Councillor files FOI request
Riel seeks answers on what city’s licensing agreement with market requires of vendors
Coun. Keith Riel filed a request at the clerk’s office on Wednesday to see a new licensing agreement between the city and the farmers’ market.
It costs $5 to make such a request through Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation and it generally takes 30 days before documents are released.
Riel said he doesn’t think he should have to apply to see the agreement, but he’s doing so because Mayor Daryl Bennett told him it’s the only way to obtain it. That upset him.
“I’m not saying there aren’t rules to follow, but I’m a city councillor – and to me, this is council business,” he said at City Hall on Wednesday, minutes after filing his FOI request.
On Feb. 8, Mayor Bennett confirmed that the city had signed a new licensing agreement to allow the Peterborough and District Farmers’ Market Association (PDFMA) to run the Saturday farmers’ market at Morrow Park until April 30, 2019.
A licence agreement differs from a lease in a few significant ways, explains a government of Canada website: for instance, the holder of a licence cannot sublet the property the way a leaseholder can.
The market is a non-profit corporation that pays fees to operate on city-owned property. The PDFMA had a lease with the city that expired in 2010; since then, the city allowed the board to continue operating at Morrow Park until a new agreement could be put in place.
The agreement hasn’t been available to The Examiner either.
Bennett wrote in an email to The Examiner on Friday that licences and leases are processed and approved by city staff - not council.
It means any citizen or council member who wants a copy of the agreement has to make a special request through FOI, Bennett wrote - the mayor included.
Bennett wrote that although he saw the agreement when he signed it, he wasn’t given a copy to keep: it was returned to the clerk’s office to be sealed and then it was sent to the legal department.
“If I wanted a copy of the agreement, I would file an FOI request,” he wrote.
The Examiner sought comment about the agreement last week from Mark Jones, the marketing director of the PDFMA, and also from Gabriel Poliquin, the board’s lawyer. Neither one was available.
A rift has formed lately between local growers at the market and re-sellers (vendors who buy from other farmers, or from the Ontario Food Terminal, without necessarily telling the customer the food isn’t homegrown).
In early January, the market held a closed meeting to discuss voting out seven local growers and artisans over allegations of aggressive behaviour.
The business carried out at the meeting was never reported: journalists were barred and a gag order was placed on all those present. Yet those at risk of expulsion have since returned to the market to sell their wares.
Riel said on Wednesday he wants to know whether the licensing agreement stipulates that vendors must clearly indicate where the produce is grown.
He says he’s unhappy with all the conflict at the market, which is more than 100 years old.
“It doesn’t serve the city well, this dissension.”