Draft Statement

[Steve Laferriere]

Hello ad-hoc Committee Whole Foods Committee,

Thanks for all the responses on the draft statement for Thursday's Whole Foods meeting.  Based on the feedback I received, you'll see some fairly substantial edits, mostly to soften the tone, which one person described as "accusatory" to something more "cooperative," as the goal of this statement should be to get them to work together toward a CBA, not to antagonize them.  Thanks again, and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Steve

[Jesse White]

Here is the revised statement if anyone missed it.

---

Date: Fri, 27 May 2011 17:47:58 -0400
Subject: [jpnc-adhoc-wf] Draft Statement
From: sla...@gmail.com
To: jpnc-adhoc...@googlegroups.com

Hello ad-hoc Committee Whole Foods Committee,

Thanks for all the responses on the draft statement for Thursday's Whole Foods meeting.  Based on the feedback I received, you'll see some fairly substantial edits, mostly to soften the tone, which one person described as "accusatory" to something more "cooperative," as the goal of this statement should be to get them to work together toward a CBA, not to antagonize them.  Thanks again, and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Steve

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[Lionette's Market]

For what it is worth, I think the second one is really weak.  I agree with Ben, the first one struck a balance of a willingness to speak with WF, but also expressing our displeasure with WF's lack of community involvement etc....  It is also what we agreed on at the last meeting.

  I think the original line mentioning first Thursdays really was important and made the JPNC (and the entire Ad-Hoc committee) look relevant and like they know what is going on their own neighborhood.  I am not sure why that was taken out.  Listen, it is really lame that WF is saying it seeks to be part of the community and schedules its first public meetings on First Thursday.  First Thursdays are a big deal for the Centre/South businesses. For WF to schedule it on the first Thursday is either arrogance or ignorance, and either way they should be called out.

  I thought we all agreed on the tone and concept of the statement at last week's meeting, I do not appreciate whoever took it upon themselves to re-draft the statement. I don't know why we are drastically changing it now online. 

  I would prefer to keep the first edition.  I don't want to go over this statement again tomorrow at our meeting, I want to stick to the agenda and timeline that Steve painstakingly laid out and try to finish the report (the thing that we are all in this committee to write).

Jamey Lionette

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www.lionettesmarket.com

 

[Monica Rey]

I think Jamey said it all, and I too think we should stick to the original statement.

Monica

[Jesse White]

Hey all,

I sent this originally off list-- but then realized I should have sent it to everyone... I agree that it sucks to have this conversation on line after being in agreement at the meeting, but I'm not sure what needs to happen to figure it out at this point.  Maybe we should submit and discuss the original, and use the alternative if there appears to be a lot of dissent at the JPNC meeting?  Or maybe someone could come up with a statement somewhere in the middle of the first two? Anyway, below are my thoughts.

Hi Ben and Judy,

I also liked the original, but agreed with Steve about the changes that were made.  These are the reasons why:

The reality is that at the moment, the only leverage we have with Whole Foods are the voices of the community.  They may  very well choose to avoid JPNC processes by avoiding doing things that they would need licensing/zoning variances for, like having takeout.  If we show up with an eight to nine vote and a bunch of whole foods supporters feel alienated with the statement we made and come out and say... we completely disagree... welcome WF, then we lose ground.

The purpose of making a statement is to get Whole Foods to come to the table, have a substantial community process, and negotiate around benefits... even though we all may not agree about whether or not we want whole foods to come to JP, I think we can all agree that if they do come, we need to mitigate the negative impacts and enhance the positive impacts to the extent possible.  We need to show that we have a united front on that point, even if we all agree on nothing else.  Otherwise, we will be ignored.  Also, based on the comments made after the Statement got out (albeit by a small number of folks) I became worried that support for a CBA and for the notion that WF needs to engage in a community process will get lost, and instead the focus will be on the endless pro/anti debate.

By changing the statement, we ensure that we are not alienating people from the idea of Benefits who believe that the entrance of Whole Foods into Hyde Square is a good thing.  For me, getting a substantial benefits agreement with Whole Foods is more important than having the council take a position that exhibits anger or frustration at Whole Foods' actions so far.  I think that we can all share our individual outrage about Whole Foods' behavior so far in not having had a community meeting up to this point, reserving only 30 minutes for community members to speak, having their meeting on First Thursdays, etc by getting up to the mike personally and stating how we are feeling.  However, this is the statement that is going to be made by the JPNC as a whole, and we need to be able to get unanimous, or near unanimous support for it, if our words are going to carry any weight at the meeting.

