Arlington Market

I should start with the disclaimer that the following opinions are my own. If you’re unhappy with something I say here, hold it against me—and no one else.

When I originally purchased this domain name, I planned to use it to promote the year-round open-air markets held in Arlington, Virginia.

Unfortunately, Arlington County’s board members and the taxpayer-funded nonprofit organization The Clarendon Alliance have continued to neglect the markets despite frequent complaints to and requests for intercession from various members of the county government.

While issuing press releases extolling the virtues of Arlington’s “urban village” and “progressive community planning,” they have all but ignored the needs and concerns of the vendors and community affected by the markets’ success or failure. The markets occur fifty-two weeks a year, literally steps from the Arlington County government building, and in the four years that I’ve been a vendor there I have seen only one county board member stop by—Jay Fisette, an incumbent in this year’s election—and then only once.

Press releases are cheap and easy. Extolling the virtues of your  “diverse and inclusive world-class urban community” (a direct quote from the Arlington County website) requires little effort. Ensuring your community is, in fact, diverse and inclusive is another matter entirely.

In a county that claims its “people unite to form a caring, learning, participating, sustainable community in which each person is important” (another direct quote), being told your efforts to keep that community vibrant and nuanced aren’t valued is a kick in the teeth. Some people, it turns out, appear to be more important than others.

I can no longer use this site to promote the markets in good faith—the markets that remain, I should say, as in a meeting today with Arlington County board member Mary Hynes and the Clarendon Alliance’s executive director Susan Anderson, I and other vendors  were told the Sunday market was being canceled effective July 1st, as it was no longer profitable for the Clarendon Alliance to operate. It didn’t matter that it is profitable for the vendors who have toughed it out in the face of increasing indifference from the county … and isn’t the Clarendon Alliance supposed to be a nonprofit?

Even though I’ve come to expect this level of doublespeak from the Clarendon Alliance’s Executive Director Susan Anderson, I was shocked. How could a non-profit organization tasked with supporting and promoting area businesses cancel a market that faithful vendors, customers, and members of the community continue to support, while citing a lack of profitability as the reason?

It would seem like an admission of defeat. The Clarendon Alliance is responsible for promoting the market—at least on paper. If the market isn’t profitable, aren’t they to blame?

The market site is situated between restaurants, hotels and theaters, with a Metro station and free parking within a hundred yards. How could it not be profitable?

The Arlington County government and the Clarendon Alliance allowed a goose that should have been laying golden eggs to starve to death. That site and that community should be a center-piece, a destination for people both in and outside of the community, something to rival street markets like London’s Portobello Road or Le Marché aux Puces de Clingancourt in Paris.

The Sunday market used to support in excess of seventy vendors with goods from all over the world and have hundreds of visitors a day. Now, on a good day, we might have just over a dozen vendors.

I, and many other vendors, have complained to the Clarendon Alliance, the County Board, directly to board members Jay Fisette and Mary Hynes—the latter the board-appointed liaison between the Clarendon Alliance and the community—and to the County Manager Ron Carlee. Despite many meetings and promises to foster change and culpability, the Clarendon Alliance has been an absentee landlord—collecting rent and doing little else.

I won’t be abandoning the neighborhood or the markets—we have friends there, both among the vendors and the community. I won’t be abandoning this website, either. I’ll  use it as a clearinghouse of information for anyone associated with the markets or the neighborhood.

If you’re a vendor or customer, a friend or a resident of the neighborhood, a member of the press or the larger community, please contact me via this website with any questions or comments. I also encourage you to contact the Arlington County board to let them know how you feel, whether you’re a resident of Arlington or a visitor (tourism is one of Arlington’s major industries, and Arlington County would be well advised to listen to its paying guests). Contact information will be available here for local and state offices in the days and weeks ahead.

K. Kane

General Update