AnonymousBy Deb Finnegan
On Thursday (11/21) at 4:00 p.m., the board members of Earl Warren Showgrounds are hosting a public meeting to discuss changing their mission statement to remove equine facilities. This will make it easier for the Board to develop the property to exclude equestrians or make it much smaller and less desirable.
The agenda includes discussing a strategic plan where the non-equestrian board members want to change the showground’s official mission statement to eliminate the words “maintains a first-class equestrian facility.”
As part of the equestrian community, we are against making this change.
The current mission statement reads:
“The 19th District Agricultural Association and manages Earl Warren Showgrounds as a financially self-supporting entity that maintains a first-class equine facility, promotes and supports agricultural resources, provides facilities for community events, meetings, and emergency response, and furthers the goals and objectives of the Association and the State of California.”
The new proposed mission statement is:
“It is the mission of the 19th District Agricultural Association to serve as stewards of our community asset known as the Earl Warren Showgrounds, providing a multi-use event center that contributes opportunity for community connectivity, learning and growth, entertainment and recreation, and a safe place when emergency strikes, while honoring and reviving our agricultural and equestrian heritage.”
Join the meeting and help us keep equestrian facilities!
Do you have an opinion on something local? Share it with us at . The views and opinions expressed in Op-Ed articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of edhat.
Close EWS, have the State move the equestrian shows to the SYV, there are great properties for rodeos and horse events. EWS is not only an eyesore, but a taxpayer liability- Have the State sell the property to Homeless Inc. and build it up to increase Santa Barbara’s Subsidized housing percentages from 21% of all housing units subsidized to 35%… Just think like a liberal-card-carrying ACLU member.
Close the showgrounds. Expand Adams school and the golf course. Eat the horses.
Earl Warren is a dump!
SBGETSALONG. You had me there, right up until you advocated for widening the 101.
It IS a dump… I don’t know the finances of it all, but SBC should definitely be supporting it. As a large animal evacuation site, it’s invaluable for our area. Fix it up, promote more equine events and other live events and they may be able to strive. More Low-income housing is a ridiculous suggestion.
How disturbing that our community has become anti equestrian and a bunch of complainers. Save the showgrounds! The traffic that has stopped going to Ventura forTarget will now be the traffic to the Ventura county fairgrounds! The Earl Warren has been in our community since 1958 hosting many public and private events for all types of interest and now you complainers want it to stop being an equestrian center how sad, that’s up there with the LA attorney that complained and I think sued over the SB Mission ringing it’s bells during the day and waking up his napping Child. Welcome to Santa Barbara the city of beautiful mtn views, beaches over run by transients, ghost town state st with panhandlers, no shopping center, playgrounds where a parent can’t play with their child if they are over 12 yrs of age or a sibling can’t as well, an unfriendly law enforcement and sanctuary city. Save our equestrian/multi functional facility!
Earl Warren Showgrounds is broken. Just listen to the noise they maliciously blast out well into the surrounding neighborhoods during their “concert” events. They destroyed any local sympathy for their continued operations.
Dwight Murphy did a lot for this town, loved horses and wanted us all to also. It should be called the Dwight Murphy Showgrounds. I’m a newcomer here but I believe in the importance of preserving local identity. Hendix played there, should be a plaque.
Rodeos are NOT a “success”. Rodeos are antiquated cruel events that need to be banished. Animals are NOT here for our entertainment, for our abuse. We need to EVOLVE into kinder beings.
Same here, a big NO for widening the freeway.
Santa Barbara is losing it’s iconic places left and right. The Paradise restaurant is slated to close, Randy Rouse selling it to the same developers that have been building up a storm in the Funk Zone. State St. is a ghost town. The Enterprise Fish Company building is up for sale… when that place goes, I don’t think it will even BE SB anymore. Now this? We cannot lose the Earl Warren Showgrounds!!!! What do we have to do to save it? I love it’s hometown charm. I love how it’s kind of run-down because Santa Barbara has become so uber wealthy in the last couple of decades it is unrecognizable. As for us non-rich locals, I’d sure like my town back.