001it's thursday july 16th at 5 36 p.m and this is the city of ann arbor public market advisory commission call to order stephanie can you call to order all right so i'll do the roll call um in no particular order got lisa young i'm here all right peter wolf here holly parker i'm here jeff namith attempting to uh join i'd be here and then helen chandler is not yet with us unless there is a phone phone call let's see is that you helen oh hello oh i guess not all right is it anybody does anyone know helen's okay never mind we'll move on okay um hello hello is this helen are you just no i'm just audience this is carlene oh hey carly well i'm gonna um i'm gonna mute you back and you'll if
002you want to say stuff i can give you a moment when we get to their need yeah that's fine okay thanks all right all right so approval of the agenda is the next item um has everyone had a chance to look at the agenda from the previous time or this agenda and are there any changes or modifications do i have a motion to approve motion to approve i second all in favor say aye hi anyone opposed it's unanimous um section e approval of meetings of previous minutes in your packet you should have previous minutes from the last meeting which was quite a while ago um there are there any corrections or changes hearing none or is there a movement or a motion to approve a motion to approve is there a second unanimously all right
003section d first public commentary agenda items only three minutes per speaker all right we'll see if we have do you have a comment carlene um this is carlene um the only thing i wanted to say is i'm thankful that the market is back open on behalf of other vendors and customers as well and i would i'm thankful that this last week we're signing three stalls for those who want it on wednesdays because there's so much empty space and i would hope that as we see how many vendors are coming as more crops are coming in if we can give those who have lots of different crops that we've always planted enough space to at least give everything one foot of table space um and uh and i just hope that no matter what comes that
004sense where we have essential service called food that everything would be done to at least keep the market able to function in some manner or form and that's it for now thank you thanks colleen and that's the only attendee we have uh so then we'll move on to regular business item g so stephanie can you follow help us up with this yes um so i noticed in the last minutes from the last meeting back in february there had been a conversation um about hemp at the market and the reason i wanted to put it on a follow-up was just an update that we do have a vendor that has started bringing um their cbd products in addition to their other products they are a farm uh that does mostly vegetables but they have added that
005to um their lineup uh we haven't had really anyone else applying or discussing it yet but we we have had that one farm take advantage of that opportunity great has there been any other reaction from anybody else at the market not really um i know i spoke with jeff a little bit about it but i was hoping to be able to hear from him um but obviously technical difficulties kept him away um but none none otherwise that i have heard i don't know becky if you've heard from anybody i don't know if you have no i actually haven't heard anything what um stephanie i'm sorry if you said this what what hemp product is being sold yeah it's mostly just um you know salves and balms and lip balm and things of that nature and
006do you have any sense of how sales are going i have not asked them i have not um but you know some people seemed at least on the social media to be interested that we had that product on offer um but i think it is still so new that it might not be on people's radar yet okay thank you thank you but that's all i really had about all right unless you wanted to rehash anything you know that that seems good it'd be interesting to see how that comes how that follows up with time i think once things expand out further and more people get see what's going on then we'll get more feedback too but it's good there haven't been any hiccups yet so yeah none really at all okay number two update you
007as needed great thank you then number two coveted related market changes and next steps okay um so yeah i just wanted to check in and give you all update what we've been doing with the kobit you might have heard a little bit through email or social media but we have changed around a lot of the items uh not items but the ways that which we run the market and one of them the one of the big changes is the sign-in process um previously you know annuals would have their permanent stalls and then the dailies would be assigned day of um what we're doing now instead is we're actually giving everybody the opportunity to sign in either via phone or online with us the day before market and then we're sort of already assigning it you
008know with the same sort of seniority processes as previously and that's what we've done partly to reduce the amount of people coming into the office and to reduce congregations but it also seems i don't know i've been having some positive feedback as well as neutral uh and maybe not as positive feedback depending on which vendor um so so yeah i just wanted to get your feedback on that is that a process that you're interested in pursuing because again obviously we're doing it as covid continues and we don't know the end date of that um unfortunately but i just wanted to let you know that's our current process i know from previous discussions that the sign-in process before how it was done seemed like it was ripe for some improvement and so making one of the
