FARMBOAT NEWS BLOG

FarmBoat and other UPWA programs continue to be administratively hampered by City of Seattle officials who assert that a notorious scofflaw parking offender was illegally employed at the FarmBoat Floating Market. The City’s attempt to garnish the market vendor’s nonexistent wages failed and FarmBoat program founders were sued for his $8,000 in parking ticket debts spanning a decade. While the lawsuit was dropped for lack of employment evidence, the City continues to hold a “gun to the head” of the non-profit organizer with threatening implications of adverse future actions. Continue reading →

Worn down by soviet style politics, FarmBoat organizers continue to dream of delivering fresh produce and other wholesome local foods to Seattle residences by sea despite ominous warnings by legal advisors not to do so. Some City officials have not yet given up on the idea that FarmBoat may have been harboring a notorious parking scofflaw. The City attorney’s office apparently believes that the City is entitled to “something” from FarmBoat and its founders related to the ten-year-old parking debts.

It has been almost two years since FarmBoat was maliciously accused of failing to garnish wages of a person it never employed. The bureaucratic bullying left FarmBoat and other UPWA programs dead in the water. Thousands of hours have been spent in attempts to set the record straight, yet FarmBoat and its founders remain in jeopardy of potential future liabilities and fines related to the trumped up employment charges.
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The FarmBoat Floating Market aboard the historic steamship Virginia V at Lake Union Park will not be opening for the 2014 season. FarmBoat founders remain caught up in false accusations of violating employment laws. New City of Seattle “get-tough-on-employers” policies have made it nearly impossible to operate the community farmers market without risk of severe sanctions steaming from a 2012 market merchant who racked up thousands of dollars in unrelated parking tickets a decade earlier. Continue reading →

A lawsuit was filed in Washington State Superior Court on April 25th. The 136 page Complaint is in response to the City Traffic Court’s asserted ability to make event promotors liable for the debts of people they don’t employ. The legal position of the City has stopped the FarmBoat Floating Market program dead in the water because, under the Court’s policy, any farmer’s market merchant can be named as a suspected employee–even after community events such as this close for the season. Continue reading →

A couple weeks ago, the City of Seattle had finally abandoned its illegal claims against FarmBoat for the parking ticket debts of a past farmer’s market vendor–ending a nearly year-long financial siege that prevented the non-profit Urban Public Waterfront Association from operating FarmBoat through the 2013 market season.

The three-year build-up of momentum for the Lake Union Park Floating Market aboard the historic steamship Virginia V was halted by the over zealous bureaucratic actions. The market was forced to close in July shortly after it aired on King 5 TV’s “Evening Magazine“–cutting off Seattle residents from Kitsap County farm produce delivered by sea. Continue reading →

No Floating Market at Lake Union Park the rest of this season. Bureaucrats admit that it is wrong to force FarmBoat to pay the debts of others, but no one yet is willing to stop the arbitrary abuse of power that is keeping you from getting your fresh veggies by sea.

So many of you have suggested that we “Get Jesse” at King 5 TV to see if he will air our story. So, here is the request we sent…
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The FarmBoat program was started with the idea of saving an historic fishing boat built on the shores of Ballard in 1911. The Halibut Schooner “Olympic” is the oldest remaining commercial fishing vessel of her type built in Seattle. The dream of putting a piece of history back to work in providing an alternative food supply line from local farms into Seattle has come to an end over a financial dispute with City parking enforcement authorities that left the organization without funding.
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UPDATED September 23rd, 2013: Seattle’s unique FarmBoat Floating Market at Lake Union Park was forced to close in July because it was arbitrarily accused of owing money for someone else’s parking ticket debt. After spending nine months arguing with a City of Seattle collection agency over a decade-old $7,800 accumulation of parking fines levied against one of its 2012 merchants, UPWA announced that the FarmBoat Floating Market will be closed for the remainder of the season due to unresolved legal issues.

Featured on King 5’s Evening Magazine in June, the beloved dockside floating market has been hosted aboard the 125′ historic steamship Virginia V for the last three years as part of a maritime heritage awareness program designed to promote local farms and artisan foods while sharing the rich history of the Pacific Northwest. The multi-vendor maritime market was a one-of-a-kind weekly community event that captured the interest of landlubbers and seafarers from around the world.
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The FarmBoat Floating Market at South Lake Union Park is featuring a new summer concert series. Musicians will perform weekly for market visitors. Our goal is to showcase local talent. We will be inviting new talent from different genres including rock and roll, blues, jazz, contemporary and more. Check back with us weekly to find out who will be performing at the next FarmBoat Floating Market!
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Join us for our third season on the historic Steamship Virginia V. We are kicking off the event with music performed by the Castaways who will be playing from the deck of our 100 year old fishing schooner “Olympic”.
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