— from Martha Farish —
To make it easier for locals to shop at the Saturday market, this Saturday June 4, market vendors will all park on private property and not on the streets of Eastsound. Further, the Sea View Theatre lot will be signed “for locals only while shopping at the market”.
Lack of easy access parking is the most often cited reason locals give for not shopping at the Saturday Farmers Market. In a test case, over last weekend and this, market organizers are hoping to see if designated parking results in more locals showing up to shop.
Our farmers need to sell produce on Saturdays to make it worth the time, expense and effort it takes to participate in the market. Tourists generally don’t buy farmer’s produce so sales are mostly dependent on locals supporting locals.
Come on out and enjoy visiting and buying from your local producers!
Thank you Martha for taking the helm on this! And I agree — let’s support our farmers. Come out on Saturdays and buy local produce. There is some mighty delicious produce coming from our Orcas farmers.
It is time for Public Works to get together with San Juan County Parks and put in an underground garage below the Village Green. This would necessitate excavating the entire Green and reinstalling it. This would go a long way to solving Eastsound’s parking problem. At the least a feasibility study could be done to determine how many parking spots good be generated and what it would cost to execute.
Harvey, you’re funny.
Great idea – thank you!
And how, may I ask, are you going to enforce locals only? It has been full of vehicles ever since the farmers market opened for the season. I do not see any improvement in the situation.
I think that Harvey stopped way short of the real solution to the parking problem.
Instead of merely digging up the Village Green to install underground parking, I suggest that the whole of Eastsound Village should be similarly reconfigured.
Just think: In case of military attack, the whole island could shelter down there.
Of course, there will be the usual village problem of insufficient toilets and bad sewer hookups, but if we’re all down in the underground garage, nobody will be eating anything anyway.
car pooling,walking,scooters,cycling,
perhaps parking in one spot and running errands.
What are other ways can you think of and participate in?
just a thought .
I went to pick up the mail last Saturday, dreading trying to find parking. I didn’t know about the locals only parking. What a surprise. Not only could I park to get my mail without inventing a spot, I could actually go shopping at the market. Which I did. And I spent money on some wonderful fish from Troller Point.
Thank you to whomever had the idea to create the Locals Only parking area.