Those are my thoughts,

Jesse

---

CC: jesse...@hotmail.com; jpnc-adhoc...@googlegroups.com
From: monica.i...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [jpnc-adhoc-wf] Draft Statement
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 14:06:18 -0400
To: lion...@gmail.com

[Lionette's Market]

I guess what makes me frustrated is why the JPNC created an ad-hoc committee at all.  Seriously, we all sat through that meeting last week and hammered out a bunch of things, just like we have every meeting.  we are coming up with suggestions and a report on the IMPACT of Wf coming to J.P., and are going to present it to the council.  If the council does not agree with our report than so be it, they can do things internally in the future.  But don't ask a bunch of people to join an ad-hoc committee and then not even submit the things we come up with, but instead change them to suit the JPNC.

  If the JPNC wanted to do their own thing then that is fine, but why did you ask all of us to form an ad-hoc committee if when we actually do agree on something at a meeting, it gets modified before it gets presented to the JPNC.

--

  People who are for WF coming to JP are already getting what they want--they are getting a supermarket they want.

  WF is going to get quite a bit by coming to J.P., that is a lot of money.

  So no, I don't feel like either of those groups are being alienated.

--

  And as for First Thursday it is more than just voicing frustration, it is showing that in its first public appearance, WF is either completely at out of touch with the neighborhood, or feels it is is more important than local shops.  That is a big IMPACT on the neighborhood.

--

Ultimately. if the JPNC council can not agree with what it's own ad-hoc committee agreed on, or if it is split 9-8, then maybe the JPNC council is not the right group to come up with a CBA.

or

 If the Council agrees with recommendations of its own ad-hoc committee, and WF does not like it, and avoids any dealings with the JPNC, then it just re-enforces every negative image of that corporation.  And really, it shows WF would never have engaged in a serious dialogue with the JPNC in the first place. It shows WF will just avoid any local council to get its desired variances and permits if it actually has to listen to concerns of the neighborhood. 

--Jamey Lionette

[Dave Baron]

Attacking the JPNC seems to me to be critically beside the point.  There is a tendency in the discussion of this issue for people on both sides, at the first sign of disagreement, to get on their high horses and begin slamming each other as unreasonable tyrants, and I do not want to see the discussion over a short pre-report public statement turn into that.  I wrote the “original” statement from the JPNC to WF, so I have every reason to have pride of authorship over it, but it seems to me the revised statement is not fundamentally different.  It is less outwardly confrontational, and I personally thought that a bit of confrontation was well in order now, but the central point of BOTH statements is “we in JP have been working hard on this issue for a long time, without any participation from you, Whole Foods, and now we expect there to be a community process in which you participate, with the goal toward reaching a community benefits agreement.”  Is there really a feeling among the group that the revised statement does not reflect that message?  I realize that it scores fewer rhetorical “points” against WF, but not everyone is interested in scoring points (these people have interests that are not evil – they are trying to get greater “pro-WF” support for the statement and they see point-scoring as counter-productive to the negotiation process that needs to happen with WF now), but we actually do for the most part all agree on the need for WF to negotiate with the community toward a strong CBA.  I’d like to see pragmatism (and not ideological purity) carry the day on this question. 

 

Dave

[Ben Mauer]

Jesse,

I hear your concerns. I respect that the edits were made with garnering the support of the JPNC as a whole in mind, and I support everybody's effort at accomplishing that. My hope is that a statement could have landed at least somewhere in the middle.

Some thoughts:

Whole Foods will not avoid take-out, its 12% of their business overall, and a highly profitable part of it.

I agree that the only leverage we have with Whole Foods is the voices of the community, as well as the licenses and variances which Whole Foods will indeed seek because those lines of business are core to their value-added business model.

Therefore it's good to listen to the voices of the community. If our goal is to get our asks met, voices that say "give to our community, work to mitigate your negative effects, or stay out" are leverage. Voices in the community that say "welcome Whole Foods" are not leverage, they're weights on the balance tipping the scales away from Whole Foods giving our community anything beyond the norm.

