001this is the public market advisory Commission meeting it is um February 16th and it is 5 32 so can you do the roll call Stephanie or a commissional commissioner Farrell president hi hello welcome back thanks commissioner Willette here commissioner wolf you're commissioner young here and Jeff is currently not present but that may change as we go through okay then our first order of business is the approval of the agenda does anyone have any additions or changes to the agenda see Peter shaking his head okay um hearing none can I get a motion to approve the agenda I moved to approve and a second great Eric raised his hand a second um all in favor say aye erase your hand I great and so that's unanimous all right next order of business is the first public
002comment all right um would any members of the public like to participate go ahead and virtually raise your hand if I can see you we've got one person on the phone that I can see oh yes I see a hand there it was a little bit of a lag I'm going to allow you to talk go right ahead hello this is Carlene Gates hello um this is Carlene and I am wanting to um just give a comment relating to rule updates uh section three um the um the final language for how many artists installs and I just think that um considering the number of vendors that are Growers of produce that would be fruits vegetables and flowers or plants um that we should consider uh not increasing that up to 18 but allow make some
003way for some of the Growers who are there currently to earn four staff thank you thanks Carly all right so moving on okay so next we have approval of the minutes from the January meeting which Stephanie emailed to all of us are there any um changes additions anything like that to the minutes all righty great hearing none could I get a motion to approve the minutes I'd move to approve thanks in about a second anybody great thank you um everybody who um approves the minutes please raise your hand or say I I Perfect all right unanimous so the minutes from the January meeting are approved um so the next order of business is the regular business the agenda items and the first one is a general update all right so we're getting close to our
004March 1st Annual deadline for people to return uh their applications to us we've gotten a bunch already there's always people that are right down to the wire um and you know we're anticipating most people that haven't told us otherwise we'll be returning um but you know it will also kind of confirm some retirements and things that we had anticipated but haven't gotten the final confirmation yet so that's what we are working on now um Alex and I are processing them updating people's files accordingly um and once we receive all of those March 1st we'll be able to um sort of update the seniority lists reflective of any retirements um and then with that as well uh we'll be sending invoicing out to both annual and daily vendors once we receive all of our final information
005for that and then folks payment deadline is not until June 30th for that that's just a reiteration of the same thing we've been doing for a while but that's where we're at currently um we are in the process too of bringing on or excuse me accepting new vendors for the coming season we've gotten I want to say about five or six applications so far just over the last couple weeks um a few of those are farms we actually did have a new Farm join us last Saturday they are primarily uh livestock but they also will be doing produce in the main season um and I believe they have some sort of cottage food baked goods and things like that too um so yeah they just started their brand new uh we have about I want
006to say maybe two more out of the cerso new applicants that are farms uh the rest are a mixed bag in terms of we have one that's a shrub not the plant but the drink um company that is applied and and I think we have another um gluten-free baked good as well so we're in the process of assessing that um we're also sort of mulling whether or not this is a year we need to do a little bit more active recruitment because we're usually in the situation where we just have so much interest we really don't need to recruit um but this year you know we're thinking about maybe trying to reach out um to Vegetable Farms just for a long-term planning thing but and again it's not necessarily that we really need more people
007per se um it's the the right type of people specifically but I know a lot of people um are concerned thinking that we're so so uh so empty that there's all these open spaces available that's not actually correct um we're still at about 115 vendors it's just we're trying to plan for the long term and I'm curious yeah go ahead can you speak about how you do that Outreach what's what does that entail or what would that entail sure um well the very first thing we've done is just talk to current vendors and saying hey you know do you know of any farms or New farmers or people looking for other stuff so we've started there and then it would you know may basically just be sharing our website and stuff like that because it
008does say on our website already what specific classes of the vendors we are looking for um but you know it doesn't say anything about we want baked goods but we get like 90 because which again is fine it's just a question of um really trying to capture the Farms of course this is part of a broader conversation that we've been having and is in the annual report as well of sort of just the decline of Michigan farms in general um and the fact that you know we already have 60 Farms currently who are vendors at the market you know how many more that have the volume that they would need to be at our Market have we not captured so that's the other question is like I think we've done a pretty good job of
009covering our bases um but that's why we're reaching out to the vendors that may have networks that we're not connected with if that helps answer your question all right and then the last item I have on this is special events we have decided to bring back the CSA Day this year it's really just a regular Market day um that encourages our CSA Farms to have information available for customers or prospective customers and that's going to be on Saturday April 1st during regular Market hours um we're seeing you know if there's a possibility for music or other programming for that event um the next event that will be in the series coming up after that is Flower Day will be again the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend similar to before we're going to combine forces with
