'We've quadrupled
in size and income,
because of our
effectiveness in
running the market,'
manager Pompea
Smith asserts.




























Sunday morning at Hollywood market

One farmer says
she got kicked out
for speaking up.

'We've hit
a brick wall,''
a source in city
government laments.

October 1997

Farmers at Hollywood Market Protest Fee Increase, 'Undemocratic' Management

By Morris Newman

Despite the creation of an advisory board and some other minor concessions, the market management and dissident farmers have not come to terms. And, after a year of attempting to mediate the dispute, a Los Angeles City Councilwoman appears to be quietly withdrawing from the squabble.

Accounts differ on the exact nature of the dispute. Pompea Smith, the manager of the Hollywood market, maintains that the reported rift between management and farmers is "not really reflective of the reality of things." She attributes what she calls "negative" reports to a handful of dissident farmers. (She also said that In Season should not write a story about the alleged dispute: "Something negative will come out of it," Smith asserted. At one point, she even told a reporter he had fabricated the entire story of the farmer-management dispute at the Hollywood market.)

For the Hollywood market’s farmers, however, the rub is a fee hike from 5 percent to 6.5 percent of sales proceeds. While such an increase may appear minuscule to outsiders, "it’s a big bite to farmers" said a farmer at the market, who asked not to be named.

A number of participating farmers are also disappointed that Hollywood management has apparently disregarded the results of a farmer survey on whether or not to join the Southland Farmers Market Association.

Smith maintained that her management approach is "very open," adding that "it’s not a closed-shop approach. It’s a very democratic approach, within the limits of a privately owned market."

Smith’s "democratic approach," however, apparently stops short of giving farmers a voice in the decisions on rent or membership in farmers market trade groups. About a year ago, market management held a survey of its vendors as to whether the latter favored joining the Southland group. Joining Southland would have entailed an additional 1-percent fee increase to the vendors. At the same time, management also surveyed vendors as to whether the latter would support a fee increase from 5 to 7 percent.

After receiving the ballots, however, management decided not to make public the results of the survey. Instead, the management announced unilaterally that the Hollywood Farmers Market would not join the Southland association. Management also announced that fees would go up to 6.5 percent).

Smith said she is not interested in membership in the prominent farmers’ market group, one of the two largest federations of such markets in California. Smith said she was turned off by the Southland’s method of collecting membership dues directly from member farmers on market days.

Southland, in fact, served as a consultant to the Hollywood market, when the latter was first setting up in the early 1990s.

According to Smith, the Hollywood Farmers Market--then affiliated with United Community Housing Development Corporation, a non-profit home builder that served as the parent to the market-- paid Southland $7,000 in consulting fees. After that, according to Smith, no further relationship existed between Southland and the market.

Angry Farmers

That decision angered many of the Hollywood market’s farmers.

In Hollywood, "management believes they run the show," said one farmer, who added that such an approach is "totally different from the markets in Santa Barbara and Ventura, which are run by farmers and where they work with farmers" on management issues.

In Hollywood, however, "the market is run by private management, and they are out for themselves, not for the farmers."

Shortly after management decided to squelch the survey results and raise the fee anyway, 56 of the Hollywood farmers signed a petition protesting the increase.

"We asked for an accounting of where the fees were going and we were told it was none of our business," a Hollywood farmer said.

For its part, Southland also protested the disregarded survey, and management acquiesced to Southland holding its own survey among the Hollywood farmers. That survey reportedly obtained approval from 88 percent of the vendors.

A supporter of Southland membership cited the organization’s various efforts to promote markets and train market managers, and lobbying officials on both the local and state levels. The group also maintains lists of farmers and the produce they grow, in the event that markets find themselves in need of particular fruits or vegetables.

A further source of conflict is Smith’s alleged intolerance of dissent. At least one farmer, Laurie Spensley, was allegedly kicked out in July 1996 for complaining publicly about management. "I complained about things she was doing. I was one of the farmers who was very upset about the space fee," Spensley said, adding, "Pompea does not listen to the farmers."

