RDA Agmt 2008 Pacific Coast Farmers Market Assn

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Pacific Coast Farmers' Market Association Page 5 procedures for producers to follow including time of arrival and departure, parking of vehicles and negotiation of street barricades. When completing their annual Application to Sell, each producer agrees to obey these Standard Operating Procedures. PCFMA prefers to take control of a market site two hours before the posted opening time to allow sufficient time for producers to arrive and setup their stalls. PCFMA strives to have all producers packed up and the street reopened by one hour after the posted closing time of the farmers' market. The setup of producers at the site varies from market to market. Many of PCFMA's street closure farmers' markets place farmers' trucks and stalls along the curbs to create a center aisle way down the center of the street. At other markets, farmers offload their equipment and produce and park elsewhere. The farmers then setup either along the curb selling to a single center aisle way, or set up along the center line selling out toward the curb, creating two aisle ways, each between the farmers and the businesses that line the street. PCFMA proposes to operate the Downtown San Leandro Farmers' Market on Wednesday evenings, from 4:OOpm to 8:OOpm, beginning Wednesday, June 4 and continuing through Wednesday, October 22, 2008. The request for proposals suggested a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday operation of the farmers' market. By operating the farmers' market on Wednesday evenings, PCFMA will be able to recruit market producers from its morning markets at the College of San Mateo and the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Hayward. Giving these producers the opportunity to sell at a second market that day will help to make their trip from the farm more cost- effective, increasing their reliability and attendance at the market. The proposed site for the Downtown San Leandro Farmers' Market offers a number of logistical challenges and one of PCFMA's first steps, if given the contract to operate the farmers' market, would be to work with the City of San Leandro to address the logistical challenges of the Parrott Street location or to help identify an alternative location. One issue to be considered is the impact on parking lots that are accessible from Parrott Street. There are two parking lots that have entrances and exits only from Parrott Street. These lots would be completely inaccessible if all of Parrott Street were closed for the farmers' market. Another two parking lots have entrances from Parrott Street and exits onto other streets. These two lots would still be accessible, but a portion of each lot would not be usable if all of Parrott Street were closed to traffic. Another issue to consider is that the shops along the north side of Parrott Street that are part of the Pelton Center might not like to have large trucks of farmers parked along the curb, cutting off visibility for their shops from a center aisle way of a farmers' market that could run along the center line of Parrott Street. If the farmers' market is held on Parrott Street, special attention would have to be paid to the layout of the farmers' market near these businesses to ensure that the business owners did not perceive the farmers' market to be an impediment to their business. Finally, issues of traffic and parking would have to be considered. PCFMA staff visited Parrott Street on a Thursday afternoon at 2:OOpm, the time at which the street would be closed to prepare for the setup of the farmers' market. At that time, most of the parking spaces along Parrott Street were full, and there was a large amount of traffic moving along Parrott Street. If Parrott Street were to host a farmers' market, the current parking limitation signs would need to be altered to inform customers of no parking on market days during the hours the street is needed for the market and the months that the market is open. Working with the City of San Leandro and local business owners, it is possible that these issues could be addressed in a manner that allows Parrott Street to be utilized for the Downtown San Leandro Farmers' Market. If one or more of these issues cannot be overcome, then PCFMA would be happy to work with the City of San Leandro on an analysis of alternative sites for the farmers' market.