010the Sunday Artisan Market um and then another fun thing that we're bringing back for this year is we are partnering with edible wow again on a series of cooking demos so these are going to be on Wednesdays during the Wednesday Market um we're partnering with them to bring you know local chefs and to feature seasonal produce that will then be able to be purchased at the market and that's going to be either the first or second Wednesday depending on which month it falls in and that's going to be or excuse me June through September and then if there's the other series of events is the food truck rallies which are coming back same time as last year we thought that third one the third Wednesday evening worked really well um we've gotten a ton of
011Interest both between our returning folks and I actually did put the information out um to a much broader Network although I try to cast a wide that always um but this year we seem to have gotten a lot of traction from new to US Trucks and carts all over the place um so we're looking forward to you know expanding our rallies a little bit but again you know we already have an average of 14 or 15 trucks and carts so you know we don't have a ton of space to expand but I think we could do 20 um trucks we have a lot more space for carts as well so that's in the works um and really just overall trying to rejuvenate our events calendar getting closer and closer to what it was like uh
012pre-pandemic and that that's where we're at great thank you and then you have um I was wondering if flower day was going to be open to outside vendors or is it just the Farmer's Market vendors that will be participating um last year we had opened it and that was mostly because we had open spaces available so I think that's open to conversation from folks for example last year the only real native plant Cellar we had was one of the outside people that we brought on which was um the Toledo Zoo um and yeah we had the Michigan Growers Cooperative as well which some of vendors are a member of so that was kind of you know a half and half one but we're open to input but you know I don't see any problem with
013recruiting other people if we have space obviously priority is given to vendors um but after that if their space is still available you know I think it's in everyone's best interest to have market look as full as possible okay cool yeah I agree if there is space um I I like the idea of bringing on others just also because they think that flower day is nice as an event in itself and I think more people and customers are likely to come if it's different and unique from like a regular Farmers Market day and so pulling in some other people if there's room helps Right add to that you know as well for sure and I know that you know the Artisan Market absolutely loved the event so you know I think they're definitely going to
014want it to continue to and I know they had probably their biggest turnout ever on a Sunday Artisan market during Flower Day of last year so it really impacts them positively that's awesome I like that event um my other comment or question was thinking long term about the cooking demos I wonder if there is any possibility of ever bringing them in-house maybe in future years um or I mean I I always thought maybe that could also be something that like Alex might fall under his um capacity uh or as you're working with edible wow you know maybe you'll find it's really worth it to strengthen the partnership in that way um but you know also thinking about the possibility of doing in-house cooking done with could be helpful to the market too yeah definitely I
015mean that's a good idea especially from a funding perspective because it does cost money for us to partner with edible wow we are getting a good deal from them because we already have an advertising relationship but you're right it's something we could definitely explore um for a few future years certainly great thank you um so there was a staffing update too Stephanie yes so we are sad to announce that Macy has left us we just had far too much work between grad school and her other work she loved working at the market she lives around the corner so she'll still certainly be a customer um but she felt like you know she just could not juggle everything and her other job actually matched her wage at the market um so good for her that's fantastic
016but we will miss her um so we are now hiring for her position which was the assistant manager which is the third in command behind myself and Alex uh and the job posting for that went live yesterday we've already gotten six applicants and we're hoping to reach out to a multiplicity of people I've reached out to Seas um already to see if they could share it with their students um we have a contact that we met with today about actually trying to do translation to our Mandarin speaking Community they said they might share it um at their church so there's a lot of you know Avenues we have again we're holding out hope against hope that we might get someone who's bilingual in English and Mandarin but you know we'll see we'll see how how
017it shakes out but we are currently hiring for that position and you can find it on both the website as well as our social media if you would like to share it with your Networks Stephanie when would that position start as soon as the hiring process goes through okay which could take potentially a few weeks because there's background checks and multiple interviews and things of this nature I'm hoping to get them in at some point excuse me in March but timing realistically might be March 15th thank you yep glad there's so much interest yes yes and that's all that I had on that one all right great um so the next item is the board officer election results all right well it was unanimous congratulations Lisa and Peter you have been elected as chair and
018vice chair respectively um for the next year so congratulations are in order and thank you again for uh volunteering your extra time great happy to help out thank you um so the next item is the rules update all right so rule a is really just a very quick uh relay okay uh is really just a quick quick update um everything is gone through the city lawyers they've signed off on everything all we're doing right now is we're waiting for the community services administrator to do the final signature the good news is they were they clarified when we went through the lawyer processes this actually does not have to go through city council it just has to go through you all through legal to the administrator and once he signs it it is as good as
