Food Policy Council (FPC) Meeting on Mon, March 16, 2015 - 7:00 PM

Meeting Information

Administrative items – 7:00 PM
1. Determine quorum of members, agenda approval.
2. Approval of February meeting minutes.
3. Introduction of new appointments & Food Systems Coordinator:
  1. Pep Selvan (BlueJacket Winery)
  2. T.K. Peterson (Merchants)
  3. Helen Schnoes
4. Update on Bob Lominska.
  1. To access meal train for Lominska family (sign-up thru 3/24): mealtrain.com/w771w0
5. Consideration of inviting newly-appointed City Commissioners to April FPC meeting.
Northeast Kansas Food Hub Feasibility Study next steps – 7:30 PM(Marlin Bates)
Update on CDC grant (Chris Tilden) – 7:40 PM
Sunrise Project Update (Emily Hampton) – 7:50 PM
Market Match update (Tresa Carter) – 8:00 PM
Legislative Update (Ashely Jones-Wisner) – 8:05 PM
Subcommittee progress reports – 8:15 PM
- City
  1. Downtown grocery update
  2. Planning for long-term farmers market locations & LFM Board research project update
- County
- Community
  1. Buy Local Campaign update
  2. Chef’s Challenge update
Public comments – 8:40 PM
FPC member updates – 8:50 PM
Adjourn full council meeting – 9:00 PMBottom of Form

FPC Attendees: Jill Elmers, Tyra Kalman-Crouch, Marlin Bates, Teresa Flory, Crystal Hammerschmidt, Chris Tilden, Jen Humphrey, Carol Gilmore, T.K. Peterson, Jason Hering, Daniel Poull, Ashely Jones-Wisner, Emily Hampton, Brady Pollington

Absent: Pattie Johnson, Jan Hornberger, Robert Lominska, Brenna Wulfkuhle, Sandra Lawson, Boog Highberger, Pep Selvan, Kim Criner, Elizabeth Stewart

Staff members: Tresa Carter

Guests: Helen Schnoes (Food Systems Coordinator), Matt Schwabauer (ECM), Bob & Winell Garrett (Allen County FPC)

