisions for individuals and organizations to sue the local government for damages and legal fees.
Caranna said the gun rights groups contacted Putnam before the fair and were told the policy would be changed.
“They’ve been violating this law for nearly 25 years, and we wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again this year,” he said. “Unfortunately, it did happen.”
A Putnam spokesman couldn’t provide any comment from the agriculture commissioner Tuesday afternoon.
Scott Barrish of Plant City, a member of Florida Carry, sent complaints to Putnam and Pesano after another member, Charles D. Bingham, said on the group’s Facebook page that he was searched and denied entry to the fair while carrying a gun Saturday.
Barrish, a Republican candidate for Hillsborough County clerk of court, said he went to the fair Monday, carrying his Springfield Armory 1911 Range Officer semi-automatic pistol.
Barrish said he carries a firearm “everywhere that it’s legal for me to do so,” because, “I take responsibility for my own safety and that of my family and friends – law enforcement can’t be everywhere every single second.”
But Hayhoe said the law “has created a lot of problems, and there are a lot of people angry about it – people can’t post their land for no firearms.
“Local governments can’t do anything – they can’t pass or enforce any law that even has the word gun in it.”
Last month, the Hernando County commissioners cited the law in reluctantly allowing a Spring Hill homeowner Paul Hargis of Hague Court to sell guns from his home, despite objections from the neighborhood.
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Major Al Greco, in charge of security for the fair, said in past years, officers made anywhere from two or three to 15 or 20 arrests during the fair, mostly for fighting, drug or weapon possession.
He said he didn’t know how many had been made this year.
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