Syracuse, N.Y. – New York State Fair Director Tom Ryan wants to fill the Grandstand with live acts each night of this year’s 12-day extravaganza.
The fair is 181 days away, and no entertainers – who usually commit to summer fair circuits by now – have been booked.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Ryan told the fair’s advisory board this morning.
That is an understatement of sticky, deep-fried proportions.
Four of the state’s top officials dealing with the fair, including former fair Director Dan O’Hara, are gone after yet another state investigation released last week showed problems of steering contracts to certain bidders and poor oversight over inventory and security at the fairgrounds in Geddes. The main institutional knowledge of fair operations now rests with an assistant director who has three years on the job. And, as in past years, the roofs of some buildings are continuing to crumble.
“We literally want to make sure nothing falls on anybody,” Ryan said.
The fallout of multiple investigations in recent years – including a misdemeanor conviction of former fair Director Peter Cappuccilli – has put the power to solicit and award contracts into the hands of lawyers and auditors in Albany at the Department of Agriculture & Markets and the Office of General Services.
That leaves Ryan in charge of managing the fairgrounds campus and coordinating the fair and 100 or so other events each year.
Ryan, 64, of Little Falls, says he’s up to the task. He comes most recently from the New York State Thruway and Canal Corporation, where as chief of staff he oversaw 3,400 people and a budget of $1 billion. He was a staffer for then-Gov. Mario Cuomo and former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, where he worked with Tim Russert, the late political pundit. Ryan was once an editor at the Plattsburgh Press Republican.
Ryan said he was approached by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s staff in December about the possibility of taking the fair job. After conversations with Cuomo’s staff and Ag & Markets Commissioner Darrel Aubertine – who knew about the state’s Inspector General’s looming report – Ryan said he accepted the job in January. He took over the fair on Feb. 5. He’s making $136,304 a year.
As an outsider to Syracuse, Ryan’s hiring marks a shift from recent fair directors who traditionally were local leaders with political connections selected for what once was the plum patronage job in Central New York.
Ryan said one of his biggest challenges is to change the culture at the fair from a place where lucrative contracts favored certain bidders to one where workers are not afraid to speak up when they see something unprofessional or wrong. He delivered that message last week when he met with the entire fairgrounds staff for the first time.
“The tone has to come from the top,” Ryan said. “It’s a new day. Whatever may have gone on before that wasn’t appropriate will no longer go on.”
Ryan is working closely with Tom Young, the former Syracuse mayor who was fair director from 1975 to 1985.
Ryan said he also wants to draw more visitors from around the state, something the Fair Advisory Board wants as well. Ryan said when he told his friends in Albany he took the fair job, he learned most had never been to the fairgrounds.
Susan Rosenthal said today she’d never heard of the fair before she was hired last year as the top lawyer at Ag & Markets.
Rosenthal said her office is working on a new manual for fair workers outlining ethics guidelines. Each employee will have to sign a document verifying they have read it.
She also said Ag & Markets has hired a new security director for the fairgrounds and that the agency is working on a new contract to improve the security system, another fault found in the inspector general’s report from last week. The agency is close to putting out a bid for an outside auditor to take a look at the fair’s finances.
Ag & Markets is also considering opening a “hotline” so fair workers or others could call in concerns about operations without fearing any retribution from co-workers or supervisors.
Ryan said he has not made any staffing or policy changes at the fair. He admitted he faces a steep learning curve, and he doesn’t want to make changes that have unintended consequences.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed 2013-2014 budget includes an extra $2.5 million for construction upgrades. Ryan said today he's reviewing the fair's five-year construction plan to start to determine which improvements should be made first.
He said ticket prices for the 2013 fair will not change. And, he said, fairgoers will be able to use credit cards to buy tickets at the main gate.
Ryan said he first came to the fair in the mid-1980s when he worked for then-Gov. Mario Cuomo. He’s been several times since, he says, both to bring his son and as a state official. He declined to name his favorite part of the fair, indicating he wanted to avoid slighting the dairy cow, midway attraction or fried-thing-on-a-stick that he didn’t pick.
Ryan said he’s moving to Syracuse and plans to rent a place beginning next month. He said he has no plans to leave the fair job anytime soon.
“This is not a retirement job,” Ryan said. “I have no plans to retire.”