Food Policy Council (FPC) Meeting on Mon, September 19, 2016 - 6:30 PM

Optional pre-meeting conversation @ 6:00pm with Pam Staab, owner and operator: eudoramom.com 

1. Administrative items 
   1. Determine quorum of members, agenda approval
   2. Approval of August meeting minutes
   3. Budget review
2. FPC member updates

1. Downtown Grocery Initiative – Updates 

1. Double Up Food Bucks Program Overview 
   1. Conversation with Rachel Myslivy, Program Coordinator

1. State Policy Update 
   1. Clarification of scope and implications of SB366 (formerly HB2595)
   2. Presentation to Local Food & Farm Taskforce on September 21

1. Food Systems Plan 
   1. Community engagement updates 

1. Subcommittee Reports
   • City (Aundrea Shafer)
     1. Common Ground program and application review project
   • County (Jen Humphrey)
     1. Farm policy tour connected with Kaw Valley Farm Tour
   • Community (Carol Gilmore)
     1. CSA Toolkit update

1. Public comments

1. Adjourn full council meeting

Pam Staab shared an overview of her shop, Eudora Market on Main. In 2015, her first year, she operated a once a week farm market. She opened the shop to support local producers, but the arts and crafts really took off and is now most of the store. Her motivation grew from her experience as an aquaponics producer—starting out, they didn’t know where to go or how to market their product. She realized it’s hard to get started—that’s her goal now, supporting others in a similar position. Pam grew up in Eudora. The building has been in her family since 1915—her great uncle had a variety store in the same location from his teenage years into his 90s. In the future Pam wants to have workshops and promote how use local foods. She wants to eventually get a food establishment license and allow caterers to use. Market on Main is open Wednesdays to Saturdays. Pam was at first charging a flat fee to vendors interested in selling at the, now she’s working on 20% commission. Her goal is to operate so she can cover expenses. aquaponics is a mix of hydroponics (plants in water) and aquaponics (fish in controlled tanks) that recycles waste from fish and back again. Pam trained in aquaponics at University of the Virgin Islands. It is more water efficient—10% of the water of conventional agriculture. Needs to sell fish whole (can be dead) because she doesn’t have the proper USDA license yet for processing. Pam is in the process of switching to Blue Gill because they live at a lower temp and heating is her greatest expense. Sell lettuce to Terrabon and Sandbar.

In attendance: Elizabeth Burger, Josh Falleaf, Jen Humphrey, Marlin Bates, Scott Thellman, Carol Gilmore, Jan Hornberger, Ashley Jones-Wisner, William Vesecky, Chris Tilden, Pattie Johnston, Larry McElwain, Jill Elmers, Russell Mullin

Absent: Jennifer Kongs, Rita York Hennecke, John Pendleton, Carolyn Wulfkuhle, Kim Criner, Brent Smith, Aundrea Shafer, TK Peterson, Michael Steinle

Staff: Helen Schnoes

Public: Christine Ebert, Init Hurt, Rachel Myslivy, Dave Crawford, Pam Staab, Patrick Watkins, Bill Fleming

1. Administrative items – Called to Order: 6:37pm
   1. Determine quorum of members, agenda approval
   2. Approval of August meeting minutes (Burger, Elmers—all approved)
   3. Budget review
      1. Marlin encouraged the FPC to consider funding for conferences or other uses and bring to the October 17 meeting
      2. Elizabeth suggested the Kansas Rural Center conference: November 18 & 19
      3. Group decided to pursue payment for the June FPC refreshments provided at the public meeting.
2. FPC member updates
   1. Jen: It’s Tour Season! A group of west African female CEOs toured Red Tractor farm as part of a State Dept initiative. Then Kaw Valley Farm Tour is first weekend in October.
   2. Jill: Junior Farm Tour first week of October will be cool moving into Middle School, showing health, career, and other lessons. Olivia, the manager of Lawrence Farmers’ Market has designed a youth scavenger hunt.  
   3. Jan: Hy-Vee—getting ready to open big market grill at 23rd St. store. Jan’s farm is getting into chickens, free range, just started getting eggs.
   4. Chris: Lots happening with Farm to School! CDC funding is supporting work on local procurement, working with Lawrence School District to establish agreements with local farmers. Health Dept. now focusing on communications, creating new farmer profiles for promoting local foods—showing farm to school is about more than only educating kids. Cynthia Colbert with City of Lawrence HR is working on healthy vending/catering guidelines—perhaps there’s an opportunity for FPC to weigh in or get a presentation from her in the future.
   5. Ashley: KC Healthy Kids produced a farmers’ market toolkit/policy guide. They’re looking at season extension structures now, which often barriers with existing local land use policy rules concerning ancillary/accessory structures. Also looking at mobile market policies re: permitting and locations. Finalizing questions for candidates around Healthy Eating & Active Living issues, including sales tax on food, that will be presented to all KS candidates in advance of the election. 
   6. Elizabeth: Was in Colby last week, they’re starting the Western Prairie Food and Farm Alliance, like FPC but without saying the word “policy.” It will be an 8-county regional council with representatives from each local municipality.
   7. Helen: Working with Public Health Law Center to develop a food systems planning guide for Kansas.
   8. Bill Flemming: Frontier Farm Credit in Baldwin—he’s on the Board of Directors. The organization provides funding for young and beginning farmers, including credit. New program that provides working capital (equity money). Have community-based activities and grant funding.
   9. Josh: Front page of LJ World today, wonderful story about events 90 years ago at Haskell, go to Cultural Center, a lot of the food components can’t be included, but the federal gov’t were able to provide only 3 bison for cooking; thousands more showed up, offence to not have enough food, Chamber bought a ton of bison to feed everyone.
   10. Russell: Hired onto Mother Earth News. Parent company acquired Heirloom Gardener. Cool sharing stores of people growing heirloom varieties of plants. Russell is in the planning stages of building a mobile tiny home.

