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Second Sebastopol farmers market put on ice
https://www.sonomawest.com/sonoma_west_times_and_news/news/second-sebastopol-farmers-market-put-on-ice/article_13d2426c-e714-11e1-bb02-001a4bcf887a.html
Posted: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 1:02 pm
by David Abbott Sonoma West Editor
[email protected]
REFM withdraws application for Vet’s Hall location
Sebastopol’s planning commission will have to find something else to do with its time on Aug. 28, as the application for the proposed farmers market at the Sebastopol Veteran’s Hall — soon to be the location of the Center for the Arts — has been withdrawn by the Redwood Empire Farmers Markets (REFM).
“We’ve withdrawn our application,” said REFM President Rob Cary. “It’s not clear how we’re going to move forward at the moment.”
The announcement in late July that there would be a new market at the site adjacent to Ives Park generated a buzz in the community, with many questioning the motives behind the proposal. Several members of REFM, including treasurer Dan Smith and founding members Nancy Prebilich and Nancy Holland, had been denied spaces at both the Santa Rosa and Sebastopol farmers markets by market manager Paula Downing.
Others questioned whether Sebastopol could support two farmers markets on one day, if at all.
Cary expressed confidence that a second farmers market would benefit Sebastopol. “This is going to be a great addition to downtown Sebastopol. … We want more farmers making more money and more people getting more and better food,” Cary wrote in a press release announcing the market, likening farmers markets to grocery stores, saying that, “In the West County, (Sebastopol is) the supermarket.”
But Whitney McEvoy, Irene Gillooly and Susan Falbo of Not Yer Momma’s Granola disputed that comparison in a commentary in Sonoma West Times & News (“Letter to the Arts Center regarding farmers markets,” Aug. 9.
“A thriving Farmers Market is not a less structured version of a supermarket,” they wrote, “It is a carefully curated event, comprised of individuals who produce what they sell, joined in community, with personal relationships between participating vendors, and vendors and their customers. … We customize our products and our services, and we try and act conscientiously toward each other with an eye not just to our current profit, but also to our impact on the welfare of our community long-term.”
The trio posited that a competing market would not increase access to fresh food, but would act as a divisive influence on the community and harm local farmers and small businesses.
Downing echoed that sentiment, saying that Santa Rosa’s Original Farmers Market, now located at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, is still recovering from its travails over the past year.
“It’s divisive. A farmers market is a social event and having two markets will hurt in the long run and in the short run,” she said. “We’ve been through this in Santa Rosa. It really hurts because the level of income is so low.” Downing was referring to REFM’s successful take over of the farmers market venue at the Santa Rosa Veterans Hall, which earlier this year forced Dowling to move her farmers market to the Wells Fargo Center.
Downing said that her vendors in Santa Rosa, who make $300 to $1,000 per day, who she said have been losing about 20 percent of their income since the markets split earlier this year.
She also believes that the space at the Sebastopol Veteran’s Hall could be better used to host fundraisers that could make more money for the Arts Center.
“A market isn’t going to make money for the Center for the Arts,” she said. “I say let’s work together and do something collaborative and figure out a way to co-exist.”
In a newsletter dated July 29 and distributed at the Sebastopol Farmers Market, Downing said that the proposed market was a “personal vendetta” against her by Smith. She offered to resign if he would “discontinue harming so many people.”
Prebilich, who along with Holland of Gleason Ranch in Bodega incorporated the non-profit REFM in April 2011, distanced herself from the actions of Cary and Smith, saying that they moved forward with the proposed Sebastopol market without consulting the REFM board, which is composed of 11 board members. Of those, seven were appointed from the community and four elected by the vendors.
“We’re not focusing on Sebastopol, we’re in Santa Rosa recovering from what’s taken place,” she said. “All I want and all the vendors want is a protected opportunity to sell our product.”
She added that Cary’s press release came as a surprise to many of the vendors of the REFM Santa Rosa market that occupies the space at the Santa Rosa Veteran’s Hall.
But as of Tuesday, for the foreseeable future, the structure of the competing markets will remain the same, although, according to Cary, there is now an opportunity for a dialog about the issue.
“We think that it has started a discussion as to how to get more farmers into farmers markets,” Cary said, adding, “There’s more than one way to skin that cat.”
Smith said that the application was pulled because “other opportunities” may be coming available.
“There are farmers that definitely want to be in Sebastopol,” Smith said.