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The idea of local people eating locally grown food continues to make headlines in Woodside. A new farmers’ market is coming on Sunday afternoons to Woodside Elementary School, and the Town Council expressed interest on Tuesday (March 26) in a public referendum in November on whether to allow that new market to move to town-owned property.
And now there’s news from Portola Valley.
The Town Council agreed on Wednesday (March 27) to a proposal by Brandi de Garmeaux, the town’s sustainable practices coordinator, to allot one Saturday morning a month in a redwood grove at Town Center for an hour-long “garden share,” a free exchange of local produce and gardening tips among residents.
A few minutes later, the council sounded cautiously agreeable to Ms. de Garmeaux’s idea for a once-a-week farmers’ market a few feet away from the redwood grove in the parking lot of the Historic Schoolhouse. The town would limit the number of vendors and the space allocated, and focus on locally grown organic produce “in line with our sustainability goals here,” Ms. de Garmeaux added.
The council’s caution concerned the views of local tax-paying merchants on the potential for drop-in competitors who don’t have that tax burden. Outreach to local merchants is clearly needed, said Councilwoman Ann Wengert, who also recommended having a trial market to see how it goes.
If Ms. de Garmeaux was seeking direction from the council, she got it. “I think everyone here thinks it’s a great idea,” Mayor John Richards said.
One idea nixed from Woodside’s farmers’ markets — the presence of a food truck or two — sounded as if it would be part of the conversation in Portola Valley, though not without the views of local merchants taken into consideration.
Woodside’s restrictions
While the new Sunday farmers’ market in Woodside has a temporary home on the elementary school campus, the council is seeking a permanent home on public property. The obvious place would the parking lot near Independence Hall, but Measure J, passed in 1988 by Woodside residents, restricts the commercial use of public property in Town Center.
While Measure J excludes commercial development, it is at least arguable that the legal language of Measure J does not exclude commercial uses such as farmers’ markets, attorney and Councilman Ron Romines said. “I think that’s important because I don’t think anything like a farmers’ market was even contemplated at the time it was passed,” he said.
The council did not disagree, but did appear more interested in erring on the side of caution and asking the voters on a ballot measure for the regularly scheduled election in November. A staff report is set for the second meeting in May, with ballot language ready by August to meet the schedule of the San Mateo County Elections Office.
“I would hate to see us fudge to pass something. I would prefer (that) something to be really clean,” councilwoman Deborah Gordon said, using “fudge” to refer to to an artful interpretation of the measure’s restrictions.
Councilman Dave Burow agreed. “The risk (of artful interpretation) is much greater than the benefit.”
It’d be wonderful if The Almanac did a story on Collective Roots and its food growing predecessors here in East Palo Alto. Not only is there a great project going on right now between Stanford, Collective Roots & the earlier agriculturists here in EPA, but Collective Roots has a fabulous CSA program AND farmer’s market. Residents can have a free garden bed at their home or on site at Collective Roots. There’re also gardening and cooking classes, a seed and tool library, volunteer roles and food sharing. It’s a marvelous nonprofit who’re making a real difference here in what has previously been a real food desert.
People in PV & Woodside can afford just about anything that they want to eat. Having these choices is a privilege that most people are blind to. Choosing local, sustainable food & food sharing is a wonderful way to alter one’s lifestyle. Here in EPA, it’s vital for the health & well-being of the residents to learn that the $$ cost of a food item isn’t always its most important cost to us, in the long term. But right now, it’s all about the money & not about long term health of residents, the community & the planet. This needs to change!