009proposals was doing it via phone or online but there wasn't ever really the impetus to do it so it's possible that one bright spot might be that this makes us do it so hopefully this will be some an improvement that we can hold on to long term if indeed we can make an improvement sure yeah i mean we don't know how long we're going to be in this so we're moving forward with it and you know there's there are things because some people are still um on the old process and especially people that haven't come back yet there is a few minutes of people like wait i don't have to sign in anymore hold on um but you know that that's to be expected with any any major thing um that they're used to but
010overall it's been a pretty positive smooth process for us um uh at least but again i also don't know what it was like before so uh my perspective is a little bit different on that it's too bad that jeff and helen aren't here to i know give us some feedback that way um oh it looks like you're trying again hopefully maybe he could you know um i wanted to ask about the amish farmers though since they don't uh you know since the access to technology is is clearly much more of a challenge so um how are the amish farmers doing and how are you accommodating um them yeah great question um for the most part they've just been calling in or once they've come back they've just told us you know like every saturday i'll
011be here expect me or i'll be here both days a week expect me and uh in the case of all of them they are all annuals so they do have assigned spots so that is relatively easy um to accommodate them great thank you yep and i think even one of them has been taking advantage of the curbside so oh good tapping in so but all right all right um and then two the stall reductions in physical distancing protocol yes so um as carlene did mention a little bit um in her comment we have had to reduce the amount of stalls vendors can get obviously based on our need for physical distancing because our goal is to have at least one vacant stall in between each vendor in some cases it ends up being naturally two
012just because people would prefer not to have a post in the middle of their booth um but there has been some discussion around this issue carlene did mention in her comment that just this week we've returned to allowing um the larger farms to have their third stall back on wednesdays only um and that's partly because you know wednesday's a smaller market there is space for it and we are still able to maintain the physical distancing so we figured that would be a good compromise uh whereas saturday right now um i don't know when we'll be able to return to that if at all this season um just because you know each week we have more and more people um returning and we already went extended a little bit into the sand lot last saturday so
013we are starting to get a little bit more full um so but i just wanted you to be aware that that is something that uh many farmers are discussing and obviously the people that have the larger stall numbers want to return to normal on that um but we have been capping everybody at two stalls um when there is not space for it so everyone has two macs on saturday and for most of the artisans we've also been capping them at one stall just to prioritize you know essential items so have there been pretty have you actually hit your capacity yet or is there still space in the sand lot still um we have not hey jeff welcome can you hear us turn your volume on oh i don't know if i can control it let's
014see yep sorry you gotta unmute yourself oh oh i see fingers i know i know i wish there was a way that i could see it look we can do hand signals yeah again i know i wish i wonder if there's a way that i can control it like i did the last time it's permissions on his side so yeah it is anyways hopefully you can hear us jeff even though we can't hear you um but oh it says his audio is still connecting so yeah it's too bad he did it oh there he can probably hear us you're muted jeff yeah okay hi finally guys hey there you are thank you it was your daughter that did it right [Music] [Laughter] so we were just discussing the salt the stall reduction that we've been
015having to do for the physical distancing yeah and how for wednesdays we've returned back to allowing people to have three because there's space um but saturday we're still pretty full okay so how are sales going for vendors i mean i i've seen the um turnout and it looks decent but not you know not great in terms of um customers i'm just wondering i i'm sure we probably don't have actual numbers but i'm just wondering in general how it's going for the vendors and how you know how hard hit they've been and if they're able to really start making things up and if now that it's open it seems like sales are getting back to anywhere near normal um i think that they're probably the biggest hang up is the attendance is down for customers i
016think and then i think aside from that a big problem is getting people through you know i mean everyone's trying to stay six feet away from each other so it's that makes it a little difficult to uh move people along when people start lining up through the market you know but i mean i think everyone's doing the best we can and um i think it's to get to a point where we just have maximum you know number of people that can uh go through and get help either they want to wait in line or they don't yeah and how have the online orders been going uh i i know it was very popular at the beginning uh has it waned um are you getting the support from the city that you need to to help
