The 17th Street Farmers’ Market Legacy Vendors — Luceal Allen, Rosa Fleming and Tim Christian — desperately need your help.  They have been cut out of the renovated market in Shockoe Bottom, despite promises otherwise.

In March 2016, renderings that the city’s project manager, Jeannie Welliver, presented showed wonderful vendor stalls planned for the Legacy Vendors, adorned with their personal Legacy Vendor logo and including three rolling vendor carts, made to be stored in the stalls. Tim Hamnett at Baskervill, an architectural firm, prepared the renderings for the city.

For the next year, through early 2017, as the city continued to hem and haw about the renovation of the market, these were the visions the Legacy Vendors had for their future. But when it came time to build, the Legacy Vendor stalls seemed to vanish from the discussion.   

Which brings us to the present time. On Friday, Nov. 30, the city is planning a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the renovated 17th Street Farmers’ Market and the Legacy Vendors really don’t have any clue what is in store for them.

While they see Ms. Welliver and George Bolos of the City of Richmond and John Sydnor of Enrichmond Foundation periodically, all officials with a say-so over the market, the Legacy Vendors have not received any formal understanding as to where they will be placed at the market. 

Over the last several years, the Legacy Vendors have never received anything official or in writing from the city — just words that changed again and again.

Things are dire for the Legacy Vendors, who need public support to protect them from injustice. We need to help the Legacy Vendors in their effort to get what has been promised to them for so long by the City of Richmond.

RICK TATNALL

Richmond