WESTPORT — Earlier this year, it looked like the popular summer farmer’s market was in danger of not moving forward this summer.
That was until town official Maury May helped save the day.
May, a longtime chairman of the Economic Development Task Force, stepped down from the Task Force in October. This task force helped run the yearly farmer’s market, with May managing it for the last two years. Local farmers felt that with no management oversight and the discount prices for running it through the town, the popular summer event was in danger of being canceled and they requested to form a committee to help manage it.
May recently met with the Board of Selectmen and asked them to rescind the vote from last October, which was to accept his resignation. May asked to return to the Task Force and also requested that local farmer Ben Wolbach be placed on the Task Force. Wolbach will help May run the market.
Selectmen voted in favor of both requests.
May said that he believes a local town organization needs to run the market for it to work appropriately.
Before the Task Force, the Westport Grange helped manage the market and other town organizations before that group also helped run it. The market recently has been held on summer Saturdays at the Town Hall annex. Before that, it had been run at the Town Farm on Drift Road.
May said that with him, Wolbach and former Town Selectman Jim Coyne — who also volunteered to help manage it --the local market should be able to work well.
“I am still willing to do some of the Town Hall stuff,” he said, including working with the health board and overseeing accounting and other matters.
“We really appreciate the work to put this together,” Selectmen Chairwoman Shana Shufelt said.
In early February, Wolbach and local farmer Averyl Andrade met with selectmen and asked if local farmers could form their own committee and run the event, which happens at the Town Hall annex.
They mentioned that with May’s departure, the popular market was in danger.
Wolbach and Andrade mentioned that the economic task force’s sponsorship of the event helps the farmers get special rates and avoid paying for a detail police officer. Without those special rates, the event would not be a successful venture for farmers.
“If rates went up and we would need a detail cop, it could put the market out of business,” Wolbach said.
Shortly after this meeting, May began to reconsider his departure from the task force.
“There is a movement afoot for others to spearhead a Westport market in 2019, and I am willing to play a supporting role,” he told The Herald News last month.
May told selectmen on Feb 19, after they agreed to his plan, that the group will be ironing out dates of the summer market and where the group will hang the banner.