03-09-2010, 04:47 AM
The SPACE Farmers Market was mismanaged. This is not only my personal opinion, but the opinion of several vendors who signed a petition asking for more involvement and at least one SPACE board member. There were no rules of any sort except that Belly Acres residents did not have to pay to be there, but everybody else, from anywhere else, had to pay full price. The Manager refused to have the same kind of regulations determining who brings what that most market across Hawaii and the country do. Mr.Way loves to talk about how this area and is poor and needs the Market, but one of the poorest members was repeatedly told that it did not matter to SPACE Market Management if she went home with no profit, the only cause of which was "free market" principals and lack of regulation. That is to say, for example, if one expects to make $50 selling orange juice, because every week for the past three months they have made $50 selling orange juice, then one day, a new vendor comes in selling orange juice even though there is no more demand for it than $50 dollars worth, what will happen? The second person will be happy that they made $25, the first person will be wondering how they are going to fill there gas tank. This is an oversimplification, but truthful in what it illustrates. Is that the way the Village Center will be run? Are people from other parts of Puna going to come Seaview to make money while neighbors of SPACE struggle because they went home with half the earnings expected? That is what was happening at their Market. If you think that someone raising these concerns, when they have seen it with their own eyes, is a crank, then there must be more fiscal conservatives disguised as social liberals here than I thought. Sustainability means everyone gets their needs met, in a way that will perpetuate itself. It not just a buzz word for the ruling class to toss out like bread.