Guadalupe irons out rules to open farmers market in February

A Sunday stroll through LeRoy Park in Guadalupe will take on a whole new meaning once the city’s first weekly farmers market comes to fruition early next year.

“We had anticipated January, but we are going to be pushing it out to February,” Guadalupe Business Association President Judy Wilson told the City Council at its Nov. 25 meeting.

The nonprofit, which serves as the Cosecha Guadalupe Farmers Market’s organizer and operator, recently worked with the city to hash out a formal memorandum to “lay out the expectations of each party concerning the market,” City Attorney Philip F. Sinco said at the hearing.

“The fiscal impact to the city is fairly significant,” Sinco told the council, based on the market’s requested waivers to rent LeRoy Park once a week—between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. each Sunday—free of charge.

The market originally asked for a yearlong agreement with the city to waive the daily fee—about $500 per day—in July. At its July 8 meeting, the City Council directed staff to draft a six-month agreement instead. 

“That equals about $13,520 in fees that would likely be waived,” Sinco said at the November hearing. “But this is hopefully offset by the fact that the city’s not incurring any other costs than lost rental fees. It’s not incurring any staff time, any use of its utilities.”

The memorandum ensures that the Cosecha Guadalupe Farmers Market will not use city water or electricity and puts trash disposal rules in place.

Mayor Ariston Julian said he was concerned that trash generated from the market would end up overflowing in bins outside of the Guadalupe Senior Center or other buildings in town.

“Our intention was that the vendors themselves, … would be responsible for their own trash removal and bringing their own trash bins, those kinds of things, with them,” Business Association President Wilson said.

Unlike a previous farmers market proposal from different organizers in 2022, the Cosecha Guadalupe Farmers Market did not request free use of electricity or water from the city and “also offered to take all trash generated from the farmers market events away and deposit in other approved locations,” Sinco said.

The approved market’s memorandum also outlined some branding rules to help support the event once it opens to the public, Sinco said.

“The market has requested that the city look at this as a cooperative enterprise,” Sinco said. “The city is basically to recognize and acknowledge the market as a key community partner, and it’s going to be reflected through co-marketing, joint branding, and acknowledgement and promotion of these services.”

Any public communications about the market from the city would have to include the co-branding, Sinco explained. 

“Same goes for the market. Anything that they put out that has our brand on it has to be approved. It’s a reciprocal obligation,” he said.

Sinco said that city staff added a note to the memorandum to make it clear that the city isn’t obligated to print or distribute advertisements or other materials to promote the market, “and that’s just because we didn’t want to be forced to incur a financial expense against our will.”

The council ultimately approved the memorandum with a 4-0 vote (Councilmember Eugene Costa Jr. was absent).

“I think it’s a great idea,” Mayor Julian said, “and a long time coming, so let’s get it going.”