1. State Policy Update
   1. Clarification of scope and implications of SB366 (formerly HB2595)
      1. Linked factsheet handed out.
      2. Ashley Jones-Wisner provided an overview of the recent legislative session, which included some bills that passed to limit local government control. SB366 is similar and relates to nutrition. The bill was pitched at the capital to its committee as a bill that would prevent any local action to limiting soda size (as was attempted in New York City several years ago). It’s a bill template from the national conservative policy group ALEC. The bill’s proponents hoped that a restaurant operating in multiple states would have the same polices at each locations. The bill was written very broadly and brought questions up about other, unconnected local initiatives, including food policy councils. The bill is NOT responding to rise of FPCs in Kansas. There will be a “wait and see” period to determine if the new language and restrictions in the bill will pose any barriers. Doesn’t restrict Zoning or Double Up programs. No “regulatory mechanism” attached to this bill—no way to track local actions. Companion factsheet on Federal Nutritional Labeling.
   2. Presentation to Local Food & Farm Taskforce on September 21
      1. On Wednesday, Marlin and Helen will present to the KS Local Food & Farm Task Force (after a presentation by Scott Thellman)
      2. They want us to share what we’re doing in Lawrence and Douglas County, but also share ideas about how to address funding, technical assistance, etc. to make local foods more accessible, and what affects profitability and affordability
         1. Distribution channels—if you live in a very rural area, how do you get it to enough customers to make it viable? Draw from Farm Fresh Challenge data. Are they talking about the impact of SB366?

1. Downtown Grocery Initiative – Updates
   1. Dave Crawford, Downtown Grocery Initiative, and Patrick Watkins (outside counsel) and Bill Fleming, counsel for Treanor Architects
      1. Dave came to the Food Policy Council four years ago to talk about food deserts. Dave came to meeting to show his support for Treanor Architects and the owners of the former downtown Borders location who hope to build a new grocery store in the location.
      2. Patrick thanked the group for coming. Hope to provide a more formal presentation in the future. The developers have a general design for the grocery store, but there is a lot more than just design. As a general overview:
         1. The developers (Compton & Treanor) purchased the property about a year ago. They have also been behind other new downtown developments: 9th and New Hampshire hotel, 901 building, new apartments in construction NE of 9th and New Hampshire, plus Pachamama’s building. See value of downtown store for their developments in addition to the community’s needs.
         2. They are in discussion with owners of Hobbs Taylor Lofts, the neighboring building. Looking to amend a restricted covenant that currently prohibits a building footprint larger than 20,000 sq ft. The developers would like to do a 40,000 sq  ft building (which would be similar to the Dillon’s store at 19th and Mass.) Working this out may slow down the process.
         3. The group has not yet brought a development plan to the City. Bill relayed that earlier this year Mayor Mike Amyx brought up the idea of a downtown grocery store when Bill was in previously discussing an easement for the Pachamama’s building construction. The proposal in development would include a 192 space parking garage below ground garage (they did this on other developments)—100 spots for store, plus some surface parking.
            1. Given this expense, they want the city to approve a Tax Increment Financing district, which allows them to take anticipated new sales tax from the development to pay for the public incentives sought for the development--$6.5 million.
            2. Their next step when the proposal is finalized will be to file an application for incentives with the City. Bill shared that the FPC could help be a voice of support. Given the interest in affordable housing, they are looking to have about 20% affordable units of the 82 they hope to build on top of the store.
            3. City then hires a consultant to review the incentives request, which needs to pass a “but for” test that shows that without the incentives the development project isn’t feasible.
            4. Parking is a key issue for grocery stores—would want 200 spots. Why grocery stores are generaly in suburban areas for more space. The consultant brings a recommendation, which goes to Public Incentives Review Committee, their recommendation is brought to full city commission who then approves or disapproves. At the same time, develoeprs go through the Histoirc Review Commission because a portion of the existing building is remaining from a historic stable. Their intent is to preserve that, too.
            5. The whole process takes 4-6 months. Architects need to develop plans and have them reviewed. 6-8 months total. Goal for construction in spring/summer 2017. A couple grocery stores are in the conversation, they are thinking they’ll have a letter of intent signed tomorrow (9/21/16).
      3. FPC asked questions about parking capacity. Current code doesn’t require parking for downtown residential developments. Angled street spots and additional flat surface lots would be part of the proposed development. Group also discussed employee parking needs, benefits of new jobs.
      4. The potential composition of the store was described as offering groceries, affordable, and also nice prepared foods and salad bars.
      5. Larry McElwain shared that the Chamber is finishing out the North End of the Hobbs Taylor Loft building on first level, looking forward to being a neighbor to the proposed redevelopment. He is excited what this will do for that area.
      6. Dave shared that the store could also potentially provide a pharmacy. Everyone is welcome to attend Downtown Grocery Committee meetings the last Thursday of the Month at LPL @ 9am.

