Politics

Council to Vote on Motion Making Farmers' Market Sub-Committee Decisions Final

By Joey Coleman
Published December 03, 2010

Hamilton City Council will meet in a special session Tuesday afternoon to change two lines in the By-law regulating the Hamilton Farmers' Market.

The session will occur last than 48 hours before the Hamilton Farmers' Market Transition Sub-committee meets to make rulings about appeals lodged by current vendors who were not granted space in the renovated market.

Council will vote on a motion to change a section of the By-law that currently requires Council to approve decisions made by the five-member Hamilton Farmers' Market Transition Sub-committee.

Presently, the By-law reads: "Council-approved decisions of the Market Sub-committee are final." Council is amending this clause to read: "Decisions of the Market Sub-committee are final."

If the motion passes, the decisions made Thursday by the Sub-committee will be final.

The other change to the By-law, if passed, will see the hours of the Market extended on Fridays by opening at 8:00 AM instead of the present 9:00 AM.

Following the debate and vote on amending the Farmers' Market By-law, Council will go in-camera to discuss a matter before the Ontario Municipal Board related to the Rural Official Plan.

You can read the agenda for Tuesday's special Council meeting on the City website.

Joey Coleman covers Hamilton Civic Affairs.

Read more of his work at The Public Record, or follow him on Twitter @JoeyColeman.

4 Comments

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By Tnt (registered) | Posted December 06, 2010 at 00:19:17

Oh that's great! No more appeals for our embattled stallholders.

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By JH (anonymous) | Posted December 06, 2010 at 13:09:10

A significant problem in this process has been a rogue Subcommittee making decisions without the consultation of relevant consumers, vendors, or other stakeholder groups. The City's own Food Security committee was not even involved in the Farmers' Market transition process. Staff authored reports, points systems, which the Sub-committee simply signed off. Now the same Staff who authored these reports, who had tremendous, undue personal influence over the transition process are stating that they no longer have the power to make decisions about stallholders appealing their rejection. I can't help but thing that this "passing the buck" is intended to obscure the actual operations of power, and thus accountability, in this process. I wonder if the amendment to move decision-making from "Council-approved" to "Subcommittee final" will operate to essentially shut down the debate and public transparency of an already disorganized and corrupt process....

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By Mark-Alan Whittle (anonymous) | Posted December 06, 2010 at 15:28:56

Looks like council doesn't want any blow-back from deposed vendors.

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By Mr. Meister (anonymous) | Posted December 07, 2010 at 01:41:16

would you really feel that much better if the decisions all needed to be rubber stamped by council? If the committee cannot make binding decisions then why have them? Then the council would have to make all the decisions. That does not seem like a real smart way of doing it either.

In any process like this there are going to be some questionable decisions. Somebody is going to be left out in the cold, unfortunate but unavoidable. What makes you think that your decisions are better then the decisions of the committee when they have way more facts available to them then you do. Some of their decisions will not be what you like or want, get over it.

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