[Community_garden] The City Hates Community Gardening

[William Hohauser]

While this seems be a cynical attempt on the part of city officials to  
destroy the gardens, from my experience with other community  
organizations, it's possible it might be a misguided attempt by  
ignorant but ultimately fair minded politicians.

As someone who was very involved with community television advocacy,  
many people were dismayed when, over a decade ago, the quasi- 
governmental agency in charge of community television in my county  
suddenly decided that nobody should have a weekly program for longer  
then six months. Just as it takes time to grow a plant, it takes time  
to grow an audience, especially when you are in community television.  
Six months just doesn't do it just as one year doesn't do it for a  
garden plot. My clematis took four years before it actually was able  
to grow over a foot. When a collective of community show producers  
approached the agency we found out why this draconian measure was  
being considered. They were very concerned about the real problem of  
people squatting on precious TV time by repeating very old shows and  
squeezing out new producers who needed time. They felt that many  
potential new producers were being permanently discouraged by the very  
long waiting times. Unfortunately there is no practical way to review  
every show. The producers collectively made an organized statement  
that included suggestions addressing agency concerns while protecting  
producers who were active and creating new shows. We also organized  
some very noticeable protests. While the result wasn't the best the  
working producers received some protection and the agency was able to  
change their policies without hurting a lot of people.

My suggestion is to create a well written and reasoned response to  
these proposed rules. Organize protests in front of City Hall and be  
very sure to alert all the media; TV, radio and press. Appoint someone  
as the spokesperson for your plight. They should be comfortable in the  
spotlight and able to present themselves as much more rational then  
the people who proposed these ridiculous rules. Make sure that  
children from the gardens are visible at all protests. The media loves  
stories about children being deprived by heartless politicians.

If this doesn't work and the rules are passed, reorganize the gardens  
so there aren't any plots anymore, just large communal gardening areas  
where members become part of a team. That will show City Hall down for  
a while.

William Hohauser
Sixth Street and Avenue B Garden, New York, NY
williamhohauser at earthlink.net



On Jan 11, 2008, at 12:27 AM, Jamie4fish at aol.com wrote:

>
> A few weeks ago I queried ACGA membership via listserve about the  
> wisdom  of
> our gardens administrator (City of San Ramon, CA) deciding to  
> drastically
> change the current procedure of assigning our garden plots on an   
> indefinite
> duration basis. The City now proposes to rotate assigned garden   
> plots among
> community gardeners each year on a “lottery” basis;  ostensibly to  
> satisfy a long
> "waiting list." [although in fact more than 10  percent of the  
> garden plots
> remained vacant for the past year and were not  assigned to anyone  
> on any
> waiting list.]
> The ACGA listserve response was unanimous and specific: Forcing  
> gardeners  to
> participate in a lottery each year to see if they will get a garden  
> plot for
> the following season is against all principles of community  
> gardening and the
> more appropriate municipal answer to a waiting list was to build more
> gardens.
> After discussing this issue with the City for the past several weeks,
> however, some chilling insights have been gained among the  
> gardeners. What we  local
> community gardeners initially thought was simply an innocent, perhaps
> incompetent, ignorance of organic gardening processes on the part of  
> the City  has
> now evolved into a suspicion that the City administrators know  
> exactly what
> they are doing.
> By demanding implementation of such ludicrous and inappropriate  
> gardening
> procedures the City knows full well that it will ultimately chase  
> off all
> serious organic gardeners, allowing the City to have an unfettered  
> hand in
> utilizing the land now dedicated to community gardening for other,  
> more  “
> municipally-desirable, tax-generating” pursuits such as office  
> buildings,  commercial
> enterprises, etc. [In fact the majority of gardeners, many of whom   
> have been
> here for decades, have indeed indicated they will leave, rather  
> than  try to
> garden under such a "merry-go-round", rotational type of   
> environment.]
> Has anyone in the membership dealt with such political situations   
> before? If
> so, what are the most effective tactics we can employ to  preserve our
> community gardens against such municipal expansion? Put  another  
> way, how can we get
> the City to embrace community  gardening?
> Thank you.
> Jim Conner,
> Community Gardener
> Crow  Canyons Community  Gardens
>