017deliver the online orders to the cars is that even still happening i haven't checked the last couple of weeks yeah um it's been you know there's less people participating over time but we still are definitely getting support from the city we have some extra park staff that has been helping us run the curbside um and you know there are still people doing it i don't think it's as many people as uh in the beginning but some people are using it also for delivery of their csa if they aren't doing specific just uh pre-order in a you know per week thing um so it definitely is still getting used um but you know it depends on the person in terms of what they want to do it i think also wednesday market a lot of people
018that were more apprehensive to come back to the saturday market i've been hearing feedback from them that they feel more comfortable on wednesday so because there are less vendors there are less people at you know through the market um so that's the feedback i've received from some people yeah i've noticed that too just it's there's surprisingly busy on wednesdays when i've been there on wednesdays but it's it's good to see i might fall asleep all right we'll just yell loudly into the screen that's right so 2c mask requirements and recourse for non-compliance oh actually can i ask one more question sorry i know uh some of the farms have been working together like i'm thinking of the washington organic collective with brines and rain dance and slow food and have there been any questions about
019um if one of them comes back to the market if they can um use their have their online orders and have the them uh people pick them up at the market instead of driving out to like slow farm or brian's farm to to pick up i didn't know if that had come up as a question um no nothing that i have heard no one has approached me or asked about that but yet they haven't come back either so um it's my impression that people that have gone to the lengths of setting up a separate online ordering are either you know just doing that in lieu of their other market stuff um but again that might change i know white lotus has not been back but they will be back for the first time this saturday
020and they have been doing their own market on their own site and inviting some other vendors there um but no i have not been approached with that question okay it'd be nice from a customer perspective to be able to pick up at the the market but i know it can get complicated sure and i would assume if it's similar to a regular csa that would be possible um but if they're not you know if they're just sending the box and they aren't there themselves that might be slightly different but yeah i'm completely open to discussing with any farmer that wants to do that okay it was more that they're a collective and um i think shannon brines told me that like half of the people that are part of you know who you can order
021from are vendors but there are some uh people that are participating that aren't vendors at the the market so i just wanted to raise that as a as a uh issue like i said i would love to do an online order and and instead of driving out to be able to pick it up at the market if they come if one of them comes back to the market sure got it all right any other comments about that before we move on all right so 2c match requirements yeah so um since the executive order has been updated um last week there is the need now for everyone to be wearing masks and i just wanted to get a pulse check and some feedback from you all in terms of you know what we could do to
022ensure compliance of both vendors and then encourage customers i know we're also talking with legal in the city to see you know what our legal parameters are as well but i just wanted to see you know you're all thoughts about that specific issue i was at the market a saturday it's probably been a couple weeks ago and i was actually surprised to see some customers without masks on um i had understand it you know some of the elderly people i know it's it's more difficult but these were younger people and i was actually kind of surprised because the market was really busy and it was not possible to social distance so um i'm glad you brought this up and i'm glad the governors uh changed things uh to to be uh clear about the the
023um when people should be wearing masks um i don't know if anybody else has anything they want to add there jeff how have you felt as a vendor in terms of mass compliance um well you mean as far as how do i think people are um following the directions is that what you're asking uh i think you could really tell that people stepped it up last this last wednesday was the first day since the new order or whatever um and i feel like i feel like more people took it more seriously i wasn't there all day on wednesday but when i was there i didn't see anybody without a mask um when we get there in the morning and we're setting unloading trucks and stuff um that's the only time really and nobody's around each
024other anytime people you know once a market starts and customers are there uh i saw pretty much everyone wearing a mask i don't remember what the status is on signage is there are there signs throughout the market now showing saying that's required uh they are there's some small ones and then we just had new ones delivered today that will be up for saturday market yep and we've been you know telling people and it has been a vendor requirement of course uh since we've been reopened so that's not something that's different it's just and you know most customers that i've heard from are actually excited that there is the order now because they've been concerned same thing you had said lisa where they had seen maybe some customers that hadn't been wearing masks so i'm hoping
