City likely to approve farmers market move

SOUTH PORTLAND — It appears city councilors are set to approve moving the South Portland Farmers’ Market out of Thomas Knight Park, where it struggled though its first summer last year, and onto Hinckley Drive, when the growers come out of winter quarters at the old Hamlin School gym sometime in mid-May.

Four of six councilors present at a workshop Monday spoke in favor of the move, which would require closing the road that runs alongside Mill Creek Park, between Ocean Street and Cottage Road, on Thursdays from 2-7 p.m. Only Councilor Rosemarie De Angelis voiced reservations, although she made clear that her support for the market remains as strong as when, during her term as mayor, she helped spearhead its creation.

“I support the market with my dollars and in other ways wherever it needs to be,” she said, “but we have to think about parking. People think of Mill Creek being just full of parking, but it’s all private lots.”

The council will conduct a first reading on the proposed move at its May 7 meeting, along with changes to insurance requirements on participating vendors. The street-closing concept will then go to the Planning Board on May 8 for a special exception permit. However, whether that permit is needed, as well as the next steps after the Planning Board visit, remain unclear.

Also unresolved is whether the move, if it’s made, will last.

“Maybe a one-year trial is a possibility,” said Councilor Tom Blake. “We need to be flexible – not just this year, but every year. It could change again. Who knows?”

Still, those who spoke Monday, including both property owners and potential vendors, were more concerned about this season.

Tom Noyce, owner of 170 Ocean St., where Town & Country Federal Credit Union is located, joined everyone at Monday’s meeting by saying he “fully supports the farmers market.” However, he joined De Angelis in expressing concern over what an influx of traffic and a closed road would mean for his property.

“It definitely will change traffic flow through my private parking lot,” he said. “I’m concerned about displacing employee and customer parking to those viable businesses. It’s a very good cause but, again, these are private businesses.”

One plan aired Monday calls on 24 vendor booths to be located on either side of Hinckley Drive, between Ocean Street and the Hinckley entrance to the credit union. Another, designed for 41 booths, would extend “around the bend” on Hinckley Drive to the People’s United Bank entrance.

Although the larger layout would block his tenants’ access to Hinckley Drive, Noyce said he preferred that option, as it would limit people trying to shortcut to Hannaford from Ocean Street. De Angelis backed the larger plan, as well, citing safety concerns over motorists not seeing the market until they “whipped around the bend.”

Meanwhile, Dan Mooers cautioned that extreme care has to be given until motorists acclimate to the change. As a Rotary Club member, Mooers chaired February’s inaugural winter festival, which also blocked off Hinckley Drive for its activities.

“I can’t tell you how many cars came around the barricades,” he said. “I had a car full of four nuns that I had to flag down in the street before they hit our hockey net.”

Despite logistical issues, participating farmers say the change is needed to make their wares more visible and attractive to passing motorists on Broadway. The Thomas Knight Park location was faulted for its relative solitude, although other issues, including a late-season start, regular Thursday rains, and ankle-wrecking cobblestones also have been blamed for low market attendance last year.

Regardless, farmers say they need a change.

“Knightville was a great idea,” said Dick Piper, who sells grass-fed beef raised on his Buckfield ranch. “But it failed as far as I’m concerned. I’m grateful for the people who started it, but I can’t afford to keep coming here to lose money.”

Debate over a home for the market has raged behind the scenes in South Portland since Feb. 27, when De Angelis asked the council to approve a sign on Broadway advertising its Waterman Drive location. Some councilors, like Jerry Jalbert, questioned if such city-sponsored promotion would send the wrong signal to other Knightville businesses.

As an alternative, Jalbert suggested the Hinckley relocation to market manager Caitlin Jordan, a Cape Elizabeth town councilor and a principal partner in her family’s Alewives Brook Farm. Jordan acknowledges she jumped at the idea, having favored the Mill Creek location from the start.

However, Jalbert’s self-described “offhand suggestion” touched off a firestorm of acrimony, in which he was accused of lobbying his peers outside the public process, while two groups created by the market’s enabling ordinance – the farmers market association and the citizens advisory committee – argued over which ranked higher in the decision-making hierarchy.

In emails provided by two committee members, a general breakdown in diplomatic relations appears to begin with a March 31 email in which Jordan allegedly wrote that she was “sick of the advisory committee.”

The Current filed a Freedom of Access Act request for those emails on April 11, and then filed an amended request on April 19 when the city claimed the initial request for emails to and from the seven-person farmers market advisory committee generated 380,000 hits.

Still, based on documents provided by committee members, growing resentment among the farmers’ faction appeared to hinge on accusations that De Angelis and/or Mayor Patti Smith was delaying consideration of the Hinckley proposal until acquiescence to Thomas Knight Park could be restored.

Smith said Monday, “There was no stonewalling.” The delay from introduction of the issue in late February was simply a matter of poor timing, she said, observing that the annual budgeting process had to take precedence though March and April for workshop time.

At Monday’s meeting, Jordan said that while 19 farmers have verbally committed to the South Portland market this year, only five have submitted written applications.

“The rest are waiting to see what’s going on,” she said. “And of the five, three have told me they are going to pull their papers if something doesn’t happen soon.

“If we don’t get going soon, there won’t be farmers at the farmers market,” said Jordan. “It’s getting very late in the season for them to being doing the planning they should have done last month. They are not going to ride this out.”

But while the Broadway sign issue that launched the discussion appears to be resolved – Jordan said the market association can’t afford it – other issues arose Monday. Jordan and Town Manager Jim Gailey reported different advice from the city planning department on whether a Planning Board waiver would be required to close Hinckley Drive. The decision appears to hinge on whether the South Portland Farmers’ Market is simply a market that happens to stage in South Portland or if, based on specific zoning language that allows it to exist, it is an official function of the city.

“I really don’t know the answer to that right now,” said Gailey after Monday’s meeting, when asked for an interpretation.

During the meeting, Gailey did say that, based on the farmers’ eagerness to open, they might be able to do so before second reading and final passage May 21 to set the Hinckley Drive location.

Councilor Alan Livingston said he was “not comfortable with that,” stumping instead or a special meeting May 10 to wrap things up.

However, no decision was made beyond pushing the market issue to the council’s May 7 meeting.