State Turns Over Keys to U.P. State Fair

The U.P. State Fair will now, officially, go on for years to come.

Governor Jennifer Granholm has passed the keys to the fairgrounds gates over to the new State Fair Authority.

The state recently gave the fairgrounds to Delta County for $1.

Back in February, Granholm said she was eliminating both the U.P. and Detroit State Fairs from the state budget after this year.

But the new State Fair Authority will keep it going with members from all 15 U.P. counties.

Granholm says she was excited to see people across the region take ownership of the fair’s future and she’s looking forward to returning next year.

Unlike the one here in the U.P., the Detroit State Fair faces an uncertain future.

The governor commended the U.P. for looking to future job sectors like renewable and alternative energy.

She also says the State Fair transfer, and what the U.P. is doing with prison camps like the former Mangum Farm, are examples of U.P. ingenuity for others to follow.

Granholm thinks the desire many in the U.P. have expressed to re-use the closed prison camps as jails is something other regions of Michigan can learn from.

The deadline to set the state budget for fiscal 2010 is about 6 weeks away.

The governor says she hopes to reach a resolution by mid-September and avoid a government shutdown.