Administrative items – 7:00 PM
1. Determine quorum of members, agenda approval.
2. Approval of February meeting minutes.
  1. Motion and second to approve minutes (Humphrey, Pollington). Motion approved unanimously.
3. Introduction of new appointments & Food Systems Coordinator:
  1. Pep Selvan (BlueJacket Winery)
  2. T.K. Peterson (Merchants)
  3. Helen Schnoes
4. Update on Bob Lominska.
  1. To access meal train for Lominska family (sign-up thru 3/24): mealtrain.com/w771w0
  2. Joy Lominska cell #: 785-550-2143 - Joy could use help pruning raspberries and planting the family’s food garden. She’s home most mornings and would show whoever could come how to do it, just give the house a call the day before or that morning to let her know.
5. Consideration of inviting newly-appointed City Commissioners to April FPC meeting.
  1. Brady Pollington suggested an invitation be made to Commissioners with a description of what the Food Policy Council is. Commissioner Thellman mentioned April may be an overwhelming time for newly elected officials, and the Council should consider inviting them to a later meeting. A candidate forum is happening on March 30th at the Library (main auditorium) at 7PM in which the Community Health Plan will be the focus. Daniel Poull mentioned it may not be productive to have all come at the same meeting, and to perhaps stagger their meeting invitations. Daniel suggested inviting the two remaining Commissioners to the April meeting since they will not be as overwhelmed as the newly elected Commissioners.
Northeast Kansas Food Hub Feasibility Study next steps – 7:30 PM(Marlin Bates)
1. Seven farmers have signed up to be a part of the food hub structure. Two weeks ago, a second meeting was held with this group. Business models were discussed. Ed Reznicek (founder of KS Organics Co-op) spoke to the group and Bryan Dennis (KU Small Business Development Center). Both shared insight on type of structure the Food Hub could operate under. The two primary models discussed were a co-op model and an LLC. It will be registered as an LLC but modeled after a co-op. They want farmers who participate to be owners and members, but also want the umbrella protection that’s provided by the LLC. They also spent time discussing what the mission statement of the Food Hub should be and settled on one. There was a discussion of what the name of the Food Hub should be, and the group is open to suggestions regarding this. They are meeting again this Thursday, March 19th, and about every two weeks from there. Questions they’re considering: aggregation, sales and distribution, space needs, cooler needs, etc. The location has not been thoroughly discussed yet.
Update on CDC grant (Chris Tilden) – 7:40 PM
1. Chris shared that he has an approved budget from the CDC, dated March 6th. This is the grant that will fund the Food Systems Coordinator position – Helen Schnoes. The budget was approved by the County this afternoon. Also written into this grant is the Local Food Campaign scheduled to happen later this summer (Buy Local Campaign). The year one report is due on April 2nd and the second year budget is due in one month.
Sunrise Project Update (Emily Hampton) – 7:50 PM
1. The Sunrise Project has achieved non-profit status, still under the name Lawrence Community Food Alliance. They are partnering with Dave & Susan Millstein to create a new LLC to purchase the former Sunrise Garden Site. The offer was accepted, contingent upon raising the funding, environmental assessment and zoning. The site will have to be limited industrial zoning. Emily has been working on a grant to fulfill the nonprofit operating expenses. Investors can invest in the LLC, but the non-profit is trying to raise enough funding to purchase shares in the LLC. There’s a fundraising campaign happening currently where you can donate money. Two events for fundraising: April 19th, 4-7PM at Liberty Hall for a documentary and 4 speakers ($40) & May 12th, 6-9PM partnering with Merchants, Limestone, Hank Charcuterie, Pachamama’s and 715 for a collaboration of Chefs creating courses and having a dinner at the Lied Center. By early August, all of the investors have to be lined up. The Sunrise Project nonprofitwill administer Healthy Spouts, Lawrence Fruit Tree Project, Food Rocket, and The Summer of Service and incorporate food, environmental justice for youth through those programs and more. Emily asked for the Food Policy Council to sign a letter of support for the Sunrise Project to submit the Community Food Projects, USDA grant. Brady Pollington offered to look at the letter and could possibly send it out to investors to raise awareness and possibly funds. Motion to approve the letter and second (Pollington, Poull). Motion approved unanimously.
Market Match update (Tresa Carter) – 8:00 PM
1. The program is expanding to new markets – Clinton Parkway, ECM, Perry-LeCompton, Eudora & possibly Baldwin City Market (Brady Pollington offered to join this meeting) – but first these markets must become SNAP-Authorized retailers. Tresa is also working with the ECM on a potential CSA options for SNAP/Market Match. She is also working on setting up a food tasting/farmers market tour through the Cottin’s market. Jen Humphrey suggested having a grocery tour at the Downtown Market towards the end of the season to remind people it’s still happening and to get more participation. Last year’s marketing/outreach materials were distributed to locations all around town and 2015 materials will be printed soon with the new information.
Legislative Update (Ashley Jones-Wisner) – 8:05 PM

Fruits & Vegetable sales tax elimination has not been presented yet. There are no bills being taken up related to taxation until they return for the veto session, which will be on April 29th. The Local Food and Farm Task Force has been meeting monthly since January and had their first working session Friday. They have four goals, and decided last week that from now until September they’d work on one of those goals at each month’s meeting (hearing presentations half of the time, and then have focus discussions afterward). By September, the goal is to use the last three months of the year to put together a plan for how to implement the goal.

These four goals are:

Identify financial opportunities, technical support and training necessary for local and specialty crop production;
Identification of strategies and funding needs to make fresh and affordable locally grown foods more accessible;
Identification of existing local food infrastructures for processing, storing and distributing food and recommendations for potential expansion; and
Strategies for encouragement of farmers' markets, roadside markets and local grocery stores in un-served and underserved areas.

Tomorrow there’s a hearing to increase sales tax from 6.1% to 6.3%. Ashley submitted testimony that says KC Healthy Kids opposed that unless they found ways to even it out. When increasing state sales tax, you’re increasing sales tax on food.

