By Tom Ayres, Senior Staff Writer
A proposal that might have allowed the flood-ravaged bakery at the Woodstock Farmers’ Market in West Woodstock to use the farm kitchen at Peace Field Farm on Pomfret Road as an interim production space for up to 90 days has been scuttled because an official with the Vermont Natural Resources Board (NRB) wouldn’t guarantee that the NRB would not act against the farm’s operators for an alleged Act 250 violation.
In a flurry of e-mail exchanges last week between John Holland, the co-proprietor of Peace Field Farm and its proposed farm-to-fork restaurant; Patrick Crowl, the owner-operator of the Woodstock Farmers’ Market; and state and local officials, the proposal to allow the bakery to make temporary use of the Peace Field Farm kitchen arose and was subsequently skewered when NRB Chair Sabina Haskell declined to say that the state would not hold Peace Field in violation of the Act 250 permitting process if the farm accommodated the bakery’s need for a production space while the Woodstock Farmers’ Market complex is indefinitely shuttered for flood recovery, repairs, and rebuilding.
Peace Field Farm
On Monday, Aug. 7, Holland sent Haskell an email stating, “As you know, the Woodstock Farmers’ Market was devastated by the recent flooding. The flooding affected the store and a bakery outbuilding. The owner, Patrick Crowl, is looking for a place to set up his bakery while the existing facility is repaired. Patrick needs a temporary permit for 60-90 days. Does the Governor or an administrator in Vermont have authority to issue an emergency measure? If not, what does this approval need?”
A day later, on Aug. 8, Haskell responded, noting that, “Unfortunately, the NRB does not issue the type of temporary permits you are asking about.” Haskell went on to suggest that those “who want to help the Woodstock Farmers’ Market” should consider “register[ing] and check[ing] in with Vermont.gov/volunteer — as well as with other local organizations I am not familiar with.”
Holland replied to Haskell’s initial missive by thanking her for the quick response, stating, “I understood your department did not have authority to issue temporary permits.” The “unanswered question,” Holland stated, is “whether there is a mechanism in the State of Vermont for a private citizen to exercise agency in a state of emergency. It seems like your answer is back to government — State and Federal as the sole solution to the problem — which is not what Patrick [Crowl] and I were inquiring about.
“The direct question for you is whether or not the NRB will take legal action against Peace Field Farm if I open my facility to the WFM for 60-90 days,” Holland continued. “If you will not take action, I’ll check with the Woodstock town manager and zoning officer and if we get permission from them, I’ll open PFF to use. If you reply that the NRB will take action against PFF then I will not open the facility to temporary WFM use. Let us know if the NRB will or will not take legal action to stop our agency.”
Simultaneously with the email exchanges with NRB Chair Haskell, Holland also reached out to Woodstock Planning and Zoning Administrator Steven Bauer, who told Holland that “a potential avenue [to permitting the WFM bakery to operate out of the farm kitchen] could be through the interim bylaw process outlined in [state statute] 24 V.S.A. 4415.” Bauer further noted, “That process, if the selectboard agreed to it, would require a 15-day notice, followed by a vote of the Woodstock Selectboard.” Holland contends that pathway could have potentially gotten the Farmers’ Market bakery production up and running by Sept. 1, returning some of the food purveyor’s 80-plus employees back to work following five weeks of flood-related layoffs.
Holland finally decided not to seek permission to temporarily house the bakery at Peace Field because he could not get a firm commitment from Haskell not to pursue charges that the farm kitchen operation would be in violation of the Act 250 permitting process. Haskell’s refusal to promise unequivocally that no action would be taken against Peace Field was made clear in a final email communication to Holland on Aug. 9.
“We appreciate your reaching out and your stated desire to help another business, but it is not the NRB’s practice to provide express, prospective assurance that it will not take enforcement action. If the Woodstock Selectboard decides to proceed with an interim by-law process, that would be a separate and independent process from the Act 250 land use law.”
In a Tuesday afternoon phone call, Crowl said he concurred with Holland’s decision and would not pursue any other temporary alternative location for the Woodstock Farmers’ Market bakery. Crowl also said that he had given serious consideration to Holland’s offer because it would have enabled the Woodstock Farmers’ Market to provide baked goods, customarily produced in the West Woodstock bakery facility, to the market’s second location in Waterbury. It also would have allowed baked goods to be prepared for daily sale at the main market store following its projected reopening in mid-September. The fate of the separate bakery facility, which was substantially damaged by the July flooding, remains in limbo. “We’re looking at all of our options — rebuilding at the bakery’s present location or potentially building a new bakery somewhere else,” Crowl commented Tuesday.
Peace Field Farm has been embroiled in oft-contentious legal proceedings with the NRB’s District 3 Environmental Commission and before the Vermont Superior Court, Environmental Commission, commonly known as the Vermont Environmental Court, for two-and-a-half years regarding the District 3 commission’s refusal to issue an Act 250 permit for the farm’s proposed farm-to-fork restaurant operation. That issue also took another turn last week when District 3 Commission Coordinator Peter Kopsco issued a new jurisdictional opinion that Peace Field remains under Act 250’s purview.
Crowl, who was copied in the email exchanges between Holland, Haskell, and Bauer, was candid in his own assessment of the state’s reaction to Holland’s offer to host the Farmers’ Market bakery at Peace Field Farm for two to three months.
“Truly disappointing that this state is mired down in bureaucracy at a time of emergency and economic loss for so many businesses,” Crowl wrote in last week’s email thread. “I wonder sometimes who is really running the commerce for Vermont, the folks at Act 250 or the Governor. Mr. Scott would be disappointed in the outcome here. Wow, so disheartening.
Woodstock Farmers’ Market during the July flooding
“Thank you, John, for your gracious and smart offer,” Crowl continued. “We will continue to find other solutions to our situation. I must tell you after 30 years of running a very successful business here in Vermont, this feels like a super low point. All we want is to put people back to work during a Federal disaster. I wonder if anyone in Montpelier truly understands how it feels to have your business shut down, to try to have the resources to keep 100 people from collecting unemployment, and to try to resume business operations as quickly as possible. From following this email trail the answer must be a resounding no.”
In a subsequent email to the group, Crowl said that he “wanted to give some context to the impact on the economy we have in the Upper Valley region not having our doors open and to have some clear understanding of the critical nature of this situation. We need to have cash flowing again on all fronts — from produce to prepared foods and to our bakery.
“If I sounded a bit annoyed, that is an understatement and I apologize,” Crowl concluded.