Regarding the March 11th meeting at the Otero County Fairgrounds:
We started off the meeting by learning who, and what, the fairgrounds board is. They claim to be a non-profit organization, elected by the fair supporters (4H, etc.) to manage the fairgrounds and the activities thereon. They are self supporting with the exception of some monies from the county. The board members are nonsalaried and serve 4 year terms.
Harold O'Dell states that they are under contract from the county commission to run the fair grounds, and that it "takes the fairgrounds out of the their control" and "The county attorney says that the county commission cannot impose its will on the county fairgrounds because we have a contract". O'Dell said they "make their own rules". He disagrees that County Ordinance 96-04 applies to them since they are a private organization, even though they affirmed that the property in question belongs to Otero County.
The last order of business by the board on our topic was to reaffirm their policy on guns at the fairgrounds. A motion was made, seconded, and passed that no guns would be allowed. They said they were doing this on advice from the county attorney. They then said that they had never considered that their signs would prohibit gun shows. They stated that there is a gun show next weekend and that it will go on as planned, but there will never be another gun show at the fairgrounds. We have another location in the works for gun shows. If you have a location to suggest, or are interested in working with us to sponsor a gun show please contact us at info@alamogordo2atf.com