Subcommittee progress reports – 8:15 PM
- City
  1. Downtown grocery update: No news.
  2. Planning for long-term farmers’ market locations & LFM Board research project update: All area farmers’ markets have signed letters of support to bring in a consultant to talk about long-term planning for Lawrence farmers’ markets. The initial estimate for this service was around $100,000, but it’s most likely more feasible to fundraise around $50-60,000. This type of study would include focus groups, all aspects of the farmers’ market system, what drives consumer behavior, what attracts or hinders market vendors, location, expansion, etc. This would help answer the question: What does the community want and where does it want to go in the future? Vendor participation is down (for the third year in a row) as farmers are retiring or moving to other markets that are more profitable. Brady Pollington suggested doing some research into other solutions for this type of analysis to occur. He suggested an RFI/RFQ and also potentially a task for the new Food Systems Coordinator. Daniel Poull said this would be a great topic of conversation for City Commissioners who attend Council meetings over the next couple of months. Nancy Thellman suggested finding a “champion” within the newly elected officials would be wise, and possibly inviting Jeremy Farmer to a full Council meeting to have this discussion. Helen shared that she would research this situation when she attend the Minnesota Farmers’ Market Conference this week and report back to Jen Humphrey and the full Council. Marlin Bates mentioned the Specialty Crop Block Grant (USDA) application is due at the end of May that could be relevant for this.
    
    Between now and the next meeting (or email Jill beforehand): Do you have contacts within your organization or others that may have money available for this type of service?
  3. Common Ground: Contracts signed and land given out. People are prepared to work those grounds throughout Lawrence.
- County
  1. Susan Johnson attended this meeting and met with the group about the marketing plan for the incubator kitchen on the fairgrounds. They are working on how to increase traffic to the incubator kitchen. There’s a lack of website presence currently, which Tresa Carter is working on creating a web page on the County’s website. There was a discussion of creating a more unique and welcoming name for the kitchen, as well as talking with past users to get a sense of what made them stop using the kitchen. Potential partnerships were discussed within the community, and the possibility of doing workshops there to get more people to use the kitchen. Jason Hering added that having some kind of online feedback loop to foster continuous discussion amongst participants would be included on the website (housed on the Local Foods page of the Douglas County website). Jill shared that the kitchen doesn’t get as much use because it can’t be used when the entire room is booked out. A discussion about changing the locks so that kitchen use could occur while an event is happening in the room. Jen Humphrey also shared that the electric stoves in the incubator kitchen is not ideal for many chefs, and suggested switching to gas.
- Community
  1. Buy Local Campaign update: The meeting with the grocers last Friday was held at Extension (Merc, Dillon’s, Hy-Vee, and the Baldwin City Market). The response from grocers was very positive. The focus this year will be on produce with strictly grocery stores, but with options of expanding to other retailers in coming years with a broader scope (protein, dairy, etc.). A type of agreement between the Council and the grocer will be established to determine what the expectations of each party are. A portion of the CDC funding can be used for the Buy Local campaign for marketing efforts.
  2. Chef’s Challenge update: A combined committee of Council members, Master Food Volunteers and Master Gardeners to coordinate this event. This is a transitioning year in which the Food Policy Council is passing the torch of the planning of this event to other organizations. A second meeting will be held this Thursday, March 19th, at Extension. Chef Rick Martin will be there to discuss the chef component of the event. There will be displays this year (similar to last year) with some added components.
  3. Chef / Farmer Alliance: This subcommittee committed to working with this group to create the Chef/Farmer Alliance Directory.
Public comments – 8:40 PM
1. Two members of the Allen County Food Policy Council joined the meeting and shared that they are working on preparing their bi-laws and on a food system assessment for the County. Their greatest obstacle is being a small community in a rural area and drawing people in to their farmers’ market. They’re working on growing awareness of their Council.
FPC member updates – 8:50 PM
1. Marlin shared that The Douglas County Extension Office offered a the Ag Agent position to Roberta Wycoff (Miami County).
2. Chris shared that National Public Health Week in April selects a health champion each year (adult and youth) in Douglas County. Nominations for these come from the Community and Di Xie is the youth representative who won. Rick Martin was selected as the adult champion. Friday, April 10th at 7AM will be a recognition breakfast for the champions.
Adjourn full council meeting – 9:00 PMBottom of Form

Motion and second to adjourn (Elmers, Bates). Approved unanimously.

Time and Date

Monday, 3/16/15 2:00 pm

Location

Ecumencial Campus Ministries (ECM)

1204 Oread Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66044, USA