025that that's a positive uh moving forward and as you know it's important for everyone's safety of course so d have you or has any like sort of staff person vendor or whatever said anything to any folks who don't have masks has there been any engagement yet to say hey it's actually a requirement to wear a mask and what what how does that play out is it problematic or is it fine yeah there were a few people on wednesday um one claimed a medical exemption and then the rest once we told them that mass were acquired they sort of just left themselves so luckily that they didn't push the issue um i should also mention that we do have surgical masks available in the office for people that forgot theirs at home really or need it
026although we are encouraging them first and foremost to go buy from the artisans that are making math and selling them at market right now um but that's sort of how we approach it is like oh hey do you need a mask here have one and then if it goes beyond that um that's when the conversation really gets started but i think saturday is going to be our big test given that we are you know much more populated on saturdays with both vendors and customers but i'm cautiously optimistic stephanie is that something that the city parks uh staff that's there can help you with yeah yep and they've been really great about helping um with that as is it's just sort of like making sure that we're all on the same page that we're having the
027same messaging um is what we're working on right now great i know for some organizations too there's with the mask order the governor's mass order now it becomes a liability for the organization if there are people in there so that becomes another incentive to enforce compliance or at least to make the request and also does make a more strong ask of the customers to actually wear a mask yeah definitely it's the onus is now on us and i mean we've been taking it seriously and previous to this point you know we just actually couldn't require it because we are a public park um so in essence the executive order does help us in that regard um and as i said the only feedback i've received from people so far has been in the positive you
028know we were waiting for you to do this thank you um but then again you know we'll see jeff have you had any feedback from customers no i you know on saturday for instance you could sit there and everybody who came through would have a mask on and then you might see a family every now and then without a mask uh i haven't had any customers complain or anything uh you know and say oh you know i'm sure they go to office and do that they probably complain to you but uh i haven't had any no one's really said anything about it they just you know put you know kind of go with it and i think it's going pretty well considering you know the problems we could be having right now sure yeah i
029mean that's what i've been saying if the mask issue is our only problem right now i think we're doing pretty well um and you know we're just every day we're working on more solutions to present that to people in a gentle way um that encourages them to be compliant and i just didn't know you know in the event that there was a situation that happened i didn't know what your thoughts were about i mean in a hypothetical i'm not really talking about anything we've experienced i just want us to be ready um for the eventuality of you know maybe we do get somebody who is a little bit more volatile um and i just wanted to i mean you might not have any feedback other than what you've already said um but i just wanted
030you to be aware of that conversation we've been having yeah i don't think uh like i said we haven't had i haven't had anyone have even mention it really all right um you know so far so good um hopefully we don't have any problems like that down there i think it's a pretty good crowd i don't think we really will but it's good to be aware that and ready for a problem like that though yeah okay yeah again and the city has been really supportive in this and i know there was a meeting with legal just this morning uh talking about you know medical exemption what does that mean um and they did clarify just this morning that we can ask for a doctor's note because i was unaware um what the status was i've
031been actually wondering about that for the last few weeks so i think that will also help us as well people can't just say medical exemption and then do whatever they want they actually do have to document that is there a way to have more posted signage too so that maybe it's at you know if not on the tables and in in between the stalls or something so frequently says masks required um just so that onus isn't or is less on the vendors and less on the staff but that awareness is just really front and center sure yeah and we already have it posted at every entrance and we do have stanchions all throughout the market i don't know if you've been down recently but we definitely have had way more sandwich boards than we usually