1. Double Up Food Bucks Program Overview (30 minutes – 7:50pm)
   1. Conversation with Rachel Myslivy, Program Coordinator
      1. Position began at the beginning of August. For the past 4 years she worked with Climate & Energy Project—a non-profit that helped celebrate energy savings on KS farms and ranches. Before that worked w/ KU on grant writing and evaluation.
      2. Current Double Up Food Bucks, Double Up Heartland, is largely funded by the USDA FINI grant. The MidAmerica Regional Council is receiving the funds and coordinating the effort. Douglas County is partnering on the first bi-state SNAP matching program in the US. Over three years the project will reach 68 farmers’ markets and 117 grocery stoers. Rachel will oversee non-KC KS program expansion. Already in 11 farmers’ markets and looking for more markets and new rural grocery stores to expand the program to in 2017.
      3. The rebranding brings unified design across Kansas and Missouri, benefitting farmers, low-income consumers, and local economies. The grant tracking allows us to see that a benefit to the SNAP matching is that families that run-out of food supports at the end of the month can now use the program to still eat healthy until they receive more food assistance.
      4. Rachel offered to send an update at the end of the season. One market has already tripled what was projected for them for the season.

1. Food Systems Plan (5-10 minutes – 8:00pm)
   1. Community survey dissemination—launching this week. Helen has handouts. Spread widely via your personal networks. The survey will close on October 9.
   2. October 17 retreat: 6pm to 9pm, Lawrence Fire Station #5 (19th and Stewart Ave.)           
      1. We will set the priorities that will guide the food plan here.
   3. November policy forums are in development. We will cancel the regular November FPC meeting and each FPC member is expected to attend one of the five community conversations. You will have a minimal, guided level of responsibility to support the conversation.
      1. November 10: Lecompton Community Building
      2. November 12: TBD, Lawrence
      3. November 14: Douglas County Fairgrounds, Meeting Hall, Lawrence
      4. November 15: Community Center, Eudora
      5. November 16: Lumber Arts Yard, Baldwin City (being finalized)
   4. We will not hold a meeting in December. January 23 will be our next regular meeting at which point we’ll review the drafted food plan and prepare to bring it to our elected officials for adoption.

1. Subcommittee Reports (15 minutes – 8:15pm)
   • City (Aundrea Shafer)
     1. Common Ground program and application review project
   • County (Jen Humphrey)
     1. Farm policy tour connected with Kaw Valley Farm Tour. Focus on agritourism, farm income diversification, rural economic development, and linking community leaders with the food plan process.
     2. Friday, September 30 from 8:00am to 11:30pm. Starting and ending from Fairgrounds.
     3. List of attendees includes a Planning Commissioner, Planning staff, eXplore Lawrence staff, County Administration and Zoning staff, Kansas House of Representative members, and Lawrence City Commissioner Boley.
   • Community (Carol Gilmore)
     1. CSA Toolkit update – working with a KU student who is doing the update as an independent study under the guidance of Kim Criner.

1. Public comments (5 minutes – 8:20)

1. Adjourn full council meeting  Jan & Jill – 8:20pm