Ingram wants contract for ‘rock star’ fair manager

Anybody who knows anything about Lassen County District 5 Supervisor Jason Ingram will tell you you’d better be ready for his response if a person, issue or need punches his passion button and he decides he wants to do something about it.

At the Tuesday, Aug. 20, Lassen County Board of Supervisor’s meeting, Ingram stuck up for apparently embattled Lassen County Fair Manager Kaitlyn Midgley.

Midgley drew the board’s attention after law enforcement expressed concerns about security at the fair.

Click here to see our July 31 story.

At a later meeting the board approved several contracts for this week’s Hidden Woods Festival.

“I’d like to get an item on the agenda for next week’s board meeting,” Ingram said. “It’s come to my attention over the weekend that our fair manager is out seeking employment elsewhere because she’s worried about her employment status moving forward, and I think that’s sad. I think it’s a shame. She’s a rock star. Anybody who does as good a job as she does deserves to have job security.

“With that, I’d like to get this on the agenda to possibly have our fair manager as a contracted employee, whether it’s a two-year or four-year contract moving forward. And also, consider her a department head to where she reports to our CAO and doesn’t have to come before the board for anything she’s doing. I spoke with her over the weekend after I heard that rumor, and it’s true — any good employee with the county should feel like she or he has got job security … It upsets me. We have the best fair manager. I’ve had the best time at the fair the last couple of years. (She’s) out looking for a job because she’s worried about having a job next year. That’s disheartening to say the least.”

Later in the meeting, during the county administrator’s report, Richard Egan commented on Ingram’s request.

“You all heard Supervisor Ingram request an item for next week’s agenda,” Egan said. “I want to do my best to bring that forward in a fashion that allows us to be productive with it. It occurs to me that with Mr. Ingram’s comments, almost immediately digressing into an inappropriate discussion about an individual employee’s performance … It just occurred to me that maybe there’s a better forum to discuss this. I’d like to discuss that with counsel. We have other methods to do with that. There’s a lot to it, Just taking out one department head and treating them differently than all the other department heads, I think is problematic.”

Egan asked the board for a little more direction.

Several supervisors agreed with Egan’s opinion.