032have with all of the information about hand washing and mask wearing and all that good stuff um but they're just gonna be a little more colorful and plentiful um starting saturday yeah i definitely noticed them at the entrance at the entrances but i didn't i i you know wear a mask so it doesn't it's just not you'll notice them but i was wondering if they're frequently throughout the market as well like in between the stalls so it sounds like yeah they will be when they yeah they arrived just today so we will be putting them throughout um and then printing out small ones too we could actually give a vendor we could give each vendor one if we had to also that they could maybe even just like stick to their tablecloth or something but
033i can uh we could talk about that i think that would be a good idea it does seem like being able to just be able to point to something that no matter where you are you can always say no mask is required you know it's not just me saying this it's it's the yeah that's that's what i was thinking and so it doesn't seem like it's one individual vendor but it's the market policy you know it's actually city and in fact the state policy exactly um i think that's important for for customers to be really clear on exactly and we're actually going to have a couple extra copies of our flyer at the market office window as well to hand out to people that want more information so good well thank you what's your thought
034on it stephanie how do you think it's going as far as people wearing masks down there um we've definitely been getting a lot a lot a lot of complaints um mostly by social media so i don't know i don't know how many people are actually commenting that or aren't commenting that would want to say something um but we have been talking to them and as i said most of it was people complaining about customers not wearing masks but there have been a few worried that you know vendors aren't wearing their masks properly whether that means like their nose is hanging out or when the customer walks down the aisle someone takes it off that happens to be when someone saw them even though they were not close to anyone you know these are questions um
035i know there had been uh a few folks in the beginning that had a mesh medical issue so that they weren't wearing a mask and they had been instructed of course to stay a minimum of six feet six feet away from people um but of course if you're just a market customer passing through you don't know you know those details so if you just see somebody maskless or with their nose out um they assume that no one's actually trying to to help uh enforce these but yeah we've definitely been circulating throughout the market reminding people handing out masks um because for us it has been a constant issue in terms of people giving feedback i mean i guess i don't even know is it a problem if like i said when we're on we unload
036obviously and then when the market opens up when the first customers start coming through we all put our masks on is it a problem if i step to the back of my stall away from people and i pull it down and i take a sip of water is that you know i guess i don't even know where the where all that lies yeah no that's a great question and you're right like you're doing the right thing stepping away from people taking a sip because of course you know you need to hydrate people need to eat and this or maybe maybe talk on the phone without a mask makes it hard to understand so yeah as long as you're stepping back you're not near someone yeah that's completely within the parameters of what you're allowed it's
037just when you're interacting with the customer and i should also say too that it's been unseasonably warm since the market has reopened so with high levels of humidity and i know for you know 10 11 hours that's really hard to keep your mask on in the high humidity and you know some of our vendors are more elevated ages so that is difficult and i understand that so that's what i'm thinking if except maybe somebody saw you taking a break even though you were not near anyone and they thought that is like oh people aren't complying um i'm not sure but we have been getting um a lot of feedback about the masks whether it's customers it's mostly on the customer end but people have mentioned it a little bit about vendors that you know might
038have a droopy mask or might be one of the medical exemptions that are standing away from people but but we have been hearing it enough for me to put it on the agenda so um but again if this is our only issue that we're hearing about a lot then that's that's a positive because it is something that we're getting a lot of support um from the city and now luckily uh the state has stepped in to support us too okay um i'm wondering if we could circle actually back to the sign-in process with jeff just to get his feedback on that are you okay jeff do you have thoughts on the new sign-in process i mean it doesn't really affect me so in that aspect so i guess i really haven't given it much thought
039um have you heard anything from others that about how it's pros and cons no not really i honestly i haven't no um i don't think there's any issues with it good that's good okay okay so we'll move on then to 2d new vendors all right um so this is sort of an add-on to the stall reduction conversation um because stalls are having to be reduced for the larger farms we have somewhat been very choosy in terms of allowing new vendors to enter um and the only time we've been bringing new people on really are if there is a need for example we have a new bread vendor that just started last week and that's because one of our main bakers uh just went on paternity leave and white lotus hadn't come back yet at the