019in effect um so we're just waiting on that it should be in the next couple weeks um and then that's pretty much all that I had um in that bullet a so just to recap and people are wondering what that is that's the changes in the sign-in process that's the allowing annual Artisans to have two stalls and that's the transfer seniority adding 30 days to each category of application um for folks applying to transfer their seniority to a new person great thank you and then the next one is the um to have the vote on uh The Artisan uh issue about the number of Artisans or the number of stalls correct yes and just to recap for folks the options are keep it at 12 what it was before make it 13 which what it
020is what it has been in practice or keep it at 18 total stalls which would be enough for the current annual Artisans to have all of their permanent stalls be owned by them all right so before I call a vote on this do um we want to have any more conversation about about this that's been going going on for a long time sure I know Eric probably missed a couple of those conversations um but but yeah so the three I don't know I guess to summarize the benefits of all of them the benefit of having the full number of stalls is that it covers everyone who has it now it doesn't lead to this situation where it's a question mark in the future or people may feel like they may lose their stalls so that
021was the reason we came up with this that we made it based on the number of cells instead of the number of Artisans so that it would be inclusive of everybody who's currently an annual artisan 13 that came about the last time um because there was two vendors who got their seniority at the exact same time or started rather at the same time um so the idea was the number was supposed to be 12 but there was a magical 13 that got introduced so that it could make it more even and equal for those people that had gotten their seniority at the same time the 12 was just the standard what it had been prior um to any of these changes so I don't know if that's helpful at all Eric okay I guess one
022thing too it's like I'm for me at least I'm kind of all of them seem acceptable in a variety of ways and the kind of the way I keep thinking about it is with the 12 that there could be between 12 and 24 stalls associated with ours and with a 13 there could be 13 to 26 uh stalls for Artisans and with the 18 there are 18 for the right Artisans and so that that's at least if we put it all on a stall basis um that that's that seems to be more apples to apples very appropriate for a farmer's market comparison um so yeah yeah yep so and yeah go ahead all right so as far as like the 13 goes we're not talking 13 stalls we're talking 13 Artisans correct exactly okay but
023but when we're talking the 18 we're talking 18 total stalls we're not talking Asian Artisans got it correct okay automatically no totally so mathematically like this 18 is actually the lower number if we're talking about specifically this idea that everybody could potentially have two um the 18 is just saying what we have now is what it is okay yeah good question so I've been trying to figure out how to call this vote and I think one of the first things we need to do is just maybe group things so there are two choices um so one would be voting on whether we should go with the number of stalls and then um or going with the number of vendors as the main issue and then if the number of vendors wins out then we vote
024on whether it's 12 or 13. so does that make sense to everybody okay so um I forgot the procedures on how to do this I think I just call a vote and say the vote will be uh whether we will um vote on uh the number of limiting the number of stalls uh that are available for annual vendors or limiting the number of annual vendors is the first vote can't we just do a b or c in terms of options because I think that might be over complicating so because then it would trigger a secondary vote instead of just the overall vote does that make sense it all could work I mean it's just a matter of how we wanted I think we'd say what if we did it this way we could do it
025too in a different way we could do it we could we could have a b and c we could all vote for just one or we could potentially vote for two and then the one that wins gets the gets the thing so that would be kind of a like a rank Choice yeah like a ranked Choice exactly exactly this is that way we won't get extremes we'll get somewhere in between yeah whatever y'all want to do I just was clarifying for myself like what what do people think in terms of how that do you want to do a just why do all all three of them and we'll have one vote per person or do you want to have you can vote for up to two but not three I say one vote per person
026it seems blessed but it is simpler it is simpler okay great thank you all very much all right so let's call a vote um I would like and we'll just do uh the positive votes we won't have the negative votes um so um those people in favor of uh the number limiting the number of stalls to 18 please raise your hand I'm seeing three four votes for that all right and then uh limiting the number of Artisans to 12. please raise your hand or say I sorry I that would be my vote okay and then um I think there are no votes for raising the number of Artisans to 13. yep all right the eight teams have it a four to one um majority great um so Stephanie this language will need to go to
027to um through all the channels again send it along all right well thank you congratulations we finished another item on our checklist after many months I know it took a long time but it was good to have the conversations about it too definitely definitely needed for sure all right so the next item under the rule updates is uh the bylaws updates yes and I wasn't sure I know the last time the homework had been that Peter had given you his notes asked for folks to look back over the bylaws I'm not sure um we'll head add an opportunity to do that or not or how you wanted to take it I just figured it needed to be an agenda item um yeah I appreciate yeah let's let's keep it going with that and I think