I agree with you about the need for the JPNC to have a close to united vote that includes the ask of a community process in a series of meetings. You council members know the council better than I do. If it requires the modifications Steve L sent out in order to get a close to unanimous vote, then so be it, but my preference remains the same, and I will look forward to speaking 3 words of my mind in my 3 seconds of fame on Thursday.

Thanks,

Ben

On May 31, 2011, at 2:50 PM, Jesse White wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> I sent this originally off list-- but then realized I should have sent it to everyone... I agree that it sucks to have this conversation on line after being in agreement at the meeting, but I'm not sure what needs to happen to figure it out at this point. Maybe we should submit and discuss the original, and use the alternative if there appears to be a lot of dissent at the JPNC meeting? Or maybe someone could come up with a statement somewhere in the middle of the first two? Anyway, below are my thoughts.
>
> Hi Ben and Judy,
>
> I also liked the original, but agreed with Steve about the changes that were made. These are the reasons why:
>
> The reality is that at the moment, the only leverage we have with Whole Foods are the voices of the community. They may very well choose to avoid JPNC processes by avoiding doing things that they would need licensing/zoning variances for, like having takeout. If we show up with an eight to nine vote and a bunch of whole foods supporters feel alienated with the statement we made and come out and say... we completely disagree... welcome WF, then we lose ground.
>
> The purpose of making a statement is to get Whole Foods to come to the table, have a substantial community process, and negotiate around benefits... even though we all may not agree about whether or not we want whole foods to come to JP, I think we can all agree that if they do come, we need to mitigate the negative impacts and enhance the positive impacts to the extent possible. We need to show that we have a united front on that point, even if we all agree on nothing else. Otherwise, we will be ignored. Also, based on the comments made after the Statement got out (albeit by a small number of folks) I became worried that support for a CBA and for the notion that WF needs to engage in a community process will get lost, and instead the focus will be on the endless pro/anti debate.
>
> By changing the statement, we ensure that we are not alienating people from the idea of Benefits who believe that the entrance of Whole Foods into Hyde Square is a good thing. For me, getting a substantial benefits agreement with Whole Foods is more important than having the council take a position that exhibits anger or frustration at Whole Foods' actions so far. I think that we can all share our individual outrage about Whole Foods' behavior so far in not having had a community meeting up to this point, reserving only 30 minutes for community members to speak, having their meeting on First Thursdays, etc by getting up to the mike personally and stating how we are feeling. However, this is the statement that is going to be made by the JPNC as a whole, and we need to be able to get unanimous, or near unanimous support for it, if our words are going to carry any weight at the meeting.
>
> Those are my thoughts,
>
> Jesse
>

> CC: jesse...@hotmail.com; jpnc-adhoc...@googlegroups.com
> From: monica.i...@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [jpnc-adhoc-wf] Draft Statement
> Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 14:06:18 -0400
> To: lion...@gmail.com
>
> I think Jamey said it all, and I too think we should stick to the original statement.
>
> Monica
>
>
>
> On May 31, 2011, at 1:57 PM, "Lionette's Market" <lion...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For what it is worth, I think the second one is really weak. I agree with Ben, the first one struck a balance of a willingness to speak with WF, but also expressing our displeasure with WF's lack of community involvement etc.... It is also what we agreed on at the last meeting.
> I think the original line mentioning first Thursdays really was important and made the JPNC (and the entire Ad-Hoc committee) look relevant and like they know what is going on their own neighborhood. I am not sure why that was taken out. Listen, it is really lame that WF is saying it seeks to be part of the community and schedules its first public meetings on First Thursday. First Thursdays are a big deal for the Centre/South businesses. For WF to schedule it on the first Thursday is either arrogance or ignorance, and either way they should be called out.
> I thought we all agreed on the tone and concept of the statement at last week's meeting, I do not appreciate whoever took it upon themselves to re-draft the statement. I don't know why we are drastically changing it now online.
> I would prefer to keep the first edition. I don't want to go over this statement again tomorrow at our meeting, I want to stick to the agenda and timeline that Steve painstakingly laid out and try to finish the report (the thing that we are all in this committee to write).
> Jamey Lionette
>
> On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 1:06 PM, Jesse White <jesse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Here is the revised statement if anyone missed it.
>

[Ben Mauer]

Hey Dave,

Thanks for your thoughts. See mine that I just sent. I'm definitely not attacking the JPNC, and that I agree that the statements ask for essentially the same thing, which is a public process, and that is also my bottom line on the issue. I do strongly feel the original statement would put us as a community in a stronger position at the meeting, which is why I wrote my response.