040time so you know we really needed a fresh bread uh vendor that wasn't you know a baked good type vendor so we have brought them on and then also stephanie the outgoing uh market manager previous to me stephanie ouellette is now there for two tracks another reason we brought her on is that she did have pork as part or does have pork rather as part of her lineup um because currently the only meat vendor that's beyond poultry is ernst farm so but other than that i just didn't know if you had had a conversation previously or i guess not because you haven't met since february um but if you all had feedback on whether we should have a full moratorium on new vendors if we should just be really cautious like what we have been
041with you know need based letting people and where there is a need um or i just was wondering what your thoughts were on that i think that personally i think there should be a hold on it till we go back to normal that's my opinion and i guess it also depends too as to how many people how many vendors are just not showing up to so if there is a lot of extra capacity then i you know i don't want the market to diminish just because we have a lack of offering um and i think that would be an unfortunate thing but again it's the balance as to who's actually coming and if there's space or if we're having tons of extra space yeah so in terms of just numbers we've been having an average
042of like 23 24 on a wednesday market and we've been at about like 56 for saturday so we're pretty much i would say like at half capacity and there have been some folks that are either you know retired or haven't come back and don't plan on coming back um there was a vendor who actually unfortunately passed away um over the winter um so there are there still are some you know openings but i understand what jeff's saying in terms of um if the annuals and people in high seniority have to be limited i can see from their perspective that it might not seem fair um to bring new people on so i can see from both sides yeah if there's that many spots i think the third way to do this space and give us
043our full capacity before letting letting new people down i mean once this is all over with and everything goes back to normal singles to rolling like they normally do there's uh you know there's a lot of people i talked to that didn't even i don't think there's any shortage right now of places to go and sell stuff um i talked to a couple people today at uh at the zingerman's market and they were talking about that the chelsea market wasn't full you know and it's just i think there's a lot of markets that aren't full stephanie serious oh go ahead lisa uh sorry holly uh stephanie i do uh think that the being selective and thinking about the need is is important i didn't know if there's you know since wednesday is not full um
044if there's a new vendor who would be interested in starting but you know saturday's clearly quite full right now especially with the spacing um is there if this looks like somebody that's a really good fit i know there was an identification of um people being interested in uh more prepared food as as one of the needs would there be an option to talk about them and say well we only have space on wednesdays now but if you want to start coming um and get your feet wet at the ann arbor farmers market then then there's the potential of a comedy eating you on wednesday and then uh saturdays when the number of vendors goes down because i also don't want um you know after january when the number of vendors goes down it's it's nice
045to have um some some people that it it's nice to have the market a little bit fuller at that time and i don't know if new vendors might help fill some of those spaces uh in the winter market just an idea sure um i think the only thing that's difficult is once someone is in we don't necessarily specify which market they have the opportunity to do both um but otherwise i mean i do do think that that's important to give people maybe a chance to start out and when we have more space but um you know we have to be really selective in terms of who that is and i should also mention that right now prepared foods based on the washington county health recommendation people can only be prepared food vendors right now if
046everything is pre-packaged pre-made for consumption off-site so that is partly another reason that we are having a lot of openings right now is that most of our prepared food people can't come back even if they wanted to or they would have to you know change their entire process um so it's for example like rose rose can't even serve coffee so that's something just to keep in mind but i know we all want the prepared food back believe me everyone wants their lunch back i have a question i think it might have been answered but um jeff you mentioned you thought there should be a moratorium on adding new vendors at least for saturday and i guess i'm wondering i'm sorry if this is a silly question but i'm just wondering why and um it sounds
047like maybe it's because of space and crowding is that your main concern you're talking about adding new ven why i said they should put a hold on new vendors is that what you're asking yeah well because we had we we owned three spots that we rent at the at the market and they're asking us to move down to two spots which takes away approximately eight feet of our display and the reason for that is for social distancing so what i'm saying is if there's room down there we should get our three spots that we normally have and then just space everyone out put the six feet between everybody as opposed to scrunching us down to 16 feet and then bringing new people in to fill in the extra room if there's that much extra room