028that's the way I just wanted to check into with people to see if people did have a chance to read through it and if there are any additional comments or things that you saw that might be worth further exploration or things that you saw that might be problematic or thoughts that you had that if you if you had them I know that Lisa sent me some other Notes too that so but if the rest of you guys have any other comments speak or let me know and then I can incorporate those in yeah and the the email that I sent to me Peter about 15 minutes before the meeting was I just found the bylaws update for the park advisory commission and so thought it would be easy for us to take some language from
029that to help update um the pmac bylaws yeah into that super helpful because that was in 2019 and so it's fairly recent and it also reflects some of the kind of changing landscape of how these things are operating and how they go um with that so I'll look through that I haven't had a chance to go through it much I haven't had much time um but I'll get that uh look through the other thing too that the the kind of from my read of this and just kind of thinking through it the really the two things that are that seem like worth digging into which I'll start digging into is the annual disclosure of conflicts of interests that's in there it makes sense it's a good thing to do um and in fact the pack
030thing had a slight modification to it of making sure that they're relevant conflicts of interest or relevant outside interests it's not anything it might be a conflict um but so developing a procedure for how that is and digging through the other committees and seeing what they do um and so figuring out how we can Implement that so that's that's one of the things that I've got that on on my list the other one is really working out the mechanics of these non-voting working meetings um that there are that that's that is kind of an important function of this body that could be and there are certain things that we might want to take on and just I think just having that in our lexicon in our toolkit is better than we do right now um
031so trying to get some procedure around that and it's it's in the bylaws so it's in there it's more that it's just part that we don't use very much um so making sure that we get some clarity on that and if it does I don't know that it will necessarily require a modification to the bylaw but it's more of a clarification or again this kind of handbook so I'm going to track down with other other committees and see kind of what some best practices are and then I can report back and see if there's some way I can we can get us jump started in doing that yeah the Parks Commission may have uh some good things on that because they have some standing committees instead of just the um special committees or ad hoc
032committees exactly I think they have one for the skate park and so that's and so that's a nice little mini example of how those operates I think that's a good template to kind of expand off of them for us too so thank you that's super helpful yeah the conflicts of interest there I was just looking at the application and it is there's a statement on the application to say if you have any conflicts as you're applying for a position on the commission too so and maybe it is just that simple in terms of we have that just making sure we have a mechanism of what the form is who sends it out who receives it what do we do with it because if someone reports a conflict then we should know who should know is
033it that just the market manager knows that we all know is it that I you know I'm not sure right it seems it could make sense in both cases um so uh getting kind of getting that a little bit more clarified for how that works and then Stephanie do you have any idea on the city website how they determine um the start and end of of people's terms because they're so variable on the website I think it's just based off of the bylaws right that there has to be sort of the Staggering and I think it's on registrar that there's a record where it has everyone's yeah so I'm not sure that the public can actually view that that's something that I can see when I'm logged in I'm not sure that's something that's publicly
034available or if it is I just don't know where to to find that yeah I'll send you a follow-up email because my reading of the bylaws was our our positions were supposed to be three years and then it says something about the initial start of the commission there'd be the one two and three years but that was only I think my reading was that was only when the commission was starting to stagger right but then there's also the complication of people leaving early so the short terms that people have to finish out that full three year and then that three year starts again so but yes and I agree I saw that in the uh packed stuff too that they took out a lot of the language that was there kind of for startup of
035it like it shall be established when it's established they'll have staggered terms and things like that but once it's been going it is it you know because if we as people move out and we point you in we don't so that that might be another point of update too to kind of make it for an operating committee versus a starting committee yeah and the other question there too is there's no term limits right it the way that it's currently written you could sort of be here in an infinite amount of time and I don't know if that's something that you all want to have because that of course constrains the ability for certain people um to participate if they would want to um of course people can step down whenever they want but in terms
036of getting new people in that's that's something to think about yeah I would definitely be in favor of term limits um I think yeah I think it's good to give chance for the council to rotate and for other people to also have chances to serve um so I would definitely be a beaver something like that great I think those are all good things that we can we can discuss all right uh great so the next um item on the agenda is the producer only subcommittee yes and there's a question mark there because I wasn't sure um what this current status is um I well we have an agenda um so that's step one and pretty much it's pretty simple I don't feel like it Dives too deep into any one thing it's more just to
037get a sense of like what are people's major concerns um and like how do we want to Define producer only um and then like how do we feel about uh the definition of producer only and then also how do we feel about our current inspection process um and are there some things that can be done to improve that as well um but that's about as far as it dives into the issue I didn't want to um you know have the meeting go too long or get too into the weeds and so um I think that you know next step is putting a call out um and just setting a time to hopefully have a zoom conversation um for anyone who would want to participate in that um to get the recommendations great thank you very
