Hollywood Farmers Market is a community treasure; built over twenty-eight years by the Hollywood community, the vendors, and our customers. Today our Market is in trouble.  The people who have signed this letter are concerned. Over the past 5 years the relaxed, respectful, cheerful relationships which have served the market so well have deteriorated and become rigid and, in some cases, adversarial. 

From the perspective of some vendors and volunteers we list several examples of unfortunate staff/board actions:

• Declaring that board meetings are closed, with only board members in attendance. 
• Disbanding the vendor committee. 
• Insisting on emails and phone calls, rather than spontaneous conversations - and then not returning the calls or responding to the emails.
• Unilaterally undoing formal and informal arrangements related to booth fees which have been in place for many years.
• Ejecting Nourishment, an important and popular vendor of 19 years standing, without a good faith effort to resolve disagreements. 
• Failing to assure that farms actually grew the produce they are selling.
• Failing to enforce the dog policy-- no dogs before 10:00. Some of our customers are anxious about dogs; hence, the reason this policy exists.
  Those who have signed this letter have two proposals

1. We would like staff and board members to agree to participate in a meeting with vendors, volunteers, and any customers who choose to attend. The meeting will be conducted by a skilled facilitator who will assure that the meeting is productive and respectful.  The meeting’s purpose would be to identify all the issues for discussion and to establish a plan to address and ultimately resolve these issues.
2. We want to have Nourishment restored to our market pending a good faith (perhaps professionally mediated) effort to resolve the disagreements that led to the dismissal.

We request a response to this communication before September 28. We will name a spokesperson to work with the director or her designee and a representative of the board to organize the meeting. We hope to be assured that Nourishment will be restored to the market. 

We are members of the Hollywood Farmers Market community.  We are shoppers, volunteers, local business owners, farmers, bakers, distillers, winemakers, and other types of vendors.  We straddle a wide range of incomes and represent a diverse set of professional experiences.  And we all value a vibrant and caring place to shop, to learn about food from farmers, and to meet our neighbors.