PLEASANTON — With the Alameda County racetrack and stables set to close next month, there is a growing concern about an estimated 5,000 residents, many of them low-income and minority workers, who live and work on the grounds and could be forced to move.
Not only do horses need to be off the premises by March 25, but so do the families who reside in the RV park at the county fairgrounds.
At a meeting this month packed with tearful horse trainers, owners and enthusiasts, Alameda County Agricultural Fair Association officials acknowledged how disruptive it could be for students whose families may have to move out of the Pleasanton Unified School District in the middle of the spring semester.
The racing community has been up in arms over the closure, asking county officials to give them additional time.
“You’re asking people to uproot their families in the middle of a school year,” one woman said while choking back tears during the Feb. 11 meeting of the fair association’s ad hoc committee. “‘A lot of those students are immigrants, they’re already at a disadvantage … I feel very strongly about you guys displacing so many people in today’s social environment. It’s high tension everywhere, and this is another thing adding to it.”
Whatever happens with racing, however, county Supervisor David Haubert said something must be done to help the families, many of whom work at the fairgrounds and stables.
“I think that people should be allowed to stay, retain their jobs, retain their housing, retaining their children’s place in school – at least until school lets out in June,” Haubert said in an interview. “I just don’t see the wisdom in putting people out of work, and moving families that may turn homeless, and yanking children out of school. It shouldn’t happen if we can avoid it. It would be a shame.”
Haubert also pointed out that the fair’s wastewater has been found recently out of compliance with local discharge regulations, meaning that runoff water at the fair has especially high levels of pollution. Officials still have not figured out how to deal with the wastewater issues, and it will add more difficulty to reopening racing as the spring fair approaches.
But if workers and people living on the site are not gone by the March 25 deadline, they could face fines from the State Water Quality Control Board, according to officials.
One dedicated local horse trainer, George Schmitt, said he has previously proposed offering the fair $2 million with fellow thoroughbred horse rancher John Harris of Harris Ranch in Coalinga, to cover the operating costs to keep the grounds and stables open for horses. His proposal comes with the stipulation that races run on just the weekends, Schmitt said. But fair officials have not accepted his offer, he said during the meeting.
“We’re willing to give the money to the fair and take it back. We’re not willing to bail CARF (the California Authority of Racing Fairs) out, we’re not willing to put money into purses. But the operating money is there,” Schmitt said. “And I know you’re going to throw us all out, and that’s fine. But you need to understand why it is that free money couldn’t keep this enterprise going.”
Haubert said he hopes the proposal will pan out, but he called it a “Hail Mary.”
“We’re going to review it and forward it to the fair board for their consideration if it gets that far,” Haubert said. “I’m hopeful that it can continue at this fair and into the future. If it can’t make it into this fair, I’m hopeful that maybe it can be reinstated next year.”
In late January, the California Authority of Racing Fairs, the governing body which organized a circuit of races through Northern California fairs, announced there would be no more races in the upper half of the state for the foreseeable future. Typically, a full run of races are held at the Pleasanton fairgrounds through June, and the elimination of something that’s been around for generations has devastated the local racing community.
Over the past few weeks, the number of horses housed at the fairgrounds has continued to dwindle, down from 900 horses last winter to just a few hundred.
Emmanuel Trujillo, who said his father is a horse trainer at the grounds, said his work has been cut down to half time, throwing him into a frenzy trying to make ends meet. He asked officials to “give us a little more time.”
“Now everyday I’ve got to worry about if I’m going to make my house payment or not,” he said. “I’m just so fed up … My dad’s probably going to go to Seattle, Washington. I can’t go there because I’ve got to get another job to pay off my loan. My kids are in school.”
Jerome Hoban, CEO of the county fair association, tried to assure the public that the fair did not want to dissolve racing, but that instead it was due to financial challenges, such as a bankrupt CARF, that forced the fair’s hand.
“None of us want horse racing to go away. We’re faced with a situation where we can’t afford it, or we’re going to bankrupt ourselves,” Hoban said during the meeting. “We share your concerns. I don’t want to be the board member that walks away from a 125-year celebration of horse racing. This is not good. This is not good for anybody.”
Hoban added that despite a “very strong effort” to keep racing alive in Northern California, “we have not been able to see a clear path forward.”
In a draft letter co-signed by Haubert, state Assemblywoman Liz Ortega, D-Hayward, has asked the state water board to find a way to allow at least 499 horses to remain at the stables out of fear of displacing the workers and families that accompany the animals.
“It disheartens me to say, if this situation is not rectified, we could see the elimination of one of the oldest ‘annual’ County fairs in the country,” wrote Ortega, whose district includes parts of Pleasanton.