048then there's room for us to have our three stalls that's that's all i'm saying yep nope that makes sense thank you yep i should also point out the thing that makes it difficult is that annual vendors have their assigned stalls um so based on the spacing that would mean certain annuals would be bumped from their spot so that's like another part of why this is a difficult thing to sort of pull off but i know jeff is not alone in those those thoughts as annual larger farms specifically now i'm not trying to figure all this out trying to educate myself here on how to use this thing um everyone's asking me when when we're going back to three stalls did i miss a part of that conversation do we still not know yet well yeah
049i think you might have missed the very beginning where we were saying we're going back to three stalls for wednesday we have already started going back to that uh but saturday as more people come back um it's not likely that we're doing that anytime soon okay because we were already in the sand lot last week even with regular folks with not even you know with only 55 people right out of you know how many are on our roster like 100 plus 120 something like that so because that's our goal right we don't want to turn anyone away that is a vendor at market that's our primary um but with that said right now everyone that wants to come back is back so we're really just trying to balance those two things apparently but wednesday you
050can have your third stall back i even updated the map um for yesterday's market i saw that yep yep stephanie do you think this might get to be an issue in the fall if there's people who haven't made their 15 times at the market or is this going to be a year where that sort of requirement is decreased some or has there been any conversation about that that 15 times yeah great question um yeah farmers and vendors can get a waiver if they don't think that they're going to be able to do it because of covid um so yeah we're definitely giving people um the opportunity to keep their seniority because yeah they shouldn't be missing their seniority if they just don't feel safe or if you know they don't have a capacity to be
051there if with staffing or whatever it is we're being real flexible with people on that that's great okay um then there any other comments on that we'll move on so uh 2e event schedule all right this is probably a pretty short one all events are cancelled um for the foreseeable future um it has been a sticking point i know the food trucks are somewhat disappointed in this um they really want the food truck rally to be reopened but i don't think that that is a good idea given how many people usually attend it but that event is usually with between 800 and 1000 people attending um and obviously we're not even wanting to go above 150 at the market at any given time um so unless there's something miraculous and covid goes away in the
052middle of august for fall um at the current moment all of our events uh are canceled so how was that good hi there so um moving on then um item h new business non-agenda items or is there any new business anyone have seeing none we'll move on to reports a market manager report all right i don't have anything formal um but i just wanted to say hello good to meet you all albeit virtually uh it's been a very strange time to start of course um but the most positive feedback i've been getting is stuff that you know carlene as well as jeff have has said in their comments is that we're just really excited to be back open um i think that's our number one important thing both for customers as well as vendors um
053i know it was a hard thing it's sort of unprecedented in the history of the entire market to be closed ever for that long um so i know it was a really shocking thing and i'm just really happy that people have been very patient with us and with me being new on top of everything um with being able to navigate this and yeah we're hoping that everything's going to continue smoothly um everything else seems to be great you know like our double up food bucks program i don't know if you've been aware of this um but they have suspended the daily spending limit on that because of covid so that's been something that's really exciting so people on food stamps and ebt can come and snap can come and get as sort of as much
054as they want to spend and that's obviously really great for them and also great for uh farmers because people can try things they never have had before um or that might not have been in the budget previously so that's one exciting update um another exciting update is we are starting both the wic program and the senior project fresh um this weekend so that's another way that people can expand their access to healthy fruits and vegetables um using their benefits so those are some exciting things that are happening just right now um i don't know i'm indebted to becky as well for um helping me and being awesome and she's a huge reason why the market is reopened and running smoothly probably i just had a question with the incentive programs this senior market fresh program
055and the double up and the wic program are you seeing it sounds like you're definitely seeing at least with the double up that the earning is increasing because of the lift of the earning limit are you seeing spending also i mean are the farmers actually or do you think that they're earning more from these incentive programs because because of the increase in participation in snap and more people having more to spend yeah i think so and also i forgot to mention that because of the pandemic ebt card which is specific to people with school-aged children right now in the state of michigan there are also people that have never had those benefits before that are tapping into them so yeah i would definitely say that it is up the only caveat there is it's really
