When the Yachats Farmers Market opens its season at 9 a.m. Sunday, the market should be full of vendors, the sun will be shining and hopefully any drama from the past two months over who will run it will be left behind.
Market manager George Mazeika said there will be 36 vendors occupying 37 of the 40 available spaces Sunday. There are 31 returning vendors, five new vendors and already five on a waiting list to fill in when there are openings.
“I’m excited,” Mazeika said Thursday as he juggled phone calls, emails, space assignments and other last-minute chores. “Generally I’m hearing a lot of positive feedback.”
But the road to Sunday’s opening was anything but smooth.
The city of Yachats had to line up a new organization to run the market after Friends of the Yachats Commons disbanded in December. After a first group trying to organize the market stumbled, the city set up a more formal application process which drew three proposals.
After city staff redacted names from the proposals, the Parks and Commons Commission recommended that a vendor-run group organized by Starla Gade of Waldport operate the market. But the City Council overruled that recommendation May 1, voting unanimously to have Blythe Collins of Bread and Roses Bakery run it.
“It was disappointing that everyone had to go through this process,” Mazeika said. “It wasn’t handled very well.”
But he said everyone seems to be moving past the turmoil and looking forward to the popular community event.
Although farm products will be in short supply for a month or so, Mazeika said the goal is to reach a 50-50 split of farm-raised goods by early summer. Collins plans a vendor meeting in early June to go over questions, problems, ideas any lingering issues and is setting up a review committee to decide any issues that Mazeika can’t handle.
“If we had three to four months to deal with this I’m sure it would have been a little smoother,” Mazeika said.
Mazeika manages Yachats Mercantile and for five years was the show manager for the Newport-based Oregon Coast Agate Club. He’s looking for ways to tweak the Yachats market, looking for extra booth space and ways to get the word out to a wider audience.
“There haven’t been 37 spaces filled on market opening day before,” he said. “The challenge now will be to keep it fresh and interesting.”
