After sitting on the sidelines while the Island County Fair Association and the press duked it out over the last couple of months, the Board of Island County Commissioners issued a press release Monday addressing the combustible issues.

Commissioner Mike Shelton initially drafted the press release as a letter and posted it on the Langley Community Forum Web site last Friday. After slight modifications, John Dean and Mac McDowell signed off on the document at a regular meeting Monday.

The press release first addressed the right-of-way issue between the city of Langley and the Fair Association, a contentious affair in which the former is seeking the right to use a portion of the fairgrounds to construct a street to accommodate new development.

“The board is committed to resolving this issue amicably and continues to seek a solution that is palatable to the people of Langley, citizens of South Whidbey and the Fair Association, including the possibility of an election in accordance with county code for the purpose of transferring ownership of fair property,” the press release states.

An election would only be held if both sides first agreed to accept the results.

The litigation has placed the Fair Association under scrutiny and raised public disclosure issues. Members of the association, a nonprofit corporation, have maintained that they are a private agency, immune to the same disclosure laws governing public entities. The status of the association was called into question in a 2003 management letter from the Washington State Auditor’s Office that referred to the association as a public entity.

“Two independent legal opinions from private attorneys hired by the Fair Association state that the Fair Association, Inc. is a private nonprofit corporation and not a public agency subject to the public records laws,” the commissioners’ press release said. “These opinions are consistent with the opinion of the county prosecutor.”

The Fair Board, which is separate from the association, recently volunteered to release records relating to the operation of the fair. The commissioners will ask the Fair Association to similarly provide the county with records for the last seven years. The records will not include private information like the names of donors.

Addressing the sale of a 10-acre piece of landlocked property donated to the Fair Association years ago by Margaret Waterman, the commissioners say the land has never been inventoried as county property.

“Because the Fair Association is not a public agency, the means by which they used to dispose of the property is not subject to the same laws that govern the sale of public property,” the document continued.

The $120,000 in proceeds from the property sale were placed in certificates of deposits and will ultimately end up in a trust whereby the association can use the annual interest and leave the principal untouched. Only money that is generated by the fair from receipts and donations is required by county code to be deposited in the County Fair Fund.

“The money from the sale of the Waterman property did not come from the production of the fair and is not required to be deposited in the county’s account,” the press release said.

The county does not contribute tax revenue to the operation of the fair, the commissioners said in the document. Since the fairgrounds property is owned by the county, however, it allocates money annually to be used for maintenance and facility updates.

“In 2007, we have identified $30,000 for projects to be completed,” the press release said. “This money is for capital improvements and does not go toward the operation of the fair.”

The commissioners urged the public to remember that the fair is run almost entirely by volunteers, save for the association’s one paid staff member and temporary help hired during the event’s production in August.

“As you are enjoying the Island County Fair, never forget it wouldn’t happen unless these people were willing to do the work they do,” it said.

After Monday’s meeting, Shelton attributed information reported in the press, primarily the South Whidbey Record, to differing perspectives.

“They’ve been operating from the premise that the association is a public agency,” he said. “We’re operating from the premise that they’re not a public agency.”