056only for our fruit and vegetable vendors so it is hard a little bit hard to gauge overall in terms of spending but people i've seen are just really excited that it's happening really excited they can get as much fruit as they want um this time around and not have that limit but that's something that i've been really happy to see people are definitely taking advantage of it that's great thank you and just trying to think if there's anything else peter um yeah no i it's great i'm also glad too that we're i have you aboard that's it's great to have have some leadership back in position too so i i've heard good things about you too so that's been good too thank you my ear to the ground so that's good and i'm also happy
057that to see everyone here too for resuming these meetings i think that's important too to there was a little hiatus there and that was kind of unnerving in terms of it was unsure what was going on and there was a lot of concerns so i'm glad we've got some infrastructure for moving forward too so it puts my heart at ease so thank you good um yeah i know that we were sort of waiting on the governor to put an executive order through so that we could have these public meetings online and then still have them accessible to people so that was part of the delay and also me being new was the other part of the delay so thank you for your patience and flexibility i really appreciate it thank you all right so then
058moving on to committee reports are there committee reports i didn't know if you even had committees i just i just put it on the agenda just again oh okay there good are no committee reports that i'm aware of there's anyone i figure and you probably didn't have subcommittees but just in case not not yet not yet but okay yeah if we have any committees that alone merits a report so that does yeah we are a committee okay cool all right all right so the hearing no committee reports um we'll move on to section j second public comment this is not limited to agenda items could be anything all right let's check in with our phone participant carlene do you have any more feedback for us um just be extremely cautious about adding new vendors until
059you give the um the annual vendors their three stalls back and i know that you're wanting to not put a post in anybody's stall but if you'll think about it for everybody who has three stalls you always have a post in your stall so that might help you with assigning and using the all the stalls that are available and the other thing to think about is wednesday only returning to two-way traffic on the in the uh for the for the customers got it thank you all right and that is our only public commentary capability so that will be it um i would like to then adjourn sorry i just want to ask i i know we're still in covid but one of the main things that we had been talking about much of last year
060was the winterizing the market and at the last meeting stephanie willett had had um the the i think they were from the city the architects put together a proposal and it's not to talk about tonight but could we revisit that um in the near future great and actually that's a really interesting question too in the context of covid because in closing the market is like the last thing we want to do in some ways this year yeah i mean i do think that's a good point and but it's taken us so long to even get to the point where we can think about it and and with those individual vinyl pieces there could be ways to think about air flow in the market so this might actually be a good time to make sure we
061pursue this and it might actually be cheaper to get done now with building and everything else being slowed down we could leave the doors open and then it would still be open air um but i think that we're the closest we've ever been i've always heard my my grandpa always talked about you know uh back in the 60s when he was on the commission they talked about closing in the market like that and it never happened and then my dad in the 80s and it never happened and maybe we didn't get any closer than they did back then but i feel like we were we were closer so i think it's important to keep on it i agree and also if the number of vendors is down then the installation will have less effect on
062the vendors if the install is being done you know sometime when there there aren't so many people there because i know that was a concern if it was going to disrupt um the ability to to have vendors in enough spaces at the markets so that'd be great if we can revisit it might be a stupid question but is there any kind of additional grant you can get being an open air market because all the covered stuff i'm not sure i will i'll ask around to find out for you you know i mean there's a lot of stuff out there sure i'll ask josh i'll write it down okay with the ann arbor carbon neutral movement to that might be an opportunity to explore additional solar because we talked about that as a way to power
063the the heat that might go in at the market too thanks for bringing that up lisa not just the solar but the winterization project in general i think you're right i i didn't realize how long jeff this conversation has been going on but um if we do have the opportunity to make this happen we really it's incumbent on us to keep pushing on it so let's not let that slip um in light of of cobin i agree sounds good all right um so any other comments before we adjourn all right well it's uh 6 29 and i hereby adjourn the meeting thank you thanks everyone