County Evicts Carnival Workers About 20 Had Been Living At Fairgrounds In Tents And Trailers

The woman named Marge sat inside a rusted open-ended freight trailer that was the best home she and her husband have had for some time.

There was no furniture or electricity, just a flannel sleeping bag and two-burner Coleman stove. The couple carried water from Rainier Shows’ massive shop next door.

There was a portable toilet outside and a shower in another of Rainier’s trailers.

“It’s pretty dry in here. I sleep good, go to bed early, get up early,” said Marge, who would not give her last name. “We have our privacy.”

Until Thursday, when Spokane County commissioners ordered them evicted, 20 other carnival workers also had similar accommodations at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds.

Some stayed in beat-up travel trailers, others in tents pitched inside cavernous trailers like Marge’s. They move with Rainier’s carnival - Spokane this month, Ephrata, Bellingham, Wenatchee and Auburn later in the spring - camping at fairgrounds where Rainier sets up its rides.

Paid minimum wage and unemployed most of the year, most cannot afford motel rooms or even the cost of a campground.

They are migrant workers whose crop is painted lights, metallic paint and laughter. Their poverty shows in their gap-toothed smiles, rough talk and patched jeans.

One couple - rare permanent workers for Rainier - lived year-round at the fairgrounds with their 13-year-old daughter and dog. Wooden pallets formed a sidewalk and patio outside their trailer, and potted, dying junipers were their garden.

Terry L. Purcell, one of the carnies camped at the fairgrounds, was arrested before dawn Sunday for allegedly raping a 13-year-old girl in his trailer.

It was while reading a newspaper account of the rape that Fran Boxer, the county’s assistant administrator, learned that people were living on the remote corner of the fairgrounds.

Commissioners didn’t know, either, said Boxer, and were concerned the county might be held liable if someone is injured - or if Purcell is found guilty.

A string of fair managers dating back nearly 20 years knew about the campers, and gave their approval, said Treena Andersen, Rainier’s owner.

“In fact, they’d came back here every year and say, ‘We want your trailers over here,” behind the shop, Andersen said. The trailers are out of sight from any road, and from areas of the fairgrounds used by the public.

The fairgrounds is between managers now. The last one, Paul Gillingham, was forced to resign last year for mismanagement and exceeding his budget by more than $200,000. Gillingham has moved from the state, and could not be located for comment.

The living arrangements violate a contract Rainier signed with the county in 1979.

County commissioners that year agreed to lease 20,000 square feet of undeveloped land to the carnival company for $1 a year. Rainier was allowed to erect its shop on the land, with the understanding that the 18,000-square-foot building becomes county property when the lease expires in 2004.

Rainier stores its rides and other equipment in the steel building during winter. Someone must live there to prevent vandalism, Andersen insisted.

But the lease prohibited trailers “of either a permanent or temporary nature for residential purposes …”

“You’ll have to hire security guards,” Boxer told Andersen.

On Thursday, Andersen told the carnies to pack up.

“Everybody’s going to move out to my house, that’s all I can do,” she told her worried workers.

She said she wonders what county officials expect the workers to do.

“They’re human beings,” Andersen said. “They need bathrooms and showers.”

And she worries that people who read about Purcell will assume all carnies are dangerous.

“Everyone out here is shocked and upset” about the alleged crime, she said.

In Andersen’s mobile office is a plaque thanking Rainier Shows for its support of the Spokane Sexual Assault Center. Andersen said she helped organize tonight’s Chocolate and Champagne Gala, which raises money for the center.

Each carny is tested for drugs before they’re hired, and randomly tested during the carnival season, she said. But Andersen doesn’t do background checks, which would have showed that Purcell, who was starting his second season with Rainier, once was convicted of car theft.

The carnies say it’s not fair that Purcell’s arrest led to their eviction.

“He screwed up and we’ve all got to pay,” said Marge.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos (1 Color)