See you all tonight at the meeting.

Ben

> CC: jesse...@hotmail.com; jpnc-adhoc...@googlegroups.com
> From: monica.i...@gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [jpnc-adhoc-wf] Draft Statement
> Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 14:06:18 -0400
> To: lion...@gmail.com
>
>
> I think Jamey said it all, and I too think we should stick to the original statement.
>
> Monica
>
>
>
> On May 31, 2011, at 1:57 PM, "Lionette's Market" <lion...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For what it is worth, I think the second one is really weak. I agree with Ben, the first one struck a balance of a willingness to speak with WF, but also expressing our displeasure with WF's lack of community involvement etc.... It is also what we agreed on at the last meeting.
> I think the original line mentioning first Thursdays really was important and made the JPNC (and the entire Ad-Hoc committee) look relevant and like they know what is going on their own neighborhood. I am not sure why that was taken out. Listen, it is really lame that WF is saying it seeks to be part of the community and schedules its first public meetings on First Thursday. First Thursdays are a big deal for the Centre/South businesses. For WF to schedule it on the first Thursday is either arrogance or ignorance, and either way they should be called out.
> I thought we all agreed on the tone and concept of the statement at last week's meeting, I do not appreciate whoever took it upon themselves to re-draft the statement. I don't know why we are drastically changing it now online.
> I would prefer to keep the first edition. I don't want to go over this statement again tomorrow at our meeting, I want to stick to the agenda and timeline that Steve painstakingly laid out and try to finish the report (the thing that we are all in this committee to write).
> Jamey Lionette
>
> On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 1:06 PM, Jesse White <jesse...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Here is the revised statement if anyone missed it.
>

[Jesse White]

Hi all,

It may be too late in the game for this, but thought I would throw it out there to try to get some consensus before the meeting.  I used the modified draft, changed the order around a little to make sure that the idea that this meeting is long overdue is upfront, and added back in a statement about this happening on First Thursdays.  My hope was to create sort of a mix... keep the stuff we agreed on in the meeting, but maybe soften the tone a notch or two from the original.

Feel free to ignore if this just makes things more complicated.

Jesse

> Subject: Re: [jpnc-adhoc-wf] Draft Statement

> From: benm...@gmail.com
> Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 16:12:49 -0400
> CC: lion...@gmail.com; jesse...@hotmail.com; monica.i...@gmail.com; jpnc-adhoc...@googlegroups.com
> To: dave_...@mindspring.com

[Ben Mauer]

Hey Jesse, et al,

Thanks for this attempt at bridging the two major drafts. I personally think this more hits the mark, and support it. Whether this or the previous statement comes before the council, thanks very very much for your effort at pulling this together, and thanks Dave and Steve L for your work on drafting the statement.

Ben

> <Draft_Statement_-_June_2_WF_Meeting_Edited2.doc>

[Steve Laferriere]

Thanks Jamey, Monica, Ben and others who have weighed-in on the draft statement.  There are a couple of things I'd like to say by way of explanation, first this is a draft statement that will not be read 100% as it is written, so part of the "tone" of the statement will be up to the person making the statement.  I think the tone must be firm, but polite, and I hope that this second draft can do that.  

To me there were two "digs" at WF in the initial statement, one regarding how long it's taken them to finally show up in JP, which I think can still be said, and one about the meeting being scheduled for First Thursday.  It was pointed out to me that the JPNC Zoning Committee regularly meets on First Thursday, and although the JPNC Zoning Committee tends to draw a significantly smaller crowd than I'm sure WF will draw, I felt it was inappropriate for the JPNC to criticize WF around that particular point.  

At this point, I'm really not very interested in wordsmithing what will be a statement rather than a document.  However, I definitely hear that folks are concerned that we aren't being strong with Whole Foods and will certainly endeavor to make sure the Council understands that we aim to be firm, perhaps firmer than the current draft, while not being antagonistic.

I also apologize about how this has evolved over email and not in-person.  

Steve

[John McLoughlin, DPM]

Hi everyone,
I agree with Ben, that the recent edit Jesse did is a good way of
putting things. I support it and I also agree with Steve, that much
will be in the delivery. Thank you everyone.
John McLoughlin