038much Stephanie and I'm assuming you probably want to have this meeting before everybody gets knee-deep into the planting season uh yeah I think maybe those who are planning to be on it like myself Jeff um and Stephanie and Alex and if any of you as well want to participate um we can email and figure out a time that we're all available um and then just post it publicly um one and hopefully yes this spring within the next month or so is what I was thinking yeah that sounds great and I just wanted to point out that concurrently we're also investigating and looking into our inspection process um and how it's being done and the current sort of short term is that means Alex is going to get a lot more very local folks it's also
039going to get a lot more greenhouses and produce Farms which he has a lot of personal experience with so we're hoping um that will help to address some of the prior concerns as well as we move into this process of the subcommittee great anything else on the the sort of general rules update category or should we move on to new business nanogen items okay so the only thing that I wanted to mention is um once again asking for the possibility of of um somebody from city parks uh Josh landefeld or possibly Hillary um to come talk to us to to think about how we we move forward on the infrastructure project on the winterization project since they had mentioned it at a pack meeting about the possibility of coming yes I had reached out a
040couple months back I have not heard back yet I might need to Circle back now that you know holiday times are no longer occurring um I will also be presenting about the market to pack in May um so if there's anything people want to share from this commission to that commission let me know it should be I believe it's May 16th uh is the meeting for that and what were you planning on presenting Stephanie I'm not sure asked me to present about the market um as it gets closer I'm sure there'll be more information forthcoming about what the format could look like um but he's wanting all parks facilities to present to them okay um I notified Stephanie this I think is going to be my last um meeting uh serving on pmac um so
041going to open it up for another a daily vendor to be able to come and advise on the commission so if everyone wants to spread the word um you know find someone else who is going to dig a job of um talking about advising the market that would be great so yeah it's been really good serving on the commission I just need to focus on the season and the two little kiddos now instead of one um things are just getting a little busy so um yeah thank you all by the way thank you yeah it's been great to have your your perspective absolutely and luckily you're not going far you're just going to be at Market so if anyone wants to yeah I will be around but yes we'll miss you I know uh Dean
042cell did express interest um in the position he I did share with him the application beyond that it was just he was there at Bruce upston's Funeral so I happened to mention it because I had heard through the grapevine who was interested but yes please reach out to any daily status vendors if you're not sure who was a daily vendor um I could share that list as well or anyone listening out there as long for the work all right so the next um the last item I guess is uh the second public comment all right are there any members of the public that would like to comment if so please virtually raise your hand I'm not seeing any hands we'll give it maybe 20 more seconds in case there's a lag there it is see
043I knew I knew I had to wait just a slight bit more all right go ahead Charlie hello hi it's me again um the reason why I'm comment um I was asked to bring a concern from at least one of the vendors Debbie marks that she would like to start seeing some in-person meetings because she can't participate when they are on Zoom um so as as you're looking at maybe defining producer only that might be a time to have a public hearing or something at least one meeting where people who feel like they can't participate otherwise could come just a suggestion all right and just to clarify it's not my or our call um that the meetings are virtual that is actually the city's tall but I hear you okay yeah and I'm I'm just
044thinking like a special committee meeting or whatever um I find it strange that in this you know at this time that they're still mandating that um so if we need to take the concern to wherever else it would be received or um let us know um do we know if special committee meetings also have to be is that required to be online as well or are those it doesn't matter I don't think it matters but I think the only catch is like it can't be in city council chambers because they're really having very limited Staffing and that's partly why they're limiting which commissions can be in there specifically just the vital ones like city council but the vast majority of commissions that are like us like the green belt for example has been virtual um
045this whole time as well so if we wanted to like do um a zoom meeting and also holds a possibility for like in-person comments for that discussion we could do both of those yeah I believe so okay I believe so as long as you know it's a location that is not in city council chambers okay as far as I know and Peter corrected me if I'm wrong I seem to remember that there has to be some short-term public notice or something like that maybe um there is yeah and within the bylaws I think it's it's actually really short it's like 24 or 48 hours I think is what the notice for it is and we'd be better off doing substantially more than that but I think that's the bare minimum foreign if it's just a
046working meeting versus a voting thinking so that's something also to keep in mind all right is that all you had for us Carlene at this time yes that's what I had for now so I guess you know anything that could be done to calm the troops um to you know try to help out wherever where possible would be appreciated sure yep all right Carlene all right so I think that was the last item on the agenda right okay it is um so I guess we will adjourn the meeting it is now 6 14. right thanks everyone and thanks again Stephanie appreciate it thank you Stephanie oh thank you yeah we'll miss you