Politics & Government

Saline Farmers Market to Allow Customers to Use Bridge Card

The program should be in place when the summer weekend market opens in May.

Saline-area users residents will soon be able to use Michigan Bridge Card to buy food at the city-owned farmers markets.

Council voted 7-0 Monday night to increase vendor fees in an effort to raise the $2,700 needed to make the markets compatible with the Michigan Bridge Card program, a modernized food stamps program.

It is hoped the Bridge Card program will be implemented by the time the summer weekend market opens in May.

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For the 2012-13 season, Vendor fees will increase by $1 to $14 per stall, per week. Vendors who purchase annual stalls in the past have received 20 percent discount. That discount will now be 15 percent.

Market manager Nancy Crisp said that the Ann Arbor Farmers Market does about $10,000 annually in Michigan Bridge Card business.

Find out what's happening in Salinewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The city considered two options for implementing the Bridge Card program and chose the least expensive plan. The plan might also be limiting.

This plan would see the market get Bridge Card point of sale machine that might need to be used in a fixed location. A line would be dropped in city parking lot four, home of the summer weekend market, and allow users to swipe their card in exchange for wood tokens that would be used at the various vendors. However, its not clear whether or not this will work at the Tuesday market at the library or the winter market at Liberty School.

As well, city council members expressed some worry about accounting for the tokens.

Another plan, about three times more expensive, involved using a wireless card, laptop and mobile data card that could be used to process sales at the Tuesday and winter markets. However, it involves more equipment, a monthly charge and charges for individual swipes.

City Manager Todd Campbell said the market is a great program, but cautioned that the city must be sure it covers its cost as the general fund continues to be squeezed.

“We’re delving into human services a little bit and in my estimation the city is not large enough an organization to offer a lot of human resources,” Campbell told council. “It’s a great program but it must support it self.”

Council member Dean Girbach asked about the possibility of a more substantial rise in the price of vendor stalls.

Crisp said that she’s trying to be sensitive to the vendors’ needs, too.

“Farmers are on a tight budget, too,” she said.

 


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