Tempers flare over farmers’ market

Jessica Ablamsky

Tempers got heated at a Village of Great Neck trustee meeting on Thursday, April 21 during a discussion with the Great Neck Park District about a farmers’ market that has been five or six years in the making – and apparently will take at least another year.

Great Neck Park District officials expressed displeasure with the Village of Great Neck’s handling of an intermunicipal agreement that would permit the park district to run the farmers’ market in the Village of Great Neck.

“The stumbling block here is not how this is termed but how you a responding to businesses that are against it,” said Great Neck Park District Commissioner Ruth Tamarin during a series of heated exchanges at the meeting.

Although park district commissioners hoped to start the farmers market this year, in an e-mail after the meeting Tamarin said that scheduling it this year would be impossible but expressed hope for the future.

“I believe we will finalize the IMA to everyone’s satisfaction so we can hopefully be lucky enough to get an available farmer next year,” she said. “I’m sure there will be many disappointed residents.”

Great Neck Park District Chair Ivar Segalowitz said in an e-mail that there are no farmers available for the market this year.

“We were going to get the farmers’ markets that operated at a farmers market at Christopher Morley Park” in Roslyn-North Hills, he said. “This park was to be shut due to Nassau County cut backs. The county has reversed itself on the closure and therefore there are no farmers’ market available for Great Neck. Sorry we tried.”

Village of Great Neck Mayor Ralph Kreitzman also said in an e-mail after the meeting that village trustees and park district commissioners will soon meet to make plans for next year.

“We plan to meet soon to work out any remaining issues so that plans can be made far in advance for next [2012] spring, fall and summer,” he said.

As part of its downtown revitalization, Village of Great Neck trustees asked the Great Neck Park District to bring a farmers’ market to the village, a plan trustees previously nixed due to concerns from local merchants, according to Great Neck Park District commissioners.

“It was proposed, it never proceeded,” Kreitzman said. “I don’t know if the board turned it down or what, but it was suggested.”

At the April 21 meeting, trustees declined to approve the IMA because they said it protect the park district from potential lawsuits but not the village.

Instead, Kreitzman and Trustee Jeffrey Bass were appointed to a farmers’ market committee and charged with negotiating the IMA.

The park district commissioners and the newly formed committee planned to meet on April 22, but the meeting never took place because of the Passover holiday.

Trustees insisted they do want the farmers’ market and expressed confidence that remaining issues could be worked out.

“We all want to do this and we are all upset that it did not happen easily,” Kreitzman said at the trustee meeting.

“The board just doesn’t feel we can subject the village taxpayers to a risk when they have no control over what happens,” he said. “The village is willing to accept liability for anything they cause.”

Park district commissioners said at the meeting they felt mislead and believed the issue of liability was a ploy to halt the farmers’ market this year.

“I busted my butt doing this,” said Segalowitz. “The request came from you. It did not come from us.”

Other issues raised at the meeting included vendors insurance, parking for vendors, no automatic renewal of the intermunicipal agreement, equal opportunity for local merchants, and excluding Thursday and Friday as potential days for the farmers market.

Thursday and Friday are the heaviest shopping days for Village of Great Neck merchants, said Village of Great Neck trustee Barton Sobel.

Trustees also requested that no fish be sold at the market to avoid competing with a local fish market.

The next meeting of the Great Neck Park District is on April 28 after press time, when they hoped to again discuss the farmers market.

Other Village of Great Neck agenda items included approval of up to $1.5 million for a road bond resolution and approval of a $325,000 bond to purchase a new street sweeper.

“Last year we approved 1.5 million and only bonded 1 million because the bids came out lower,” Kreitzman said of the road bond. “We are repaving every road in our village, and this is just a continuing step in that process.”

In a change that will save several thousand dollars, the village election will be held June 21 at Great Neck House on Arrandale Avenue with voting hours of 12-9 p.m. Up for reelection are Bass, Trustee Mitchell Beckerman, and Kreitzman.

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