Michael Haggert
Fair is not the same as equal. Go ahead
and check with the folks over at the Oxford
Dictionary.
Equal means that two things have the
same size or value. Fair means being just
and appropriate to the circumstances. In a
few days, our City Council is going to receive
a report from one of its sub-committees
about how the city policy on waiving fees
would require the Downtown Farmers
Market to pay $22,000 for the use of Charles
Clark Square during the summer months.
Some might argue that waiving the fees
creates an unfair circumstance for one
group over another, and that our policies are
supposed to prevent this.
Part of the fees being discussed is a
charge to exempt the Downtown Farmers
Market from the noise bylaw so that the
entertainers can use a microphone. An
equal fee would be charged to the
organizers of the electronic dance party at
the Festival Plaza. I can hear the dance party
from my home in South Walkerville. I can’t
hear the microphone at the market when
I’m standing next to it and the casino
shuttle bus drives by. Equal, maybe, but fair?
Bureaucracies like equal. Fill out the
appropriate form, look up the link in the
table, and charge the indicated fee. But our
city council has already indicated they know
their role is in the realm of fairness. Council
recently postponed reinforcing the policy
concerning landscaping improvements on
boulevards because a review of the fees
indicated they might not be fair. Fees
charged by the city should not be
prohibitive or punitive. It may end up that
Make your voice
heard!
the fee structure is both fair and equal but I
am confident our council is going to lean
towards fair.
The healthy, fresh, local food that is the
core of the market achieves other policy
objectives in the City of Windsor. In 2014
council endorsed the Good Food Charter of
Windsor Essex County. This Charter
supports access to nutritious food for all, as
well as the availability of healthy food
choices in public spaces.
Our cultural master plan provides
ample justification for the support of the
symphony and museum. The perfomers at
the market are surely as worthy of support
from our councillors. In addition, at the
north end of Charles Clark Square is a
plaque describing the long history of this
space as a public market. Every week during
the season, thousands of visitors visit a
modern re-creation of our city’s history, a
live-action museum piece which goes much
further to preserve our cultural history.
There is plenty of evidence that
farmers markets produce billions of dollars
in economic activity in Canada. Our city
provides the economic development
commission with substantial support, as
evidenced by recent conversations at
council. Other municipal governmnts in
Essex County find ways to make farmers
markets viable in their communities. They
recognize the numerous additions to the
quality of their residents’ lives that these
markets bring. And none of the market
activity costs taxpayers a dime.
No one should make the argument that
somehow the city is losing $22K. Every once
in a while I catch a financial report on the
news. Those are the ones where Company X
reports a loss of millions of dollars. The
data behind the headlines raises my blood
pressure. If Company X had forecast a profit
of, say, $40 million, but only delivered a
profit of, say, $5 million, it’s simply wrong
for Wall Street or Bay Street to declare that
Company X lost $35 million. No they didn’t!
They made a profit of $5 million.No one is
waiting in the wings to give the city money
to use the Square. The city has nothing to
lose by waiving the fees for the Downtown
Farmers Market.
But if there is no downtown market, the
city will definitely gain an empty square.
It seems that some can’t see the policy
forest for the sake of one policy tree. If you
believe food matters, let your council know
you want them to waive the fees for the
Downtown Farmers Market. Call or email
your councillor and once they’ve made the
fair choice, come celebrate every Saturday
beginning May 30 at the market – fairness
should be celebrated and most celebrations,
of course, call for food.
Tell us on Facebook about your adventures with food this month,
or tweet us @thehubWE #foodmatters
May 2015 - The HUB 7