Championing the death of downtown, killing the character of the city and general apathy toward hard-working, independent farmers are just a few of the things I've been accused of since urging the Santa Fe Farmers Market to quit whining about metered parking and pay attention to what's important [
Zane's World, March 19: "Park Raving Mad"
].
***image1***
What's important? Namely, finishing up its building for summer and getting me some of those sweet, spring ramps to lay across the top of my grass-fed beef. I'll admit to having made the rather inane statement that parking meters will bring order (as a letter to the editor pointed out, equal order would be supplied by painted lines), but beyond that, I'm sticking to my guns. I still think the Farmers Market and its supporters in the great parking meter battle of 2008 should hang their straw hats in shame at fighting for cars' rights. Obviously, one of the reasons local markets and area produce are so appealing is because the food doesn't need to be transported (most simple food products travel 3,000 to 5,000 miles to arrive in New Mexico), but why stop there? Why not encourage people to bicycle and use buses and shuttles?
"We'd like to see Zane get home on his bicycle with a bulging sack of groceries and a watermelon," pained farmers complained, in apparent defense of the need for heaps o' free parking as a God-given, American right. Uh, I don't know about anybody else, but my bike has a big rack on it. In fact, it's an oversized rack that I added just for going to the Farmers Market. It probably cost me approximately the equivalent of metered parking at the Market for a season, i.e., not much. I also have a shoulder bag, although some industrious souls may prefer what the kids are calling a "backpack." It may be a new idea for some of the old-timers out there. I haven't even mentioned how much can be carried on a bus; it turns out that those things are huge.
Sure, sure, but that doesn't take into account the fact that lots of people are just going to drive cars anyhow and, what with Goliaths like Albertsons and Whole Foods offering acres of free parking, people are going to gravitate toward the asphalt mas gratis. Thus, I'm told, the Farmers Market, being small, local and too poor to provide free parking, is at a disadvantage. And so, the argument concludes, the city should compensate for this disadvantage by refusing to cop a buck or two off shoppers whose fervor for bargaining begins with where to lodge their Land Rovers.
Well, golly. It is a free country, but it's not free to do business. This isn't a political problem, it's a marketing problem. The Farmers Market has a superior product to Albertsons or Whole Foods. Better for you, better for the planet, better overall value, better environment to shop in and better access to food and farming experts.
Maybe that's why the city has given the Farmers Market $200,000 in Capital Improvement Project funds this year. It may have something to do with the $100,000 worth of in-kind city staff hours used to assist in securing the Market's Railyard home. Maybe that's why the State of New Mexico is the single largest contributor to the Market's $4.5 million building. Perhaps it is a motivating factor in the city's willingness to consider offering free bus service to the Market.
The importance of a vital Farmers Market may even have something to do with the new Sustainable Santa Fe Plan, which calls for increasing citizen consumption of local foods by significant margins. That will essentially be the city doing free marketing for the Farmers Market. Wow. All of a sudden it appears the Farmers Market receives significant local government support. With all of these advantages, if the public can't be convinced to shop at the Farmers Market, then hiring a new marketing and public relations staff is going to be more effective than begging free parking from an overtaxed city government that is just trying to (almost) cover the cost of the parking spaces it is providing.
Finally, while I'm sympathetic to the idea that the Farmers Market, and all of the city center for that matter, should be open and easily accessible to everyone, I'm also a realist and, it turns out, an elitist. I'm a realist because I believe that cities need to generate revenue from every possible rock that may be squeezed and that people who benefit from a city's largesse should be more grateful than whiny. I'm an elitist because I pre-judge and dislike anyone who would rather drive to the mall than support a locally owned business, or shop at Albertsons or Super Wal-Mart rather than the Farmers Market, on the basis of free versus pay parking, especially when the revenues benefit everyone.
If you're not willing to walk, bicycle, ride a free bus or put a few quarters in a meter in order to have delicious, nutritious, sustainable food, why don't you stop by Wal-Mart and pick up a processed-cheese-filled meat tube to sustain you while you pack up your crap and move to Phoenix. I don't want you at my Farmers Market. I don't want you in my downtown. And I don't want you making the local whiners even whinier because they're concerned about where you're going to park and how much it might cost.
In fact, let me lend a helping hand to the new, unauthorized, unofficial, absolutely-not-sanctioned Santa Fe Farmers Market advertising campaign: It's not where you park it, it's where you market.
