Financial woes force Saline Community Fair to cancel annual parade

By Cindy Heflin Associate news director

Posted on Mon, Aug 13, 2012 : 4:37 p.m.

The Saline Community Fair will go on despite money woes, but some events, including the annual parade through downtown, have been cut.

Adam Rackley, 3, of Ann Arbor, smiles as he wears a frog suit while riding the carousel with his grandfather, Philip Jenkins, at the Saline Community Fair in this 2010 file photo.

Melanie Maxwell I AnnArbor.com

The Saline Community Fair Association, in a letter to the City Council requesting a reduction in the rental fee for a portable stage, cited loss of state aid from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and stormy weather in 2010 as reasons for the financial problems.

“As a result, we have cut premiums to exhibitors; eliminated certain events and moved the fair dates up one week so we are not competing with the opening of school,” the letter states. “For this year we have eliminated the parade in downtown Saline, which will produce a significant savings to the city as well as the fair.”

The fair will still include a children’s parade on the fairgrounds Sept. 1, according to the letter.

The fair runs Aug. 28 through Sept. 3.

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