County Farmers' Market Bill Put on Hold

The St. Louis County Council has put on hold a comprehensive bill overseeing how farmers' markets in the county do business.

Vendor fees have been prohibitively high, and the application process lengthy. County council member Pat Dolan introduced a bill written by the county Department of Health designed to address those and other issues.

Market masters from Clayton, Webster Groves and Maplewood spoke to the council Tuesday night. They said the bill makes some fixes, but leaves concerns.

One concern is that the bill would limit markets to seven months a year. That was a surprise to everyone, even the council members. Maplewood market master Brian DeSmet told the council the Maplewood market has been year-round for more than five years.

“They’re redefining a market into something limited, putting it more at a place, as opposed to being a time where people meet with a certain person organizing it, which is how farmer’s markets are usually defined,” DeSmet said before the meeting. “There’s no way I could support it with that clause in there.”

He also said U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations already defines a farmers' market, and the bill as written would override that definition.

Kori Thompson, market master for Kirkwood, said she’s been working with council member Colleen Wasinger for two years on streamlining the process. She said she’s happy to have a more reasonable fee structure, but finished by thanking the council to make the necessary changes to protect famers and small businesses.

Webster Groves market master, Angela Foley, said the market mangers met with the county’s Department of Health in January 2011 to talk about their concerns.

“However when the proposed legislation was drafted, the health department never called another meeting to see if our concerns were met,” she said. “After reading through it, I don’t feel all of our concerns were met.”

Clayton market master, Deborah Henderson agreed.

“I think it’s unfortunate that after some of our previous group discussions, they went behind closed doors, and we were not included in those discussions,” she told the council.

The bill could have been on track for a vote in the Feb. 7 council meeting.

What's next

The process now will be on hold until it can be discussed in public committee meeting. Council member Pat Dolan said it’s important for county Department of Health Director, Dolores Gunn, to be there.

“We have to have Dr. Gunn there in order to answer any questions,” Dolan said. "We need clarity, transparency, everybody on board."

He said the committee meeting will be scheduled as soon as possible, but doubted it would happen before next week’s council meeting, because it was just decided that night.

DeSmet was confident with all the stakeholders present at a meeting, everyone will be happy with the final result.

“It’s a good starting point but it’s not ready for prime time,” he said.