WESTBROOK–The Westbrook City Council this week took a step toward making it easier to relocate the small farmers market in the city, but where exactly the market will move remains to be decided.
Suggestions for a new home include Saccarappa Park, Bicentennial Park and Riverbank Park, where the market once flourished some years ago. The market currently meets in a municipal parking lot off William Clarke Drive, but vendors want to move because that roadway is under construction.
The council on Monday took an initial vote approving an ordinance change that will make it easier for the city to move the farmers market if needed.
Also, members of the Facilities & Streets Committee agreed to set a meeting for 6:30 p.m. on July 12 to discuss the issue of where to locate the market, and take public comment on it.
The full City Council is slated to meet at 7 p.m. following the committee meeting and take a vote on the issue then. Committee and council meetings are held at Westbrook High School in Room 114.
A request to temporarily relocate the farmers market for about a year came before the council at its meeting on Monday, June 28.
The market is held on Thursdays and Fridays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the city parking lot off William Clarke Drive next to the CVS drugstore. Four vendors currently are registered with the city as participants, according to the office of the City Clerk.
But the state has just launched a major reconstruction project to redesign William Clarke Drive, and work will go on for about a year. Traffic backups and delays are already occurring, so the current market participants asked the city to move the market during construction, according to Jerre Bryant, the city administrator.
However, the market’s location is set by city ordinance, so relocating it requires an ordinance change, involving a lengthy two-reading approval process by the City Council.
To make relocating the market easier and quicker for the city, the council on Monday voted unanimously on first reading to amend the ordinance so that councilors could simply approve a change in the market’s location at a single council meeting.
The amendment of the ordinance will now come before the council at its July 12 meeting.
However, in the process of voting to amend the ordinance on Monday, there was considerable debate about where the market’s new home should be, whether temporary or permanent.
City staff had considered available city parks and parking lots and at the meeting recommended moving the market, at least temporarily, to Saccarappa Park off Bridge Street.
Bryant said the location wasn’t ideal, because the farmers’ trucks would have to set up on the grass. But, he said that location “seemed to have the fewest drawbacks.”
However, Councilor Paul Emery raised a concern that heavy rains could make the ground so soft that the grass could become rutted and destroyed, and the city would be responsible for repairing it.
Bryant admitted, “That’s a major downside of that location.”
Councilor John O’Hara also said that the site was “not customer friendly” because it was so small.
He suggested moving the farmers market back to Riverside Park on Main Street.
O’Hara said the market was most successful there and has lost customers in the three or four times it has been relocated since then.
The farmers market was located in Riverside Park some years ago. Bryant, who has worked for the city for eight years, said Wednesday that the market was already gone from that park when he became city administrator and he doesn’t know why it moved.
Bryant told councilors that a big concern about relocating the market back to Riverside Park today is that it would bring more traffic into the park, where a new playground is constantly filled with small children.
The playground, he said, was rebuilt about three years ago, and “is incredibly popular for families with young children.” The playground is located next to a major driveway into the park.
However, Bryant said, “we’ll look very hard to see if the market could go back there if we can mitigate the traffic concern.”
He said that Bicentennial Park, a municipal park located off William Clarke Drive near the Hannaford supermarket, was also considered by the city. However, he said, that site also would be impacted by the construction on William Clarke Drive and the reconstruction of a major sewer line that runs through the parking lot there.
Two farmers who attended Monday’s meeting expressed dissatisfaction with the current site, saying it attracts few customers and has parking problems.
“It’s got to be changed,” said John Needham, who lives on Lisa Harmon Drive but works for a farm in Standish.
Source: http://www.keepmecurrent.com/american_journal/news/article_5159de24-8541-11df-a7c1-001cc4c002e0.html
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