Officially, Spensley was kicked out of the Hollywood market "because I was coming in late to the market. That’s no true. I was always in the market between 7:30 and 7:45. She (Pompea) doesn’t like me."

Said another vendor: "If anybody opens their mouth, they will be discriminated against. Most of the farmers say, `we want to do something about (problems at the market), but don’t use my name. I can’t afford to lose the market.’ And that is a bad situation. We have never had this situation before with any market."

"We don’t really have time to make a lot of waves. Farmers tend to put their heads down and their butts up and keep right on working. But this pissed everybody off so badly, they really got up in arms," a farmer said of the dismissal of Spensley.

Spensley said she has filed complaints about her dismissal with the Los Angeles County Department of Agriculture and the state Department of Agriculture. "I have not totally given up," she said.

City Councilwoman Tries to Mediate

In late 1995, the office of Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg got into the picture. "We tried to intervene and help mediate the dispute," said Roxana Tynan, the councilwoman’s field deputy. At Goldberg’s urging, Smith agreed to a four- person advisory board, elected by the market vendors. The councilwoman’s office envisioned the board as a "forum for discussing the fee increase," Tynan said.

The councilwoman’s office also suggested that the city attorney’s Dispute Resolution Office should come in and look at the books, and act as a "fact finder," and "try and clarify the fee increase, the need for it, and the increase in relationship to the rest of the budget." That idea did not go over well with either management or the advisory board, however.

"Some of the community people on the advisory board felt that to have somebody associated with the city attorney’s office come in would look too much like an audit, which it absolutely was not," Tynan said. As a compromise, "we nominated a couple of people from the advisory board to do a fact-finding mission." At last report, those board members had not reported their results.

Smith praised the advisory board for being "very helpful" on such matters as upgrading the market’s restrooms and helping to set the policy on the market’s participation in the Los Angeles Marathon.

But the board which was supposed to meet bimonthly had only met twice in a year, as of early 1997. At the November meeting, only two of the four advisory board members showed up to the meeting. "That’s not very impressive," Smith said.

But one member of the advisory board, who asked not to be named, claimed the poor attendance was partly a result of Smith’s repeated postponement of board meetings. (Because of the delays, the board which was scheduled to meet bimonthly has met only twice in the past year). In addition, Smith’s decision to schedule the meetings of the committee on market days, when farmers are busy with customers.

After a year, the relationship between the farmers and the Hollywood market management appears stalemated. Meanwhile, the councilwoman’s office is looking for a way to withdraw gracefully from the impasse. Without stating that Smith’s strong personality might be part of the responsible for at least some of the friction at the Hollywood farmers market, Goldberg’s office has suggested that Smith "hire somebody (else) to manage the market on a day-to-day basis," according to Tynan.

Officially, Councilwoman Goldberg remains supportive of Smith and her management of the Hollywood farmers market. "From Jackie (Goldberg)’s point of view, Pompea deserves credit for setting up the market in the first place," Tynan said. But a source close to the councilwoman’s office said bluntly: "We have hit a brick wall."

Smith appears unreceptive to letting somebody else run the market. "We have quadrupled in size and income, because of our effectiveness in running the market," Smith said.

For the time being, however, Smith appears to have the upper hand. "Everybody loves our market. We have a long waiting list of farmers who want to get into our market. Nobody felt it was an unfair fee and nobody left the market."

But Smith should not take the acceptance on the part of farmers as a sign of content, according to one Hollywood market farmer. "They don’t have any choice. It’s been probably the worst year we have had" due to the weather and poor harvests. "It’s been a little bit tough to begin with. To leave one of our most productive markets would be hard to do."

According to the farmer, management should acknowledge that the farmers helped establish the Hollywood market in the difficult early years. "In the first year, the market made $100,000. The next year, it dropped to $65,000. We stood out in the rain when nobody came through there. There were days when we cleared only $150. The farmers felt they have put the effort into the market -- never mind that the management makes its payroll no matter how well the market does."