Fooling with the market

An email sent April 1 regarding the future of Chico’s Saturday farmer’s market was headlined, “URGENT Farmer’s Market CANCELED.” The message read, “Following an emergency closed session meeting of the Chico City Council, in a vote of 4-3, the Saturday Morning Downtown Chico Farmers Market has been CANCELED, effective at the end of the month.”

Those who failed to scroll to the bottom of the message missed this important explanation: “This has been a test of the emergency APRIL FOOLS alert system. Had this been an actual emergency it would be December 1, 2014, and the Market WOULD BE CANCELED at the end of the month.”

The email was sent by Natalie Carter, office manager for the Chico Certified Farmers’ Market, at the suggestion of Richard Coon, chairman of the CCFM’s board of directors. The announcement was also posted to the CCFM’s website.

The joke is grounded in the ongoing effort by market supporters to qualify a ballot measure for the November election that would give the market a six-year lease and expanded use of the municipal parking lot at Second and Wall streets, where it has resided for the past 21 years.

Some downtown merchants say the market takes up too many parking spaces during its Saturday morning run and should move. Suggestions for a new location include the parking lot that serves city hall between Fourth and Fifth streets just west of Flume Street, just south of its current location.

The market folks say that lot will not serve their needs in part because the parking stalls are too shallow to accommodate their vending stalls.

Relations between the city and the market soured last year when an ad-hoc group was formed to try to find a solution. But market supporters, including a group called Friends of the Farmers’ Market, questioned the process. The CCFM’s board of directors sent a letter that said the market would not take part in discussions under the proposed conditions. Now the market’s franchise agreement is set to expire at the end of this year.

City Attorney Lori Barker said the initiative being circulated does not comply with the state constitution in that it specifically “identifies a private corporation that may perform any function or have any power or duty.”

The CCFM’s attorney, Keith Wagner of Sacramento, in a memorandum to market supporter and former Chico Mayor Karl Ory, identifies the part of the constitution Baker is referring to as Article II, section 12. According to Wagner, that part of the constitution says, “No… statute proposed to the electors… by initiative, that … names or identifies any private corporation to perform any function or to have any power or duty, may be submitted to the electors or have any effect.”

He explained that the “initiative measure spells out the details and terms of the farmers market’s operation, and does not grant CCFM the types of prospective, governmental consultation and decision-making powers that have caused other measures to run afoul of Article II, Section 12.”

At a March 25 City Council meeting, a group of market supporters showed up because they’d been told the matter would be discussed during a closed-session council meeting. Ory said Barker, who is retiring April 11, had told him the initiative did not conform to the state constitution and that she would be informing the council of that during that closed session. But the council didn’t act on the matter. Only five of the seven council members participated in that part of the closed session because Mary Goloff was absent and Ann Schwab recused herself because she is part owner of a downtown business.

Vice Mayor Mark Sorensen said at this point the council has nothing planned.

“We hope the farmers’ market folks actually want to talk about and negotiate with the city,” he said. “If they don’t want to talk to you, it makes it tough. This is like a waste hauler putting on an initiative to become the sole franchise to serve the city of Chico.”

Barker said the council would have to decide whether to go to court to challenge the petition.

“There’s probably two ways to do that,” she said. “One is to just file a complaint to have it declared improper so it won’t be put on the ballot or you can actually challenge the improper initiative at any time, so that even if it were to go to the voters, it could be challenged then.”

Mayor Scott Gruendl said the important thing is to let the public know what is going on.

“For government to say, ‘We’re not even going to let you collect signatures’ is a pretty harsh thing to be doing regardless of the legalities of the petition,” he said. “The perception would automatically be that we are messing with the democratic process. I think it’s kind of cool in a way that we can raise the question and just do it in a way that people are provided with some additional information and can make the decision on their own.”