The State Fair Is Still Scared To Show Anyone Its Financial Records And Has Now Spent $1 Million In Legal Fees To Keep Its Figures Secret.

Unlike seemingly every other media outlet in Dallas and, to a degree, the whole goddamn state, we here at Central Track aren’t exactly enamored with the State Fair of Texas. Why? Because, for starters, we’re not kids any more, and we’re no longer oblivious to the ways of the world. But also for a litany of other reasons, which we’ll happily run down for you here, one per day, over the entire course of the fair’s 2019 run, adding to the list we ran throughout the fair’s 2017 run.

As we’ve mentioned before, the State Fair of Texas isn’t exactly forthcoming when it pertains to its financial history.

In fact, the fair has consistently jumped through legal hoop after legal hoop to try and prevent so much as a receipt for a corny dog from being released to the public.

This is especially frustrating for the Austin-based law firm Riggs & Ray, which has been deadlocked in efforts to obtain documentation of the fair’s financial records since 2015. The firm argues that the fair should be obligated to share this information under a Texas law that requires any public entity “that spends or that is supported in whole or in part by public funds” to provide such documents.

But the fair refuses to abide by this. According to its own tax records, the State Fair of Texas has now spent nearly $1 million in legal fees alone as part of its efforts to stop Riggs & Ray from prying Big Tex’s wallet information from his faulty-fingered hands.

A million dollars just to not share its financial records? Don’t you think that’s a lot of money to spend — especially considering that the fair totally swears that its numbers will reveal no malfeasance? Follow-up question: When was the last time you spent $1 million on principle?

Furthermore: If the fair isn’t up to no good, why wouldn’t it just allocate these funds toward competitively paying its employees or aiding in the repair of Fair Park’s crumbling buildings?

We don’t know. Because the fair refuses to show us.

Cover illustration by Lucas Buckels.

More Reasons Why The State Fair Of Texas Sucks:

  1. Its history is super racist!
  2. It’s a major drain on Dallas police!
  3. It’s bad for your health!
  4. It’s so damn expensive!
  5. It’s not the economic driver it says it is!
  6. It’s a super shitty neighbor!
  7. It’s an altar to false idols!
  8. It makes Fair Park useless!
  9. It wastes city funds on out-of-towners!
  10. It exploits cute animals!
  11. Its executives take home too much money!
  12. Everything on the midway is a ripoff.
  13. It has willfully ignored its obligations and allowed Fair Park to fall into disrepair!
  14. It refuses to be transparent about the way it spends public funds.
  15. It can’t handle Fair Park’s long-term needs.
  16. Its lauded scholarship program is a joke compared to those of other, similar events.
  17. It uses fear tactics in its negotiations with the city.
  18. It goes out of its way to shield its crowds from the poor black neighborhood that surrounds Fair Park.
  19. Its low-level employees get burned by its executives’ bad business decisions.
  20. Its ticket-based economy is designed to squeeze even more cash out of attendees.
  21. It cares way too much about parking lots that go unused most of the year.
  22. It’s petty as fuck.
  23. It celebrates humanity’s fucked up relationship with livestock.
  24. It refuses to change.
  25. It can be easily debated.
  26. Its concert bookings could be heated up a few degrees.
  27. It’s tearing the Fletcher family apart!
  28. It’s spent a least $1 million to keep its books out of the public eye. What’s it hiding?
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