So the weather outside is frightful, and so
is the shopping season for vendors at Guelph’s Farmers’
Markets… And speaking of the weather outside, that was where produce vendors of
the Market were supposed to be before a last minute reprieve. Yes, the
ingenious solution by the City to the sudden need to move the Farmers’ Market
before the roof on the building at the corner of Gordon and Waterloo collapsed,
was to set up the arts & crafts sellers in the foyer at City Hall, while
sticking the produce sellers in the Wilson St
parking lot. But then last Thursday, the City said they had more room than they
thought, and all venders were moved inside. However due to Echo Weekly’s deadlines,
I’m not sure how this whole thing turned out, but the process leading up to it
was, to use the correct terminology, a gong show.
It started a couple of weeks ago when
vendors at the Market were told that repairs were needed on the roof of the
building. Repairs were needed, said the City, but it isn’t so bad that the
building would have to be shut down for, say, eight to ten weeks so that
repairs could be made. That was Saturday November 27. Precisely
one week later came word from Derek McCaughan, the
city’s director of operations and transit, saying that if you even breathe on
the roof wrong it’ll fall like a house of cards.
Okay, he didn’t
actually say that, but the message at a meeting between city reps and the vendors
of the Farmers’ Market on Saturday December 4 was that we need to
get you guys out of here because this roof will fall with even a hint of snow.
This after saying exactly seven days earlier that despite the need for repairs,
it would take a “once in 50 years snowfall” to collapse the roof of the Market
building. And before you can say that the announcement caused outrage amongst
the vendors, the outrage was already on…
The first option
presented was to move the Farmers’ Market to an old bus barn on 12 Municipal St., which, apparently, was the closest,
biggest and most conveniently located facility which could house the Farmers’
Market. After a health inspection, the bus barn was, surprisingly, deemed
unsuitable. As it turned out it would have taken longer to bring the barn up to
code in order to temporarily house the Market, then it would take to do the
repairs on the Market’s building. The result was the Solomon-like decision that
you read at the top of the column. And although meat and cheese were initially
shut out, the option to sell frozen meat was made available. But considering
most vendors sell fresh that probably wasn’t much of a consultation.
Seriously, if you
are a vendor at the Farmers’ Market or a user of the Farmers’ Market, you
really have every right to get ticked off. From the City’s changing appraisal
of the direness of the situation to the Michael Brown (as in “Brownie, you’re
doing a heck of job…”) like response to the problem, there are a lot of
questions in the air about just what the heck went wrong. Why did the roof
problem get so dire, so fast? Was there no where else that the City could have
moved the Market to? There was no contingency plan in the works prior to last
week? Especially, since they knew the roof was an issue since last July
Those are serious
questions and in an article in the Guelph Mercury even McCaughan conceded that
there weren’t enough answers for the questions people have. In the absence of
actual answers, the vacuum is being filled by pundits and conspiracy theorists.
One person sent a letter to the Mercury saying that they were “convinced that
the City of Guelph is undertaking to systematically and
methodically disrupt, dismantle and dissolve the farmers market as we know it
today.” They added that recent by-law adjustments and a new insurance
requirement were also part of that campaign, and now that those didn’t
completely work, the City is moving to a more aggressive measure.
Of course, letting
air into a conspiracy theory is like leaving the food on your plate to grow
more fungus, it’ll keep spreading until you get the dish soap out and disinfect
that sucker. Despite the statement in her inaugural address about promoting better
communication between the City and its people, this kick-off issue of the new
term shows that there’s still a divide, and it’s one of the city’s making. As
of the Farmers’ Market only one thing is certain, it will probably never be the
same again.
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