MASSIVE FARMERS MARKET PROPOSAL CREATING QUITE A PICKLE
By Dave Wielenga
A proposal for a massive farmers’ market on the so-called Pumpkin Patch property—along Pacific Coast Highway, just south of the MarketPlace shopping center—appears headed for a second and indefinite postponement. The agenda for the July 12 Zoning Administrator hearing recommends that the item be “continue[d] to a date uncertain.” The original hearing on June 27 was also postponed.
The proposed farmers’ market has generated significant interest for a variety of reasons, ranging from its size to its location to the familiar names associated with the project.
The Pumpkin Patch property is owned by Tom Dean, the Naples businessman who has frequent dealings with the City of Long Beach—most recently a controversial swap of 33 acres of wetlands-area property for the city’s port-adjacent public service yard.
The farmers’ market is proposed by Ted and Dave Thacker of Cottage Grove, OR, who have made a name locally with their Thackerberry Farms strawberry stands. The Thackers are being represented by lobbyist Mike Murchison, who has represented Dean in dealings with the city.
The proposed Farmers’ Market would be located only a couple of blocks from the Long Beach Southeast Market, which operates every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the parking lot of the Alamitos Bay Marina.
But the new market would dwarf the existing one in just about every way, beginning with hours of operation. According to the hearing notice, operators propose hours of 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday; however, according to the application, operators also propose operating on Wednesdays and Fridays from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. from February through August.
Other specs:
- 100 vendor spaces (55 spaces @ 10 ft x 10 ft; 44 spaces @ 10 ft x 20 ft ; and 1 space @ 10 ft x 30 ft).
- Vendor mix: 30% certified farmers only; 30% produce vendors; 30 mixed use (i.e. hot/cold prepared food, arts and crafts, etc); 10% non-profit
- 470 on-site parking spaces (370 customer spaces and 100 vendor spaces).
- 5 porta-potties
- An entertainment area.
- A train area.
- An area for ponies.
Finally, there is a question of the role of the Second+PCH mixed use development that has been proposed. Thackerberry Farms currently operates one of its strawberry stands on that corner. And the parking lot of Alamitos Bay Marina—current home of the Long Beach Southeast Market—is presumably part of the plan for the Second+PCH development.
10 Comments
Always so cynical…did you not see that they were proposing ponies? No one with evil in their heart would want to bring ponies to the children.
LBCityGirl,
I guess that means you also supported wetlands destroyer Sean Hitchcock’s grading of the Los Cerritos Wetlands. After all, how could someone be evil in their heart if they were going to build soccer fields for children.
They forgot something. A wetlands viewing platform would be perfect for that parcel.
[...] MASSIVE FARMERS MARKET PROPOSAL CREATING QUITE A PICKLE [...]
We love the current Farmer’s Market in the marina and patronize it weekly. We do not love that they seem to allow their vendors to continue to encroach ever further into the center aisle down which customers are supposed to be able to have room to walk.
A larger and improved Farmer’s Market, with more vendors and more choices would be welcome so long as the parking area is properly maintained and doesn’t become the dust bowl that the Pumpkin Patch parking area routinely does.
Finally, all of this should be moot because the city should flat out refuse to do business with *anyone* that employs Mike Murchison to represent them. Eventually those who want to do business with the city might then get the message and stop hiring him and perhaps he would then slink off to slime up somsone else’s swamp.
Yes if they just moved the whole thing over there it might be nicer. But they would have to clean that lot up so it is not “the dust bowl.” Plus, there would have to be regular restroom facilities constructed. Port a potties are just one of the most disgusting things in the world!
What if it was developed in an environmentally responsible way to become an everyday, year-round open air market, that did actually embrace the wetlands and provide some funding to maintain them as part of its mission?
my good JV that would really provide an “iconic” gateway into our City. Just across from the 12 story PCH Hotel/Village we can have blankets blowing in the wind. Who is your decorator.
I think a “village style organic farmers market would be lovely. You could plant it with Calif. natives, use classic Calif. architecture for the basic framework. Nothing wrong with something being non-corporate. We get used to glossed-over images of cities as we watch TV. Homeowners start to decorate their homes like hotels because they think that is what is right. But the most desirable places to visit in the world are the ones that are not generic, they are the authentically beautiful places. Since when do we have to be iconic anyway?
[...] DAVE WIELENGA’S “MASSIVE FARMERS MARKET PROPOSAL CREATING QUITE A PICKLE,” JULY 8 [...]
After a recent conversation with someone I know and respect, I feel compelled to revise and extend my remarks concerning Mike Murchison. I do not know the man other than by reputation and by news accounts of his dealings with the city and various city employees. The city emails that were disclosed during the “Napagate” scandal which eventually led to the demotion and transfer of former city Development Services Department Director Craig Beck, illustrated, at least for me, that Mr. Murchison had gotten far too cozy with Beck and other city officials and far too dismissive of the reasonable concerns of many others.
This is the sort of conduct on the part of Murchison and people like him that I find most offensive.
Murchison is unapologetic about being among the best at what he does…lobbying elected and appointed public officials to convince them to do business with whomever it is he is being paid to represent. Thus, my problem with him is not, by any means, personal but has more to do with the entire lobbying industry, legal though it may be and the…aggressive?…manner in which the most effective lobbyists pursue public employees who are supposed to be in office to primarily represent the people of Long Beach, rather than this or that special interest group.
The more successful lobbyists are those that are the most adept at walking that very fine line between unethical and unlawful conduct. By his own public admission, Murchison is extremely adept indeed.
Like politics in general, I see professional lobbyists as a necessary evil. I think it’s important that individuals be able form groups and attempt to collectively convince elected and appointed city officials of the benefits of their particular point of view or project or position.
In my view, however, where we begin to run afield from legitimate electoral advocacy is when we decide to employ others to advocate on our behalf. Companies and many non-profits are simply collections of individuals in corporate form, but they are not always a collection of individuals who are members of the local electorate…those our electeds and appointees are rightly most responsible to.
Thus, when thousands and thousands of dollars are paid to professional lobbyists to represent clients that may not be members of the local electorate, undue access and influence is far too easily achieved. Decisions can be influenced that are not necessarily representative of the best interest of the electorate in Long Beach.
It can certainly be argued that the electorate in Long Beach can and often does directly benefit from this development project or that public policy decision. But I submit that it is ultimately the electorate that must make that final determination and not, as is so often the case now, a professional lobbyist paid handsomely to whisper the right words to the right official(s) in just the right way so as to influence a vote in his or her client’s favor.
Since, as mentioned, all of this is legal, if not always particularly ethical, it falls to the electorate to be better informed about these activities and to allow their decisions about who they elect, and then re-elect, to be better informed by what they observe of these activities.