News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Jamestown City Attorney Evan Wright has revised a 1981 ordinance to allow the Farmer’s Market to remain in its current form.
Wright said under the old ordinance each individual vendor that was a part of the Farmer’s Market would have to get a permit with the city. The two sides also resolved an issue with the market’s location.
“We sat down with the Farmer’s Market, and I had a meeting with the leadership there,” Wright said. “We tried to figure out where our common ground is and fix these issues, so we can keep the Farmer’s Market going in Jamestown.”
The updated ordinance will have to be approved by the city council. Wright said he has sent the Farmer’s Market a draft of the ordinance to get their feedback. He said he plans on bringing it to the board in either October or November.
“We took the law that we had, and we refined it,” Wright said. “And were writing a specific provision for the Farmer’s Market. And what I did was I took their bylaws, and I tried to use those bylaws to overlay what the law in the city of Jamestown would be where those two things would sort of mesh together.”
The Farmer’s Market and the city had just recently resolved an issue about where the Farmer’s Market could set up.
“It’s not that they’re being allowed or not allowed to stay, I think that’s probably not accurate,” Wright said. “The permit process is what we’re addressing. There was some issues about where the Farmer’s Market was taking place, but I believe the County Executive there in Fentress County had made a suggestion to just sort of move the Farmer’s Market around behind the Chamber of Commerce building there so it would still be near the town square.”
The Farmer’s Market does have a pavilion in Jamestown near the USDA building. Wright said the Farmer’s Market Association in Jamestown does not want to use that facility.
“These things come up,” Wright said. “Its a small town. Our downtown area, of course, like a lot of the downtown in the Upper Cumberland, we are trying to inspire people to build businesses and rehabilitate the downtown area. The Farmer’s Market is of course a part of that. They want to have a nice functional space, and we want them to have that. So we are just trying to figure this out and everybody get their disagreements worked out, and I hope everybody is happy with what we present.”
