Hartford Central School’s 7th Grade class is conducting a “Dine to Donate” fund raiser at the Queensbury 5 GUYS BURGER and FRIES on Thursday April 29th from 5pm to 8pm.  20% of purchase with a flyer will be donated to the 7th Grade Trust Fund.

The burger joint is located at 735 Upper Glen Street.

You can get a flyer at the Town Office or from the School.

I particularly like the burger with everything but the kitchen sink on it. It rivals Lulu’s Diner Monster Burger.

Please support the 7th Grade and visit 5 GUYS on that day. Be sure to bring your coupon flyer with you.

Dana

The opening of the Hartford Farmers’ Market has been postponed for 1 year.

The Board of Directors for the Market decided that the Market simply did not have enough vendors signed up for the mid-May opening to make it viable. You only get 1 chance to make a good first impression and having a market open with just 3 or 4 vendors would have been an economic disaster and may turn people away permanently. If we had 8 vendors we might have tried it this year, we would prefer at least 10 for the first year and hopefully get bigger every year. 

The Town Board had been primed to receive a presentation from Market Manager Pat Imbimbo Tuesday night over the Market Budget and funding information. But earlier that day Pat and the Market Board of Directors decided that we waited as long as we could for vendors to sign up and unfortunately we felt we didn’t have enough to make a go of it.. 

At first the Market felt that March would be early enough to solicit vendors but that now appears to be wrong. Many of the vendors that we approached said that they normally commit to a market in January. They would have come to Hartford if they only had known about us in January.

Even though I am the President of the Market’s Board of Directors, I am also the Supervisor and Chief Financial Officer of the town.  The Board of directors, myself included cannot justifiably try to solicit funds from the town when we know in our heart that the market will not succeed this year.

There are boatloads of shopping support from the community but unlike that movie Field of Dreams ,if you build it, the vendors wont necessarily come. 

The Market will remain organized with an active Board of Directors, Market Rules, Application Forms, Market Logo contest, etc.   Instead of attempting a fizzling start for year 2010 we will now have a huge head start for soliciting vendors and funding for 2011. Our goal now is to open mid-May 2011 and operate until mid Oct 2011 for year #1.

Assemblyman Jordan, Senator Gillibrand, and most of the community have been very supportive of Hartford starting a Farmers’ Market. The market now asks you to continue your support into next year.

Dana

The Hartford Farmers’ Market is well on its way to becoming a reality.

A core group of persons that have showed interest from the very beginning met to draft Market Rules, Market Budget, Market Vendor Application form, and create a Board of Directors.

A press release has been issued to all the local papers announcing that the Market has been created and will be open Sundays 10am to 2pm from mid-May to mid-Oct. at the Hartford Firehouse.

The Hartford High School Graphic Design class is creating a Market logo.

Year 1 will be a little unusual because nothing tangible really exists yet.  By year 2 the Market should be running full ahead and the Board of Directors will be elected by the member vendors of the market.

A “Member Item” funding request has been made to Assemblyman Tony Jordan’s office but the State Budget mess leaves this request up in the air for now. Unfortunately the market does not have the luxury to wait. It will need start up money sooner rather than later. At the upcoming Town Board meeting on 4/13/10, The Market Board of Directors will request year 1 start up funds to get the market off the ground.

The Board of Directors for the Market year 1 are; Dana Haff – President (since this whole thing was my idea anyway), Pat Imbimbo – Market Manager, Andrea Wade – advertising & promotion, Emily DeBolt – Secretary/Treasurer, and Patty Happy – Board Member. 

If you support this market, please come to the Town Board meeting at 7pm Tuesday 4/13/10 and let us know.       Dana

Today I received a phone call from NYS Ag & Markets. I was informed that Hartford was awarded a $24,000 Farmland Protection Planning Grant.  The application for this grant was done during the planning process of our current Comprehensive Review (Master Plan) with the help of Consultant Brandy Saxton. 

This grant is to develope an agricultural and farmland protection plan and should not be confused with an implementation type of grant which is designed to buy up the developmental rights of farmland.

The Town Board will need to appoint a 5 or 7 member Agricultural Advisory Committee made up of Hartford Farmers.

The town will also need to contract with a consultant experienced in drafting these type of plans. The Ag Advisory Committee and the consultant will then work closely together to draft up a plan.

As per the Ag & Market website, Farmland protection plans should identify the location of farmland proposed to be protected, the value of that land to the local economy, the value of the land as open space, consequences of possible conversion and the level of conversion pressure on the proposed land.

Dana