It was really nice of the "Springfield News-Leader's" Wes Johnson to follow up today on the story I broke at JackeHammer last Friday.
Wes expressed his appreciation for all the hard work and research I have been providing when I saw him at the last meeting of the Task Force.
"I've been enjoying your reporting on the Urban Garden Task Force. Thank you," Johnson said.
It was the first time the News-Leader was represented at a task force meeting since the group announced their first meeting in early August and the fourth time the group has met.
In the mean time, I had received, along with the Urban Garden Task Force, a response via email to my blog post of last Friday from assistant City attorney Nancy Yendez.
In that response," Yendez indicated she had not researched state statute pertaining to Missouri Court definitions of farms or farming in relation to the sale of vegetables from a residential zoned property.
"Whether someone is a farmer for the state statute if they are selling in front of their residential house where they grew the vegetables has not been researched by me yet and it is not a simple answer," Yendez wrote.
She had anticipated being at the next Urban Garden Task Force meeting but did not realize it would not be held until next Tuesday evening, on September 22, rather than on September 15.
"I now have a conflict with that time period, so I do not know if I will make the meeting. I have talked with [Senior Planner] Daniel Neal today about my research on zoning sales in residential, on streets, etc," Yendez wrote in a later email.
Yendez had previously addressed the task force concerning the bearing Missouri state statutes might have on potential city policy regulating "urban gardens" at the group's second meeting on August 18.
As usual, I will continue to update the blog when I feel I have enough new information to share that it is warranted. At the moment, I am awaiting information which I feel might be pertinent to a clear understanding of the Municipal Code section sited by Ms. Butler in Friday's blog entry and discussed in Mr. Johnson's article in the "Springfield News-Leader" today.
...and Wes, I've been enjoying reading your coverage of the Urban Garden Task Force. Thank you. - Jackie Melton
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Congrats Jackie! We appreciate your honest and detailed approach. As you know, Galen and I have expressed many times that it behooves both the City and the Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance to have your continuous oversight. This question of food will be the question of the decade, if not the century. We of the Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance realize that he who owns your food owns you. Thus, the ability to grow, own, control and sell your own food must be the right of every free man inside city limits or otherwise. When you understand that we import our food, our products and export our debt, we are reminded of why we debate this question. If our country is too ever return to power, we must grow and secure our own food, re-localize our economies and remind ourselves that government was designed to be FOR and BY the people. Those who serve the city, the county, the state and the Nation serve at OUR pleasure. Regular people should be involved in the rule making, if any, that governs us. I, like many other Americans, am getting tired of being told what is legal and illegal by people no more qualified to make those decisions than I.
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