Fairground board meets with supervisors

Members of the Marshall County Fairground board of directors met with the board of supervisors Feb. 18 to discuss bylaws.

The discussion was led by Bob Cochran who said it appears some things needed to be changed concerning the bylaws.

Cochran said some information was submitted to the board of supervisors in April 2024 but got no response but that the matter was discussed in executive session in December. He has made some proposals, he said.

District 1 supervisor Charles Terry asked if the bylaws he submitted were based on those used by the Fairgrounds Association, now defunct, since the Fairgrounds is now operated under the board of supervisors.

“If you look, it’s a corporation,” said board attorney Amanda Smith Whaley.

Cochran said it is a set of bylaws and a constitution.

“Exhibit C is what I am going to submit to the next board meeting and the bylaws and constitution has been changed to Standard Operations and Procedures,” Cochran said. “I think it will benefit the community,”

He said the standard operations and procedures breaks down why there is a president, vice-president, assistant secretary and Sergeant of Arms.

“We have five individuals who could break a tie,” he said. “It is just something being processed to make a better organization.”

He said if you don’t have an organized organization “You don’t have nothing but organized chaos.”

He praised Marsha Taylor, an employee at the Fairgrounds, saying, “you don’t pay her enough.”

Terry asked if the Fairgrounds board doesn’t operate off parliamentary rules of order.

“Yes, we have to have some structure,” Cochran said.

“Instead of parliamentary rules of order?” Terry asked.

“Robert Rules of Order is only giving you guidelines,” Cochran said. “If we have some rules to go by, we can operate much better. It’s up to you guys to determine how involved you want to get.”

Terry said he would recommend, “before you pass this out to your board, let us look over it because if you are operating under Robert Rules of Order and parliamentary procedures when they were an association, it was one thing.” “Now the board took it over,” he said.

District 4 supervisor George Zinn III said, “As long as the board has the ultimate say. So, I feel like there should be solid guidelines. They need to be in place.”

Terry said the person out there over the Fairgrounds should be knowledgeable about procedures.

Fairgrounds board member Fred Holland, said the association rules had to be gotten rid of.

“All it was, what do we need to operate the Fairgrounds,” he said. “We should be operating on county rules now.”