Dear Concerned Citizen
I sent the following email to city council candidates concerning our Salem Farmer’s Market. If you care about this issue, now is the time to get this issue on the record.
Dear Salem City Council Candidate,
I recently called the City Manager’s Office and received clarification from Judy Hough on the status of the Request for Proposal that was issued for the Salem Farmer’s Market property. This means that Salem is actively searching for a developer to build a hotel above the Farmer’s Market. It is possible to engineer this despite the underground stream. Judy spoke with Kevin and Jay about this. Here is what she said:
“Council gave permission in July 2016 to negotiate a deal without further consultation with City Council to a developer to build a hotel on this site. This was done in an advertisement that did not identify the property as the Farmers Market, making it seem like the City was willfully deceptive in sharing the issue with citizens. A hotel (or another edifice) deal requires no further oversight by City Council except to approve the contract. You, as candidates for City Council, may like Salem Farmer’s Market as it is without a hotel above it. IT IS CURRENTLY THREATENED WITHOUT REVOCATION OF THE 2016 AUTHORIZATION FOR SUCH A DEAL. A DEAL COULD HAPPEN VERY QUICKLY WITHOUT COUNCIL OR CITIZENS KNOWING ABOUT IT. It is possible that our city manager could make a deal and we would all read about it in the paper – done deal. Kevin and Melinda have said that ‘We will always have a Farmers Market. This is code for “We can easily move it.”
Will you pledge as a member of City Council to revoke this current authorization to sell the “air rights” over the Farmer’s Market and permanently conserve this space for future generations? It is similar to John Givens taking the initiative long ago to protect the Municipal Golf Course by downzoning it to “agricultural.” He was always proud of this.
Preserving our Farmer’s Market where it is as an open-air market and gathering space is extremely popular among Salemites. If Salem is so desperate that we must resort to sacrificing this critical and much-loved central open space to a hotel, the City needs better management. We have better places for a hotel such as next to the County Courthouse accessible to I-81.
Please step forward on this issue and take a stand for the preservation of our Salem Farmer’s Market.
-Cynthia Munley