Playing to a crowded room of urban farmers at yesterday's City Council Business Session, Mayor Mark Funkhouser quickly aligned himself with the vegetable-loving ranks.
"I'm happy to be among the pro-carrot forces," the Kansas City mayor quipped as he called the meeting to order.
The anti-carrot forces materialized last year, when neighbors of the Bad Seed Farm on Bannister Road complained that the proximity of local, organic vegetables and adorable, pest-eating goats would destroy their property values. The controversy spurred a group of local officials to sit down with the growing ranks of urban farmers to hash out new city codes to deal with neighborhood concerns while making life easier for cultivators of healthy food.
Yesterday, members of the City Council dug into the specifics of the new ordinance. Most of the council members seemed to side with Funkhouser's "pro-carrot" forces. Ed Ford, who offered some absurd comparisons, got huffy.
One of the main sticking points for concerned councilmembers was a provision in the ordinance that would allow small signs for farms operating under the Community Supported Agriculture model. In a CSA, individuals pay a membership up front and, each week during the growing season, they get a portion of the harvest. Since many of the members either pick up their produce at the farm or volunteer in the field to discount their payment, it makes sense that such a farm might need some sort of identifier from the road.
Councilman Ed Ford immediately bristled at what he saw as grand hypocrisy on the part of his fellow council members. The 2nd-District councilman often goes to bat for businesses that want to put up billboards -- and often faces push-back from other council members who object to the visual blight.
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I'm with the Mayor on this one! Efforts to 'green up' our community should be championed! Yes to carrots! The nay sayers would probably be just squirming with joy if they saw a 'chem lawn' chemical company spraying noxious chemistry on their neighbor's lawn. Fools! Ignorant fools!
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