Email to Nelson City Council Re: Wednesday Market

I own Zinnia Textiles, a clothing and goods store on the 600 block of Baker st. We have been in our current location for over 7 years and I have appreciated having the Wednesday market on the block we do business. It helped establish us in our first year and in the last few years have greatly appreciated the opportunity to expand our presence onto the sidewalk. It provides the business as well as the team with endless wonderful opportunities and experiences. It's a fantastic event to get to have downtown!

I currently have 4 employees and we all take advantage of the accessibility of the market to buy our veggies, lunch, treats and so much more. We connect with our friends and create new connections. It is going to be very hard for us who are working on Wednesday to attend the market at the Cottonwood. From our little team alone there will be quite the loss of income for the vendors. Parking down there can be challenging (we may have to first retrieve our car) and there's no way we have the time or energy to do that walk (especially on hot days!!)

I have appreciated the opportunity to have sales racks outside and to try different things on market day. This year I invested in inventory especially for Wednesday market day, not to mention bought my seasonal inventory with cashflow predictions based on the market happening on our block. I had also made some other potential plans to include my kiddo in some fun sidewalk events. I have my summer scheduled with extra staff on Wednesday, some of who have booked childcare.

This is a big change to make last minute when it has such far reaching impacts! I do not appreciate how this unfolded and feel like my business has been completely disregarded by the city and the committee. Our artists, craftspeople, food vendors, farmers and downtown businesses are at the heart of what people experience as the essence of Nelson. The city should be doing everything they can to ensure the well being of these enterprises. Behind these businesses are folks like me who have invested mass amounts of personal resources (omg, the constant financial risk!!) and are constantly making personal sacrifices to make things work. We rely on a number of weeks to get our businesses through the year in order to pay our ever increasing rent (hello, city taxes!! they are high!!! my goodness)

I have personally invested so much into creating a beautiful little heartfelt business that I feel contributes a lot to the community of Nelson. As it happens, I am just about to move my store across the street to 636 Baker (previously mountain baby). This will be a big expansion for me, (you should see how much I pay in city taxes for this space - you are welcome btw!) and I had made plans, hired people, signed contracts all with a timeline oriented around ensuring we'd be open for the first market in July. The Wednesday Market and the foot traffic it brings and the opportunities it provides the business is considered in my business planning. I made decisions that impact my finances and peoples work schedules around it. 

I was wildly disappointed to see the city council's response in their latest meeting to the legitimate concerns that Lesley brought up (Thank you Lesley!). Where is the care for the impact that this could have? Where is the accountability for the fact that they should have been responsible for ensuring the committee was well and functioning. This is an impactful situation. Forget the concern about whether or not this undermines the trust in council! Where is the concern about whether this decision undermines the well being of many dozens of individuals, farms and businesses? My trust has been undermined by this decision made by the city and lack of care demonstrated by the majority of members of the city council.

In regards to the city putting effort into communication about this as talked about in the meeting, I would, at the very least, expect to see paid advertisements on social media. This is how the majority of people get the word these days. (FYI many of us pay for spotify so don't get ads and we aren't listening to the radio very much) The City of Nelson instagram account has only 1500 followers, so maybe 200 followers will get the post it in their feed, if they're lucky. Generally posts with text get very few views without boosting (helpful info for you!)  As of 1pm today, there are ZERO posts from Nelson Farmers Market, which only has 3500 followers. I am not happy to be endorsing these platforms but sadly, it is the current reality and the city and council and the committee need to be doing all they can to get the word out about this to help minimize the negative impact on our community.

I really hope to see action taken by both the city and council to ensure the well being of all of us who could be substantially negatively impacted by this decision.

Thank you for reading my email and considering the additional impacts of this decision.

Sincerely,

Jen Barnes

Link to petition HERE