A community group living in a poor working class food desert in a primarily African-American neighborhood in Northeast Greensboro, North Carolina sets out to found a grocery story co-op and make their on way in an abandoned, city owned shopping center that no one has shown interest in for almost 15 years and just when they get their loans to buy the shopping center, developers and local politicians rush in with a scheme to use corporate welfare to steal the grocery store and the shopping center away from the co-op and the community at the expense of local taxpayers.
This is Part 10, stolen in it's entirety from
Marnie Thompson of the
Fund for Democratic Communities. To
begin with Part 1 and follow your way back to here... Well, click on the link. And thank you for reading about how these thieves are stealing my home. -Billy Jones
"The Early History of F4DC’s Role in Community-Based Efforts to Build a Cooperative Grocery Store at Bessemer Center
Earlier this week, I drafted this history to clear up some confusions about how and when work on the Renaissance Community Coop
started, and the role that F4DC has played. We decided to post this
history on our website so that more people have access to it during this
period when City Council is deciding whether and how it will support
the coop. We also thought that in the long term (5-10 years from now),
people might be interested to see in some detail the ways that F4DC has
chosen to work in its local community. You can see that community
organizing of the kind we’re supporting on the grocery store project is
connected to long time frames, networks of relationships, and developing
ideas.
It’s important to say that this particular written history mainly
covers the early work on the coop, which was spearheaded by F4DC. At
this point, in 2013, the coop development work is led by the Renaissance
Cooperative Committee, to which F4DC provides technical support. But in
2011 and most of 2012, F4DC was playing the leading role, which is why
this history is titled the way it is: its emphasis is on the early days,
before the RCC had assumed the lead. I eagerly await the history as
written by the RCC, which will have its own perspective and
community-based flavor!
Since 1998, when the Winn-Dixie closed, Ed Whitfield (co-director of
F4DC) and I have independently followed and occasionally connected to
Northeast Greensboro residents’ efforts to bring a grocery store to the
site of the old Winn-Dixie. Both of us attended early meetings of
Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro, just to see what was going
on, and to lend our occasional support as private citizens.
In 2010 and 2011, Ed and I established a tighter focus for F4DC’s
work, with a strong emphasis on cooperative economics. In the course of
entering this arena, we discussed among ourselves the possibility of a
community-owned grocery store on Phillips Avenue.
In fall of 2011, Ed and I had a discussion with Goldie Wells
(President of Citizens for Economic and Environmental Justice (CEEJ) and
founder of Concerned Citizens) about the possibility of a coop grocery
store in the site of the old Winn-Dixie. At that time, Goldie wasn’t
particularly interested, because she thought Sav-a-Lot was coming in. By
the end of that year, it was apparent that the Sav-aLot deal was dead.
In winter-spring of 2011-2012, Ed and Sohnie Black (an F4DC staff
member with a personal interest in the grocery store) began mentioning
the idea of a coop grocery store in CEEJ and Concerned Citizens
meetings. People showed interest, and a few took home copies of a “how
to” manual for starting food coops put out by the National Cooperative
Grocers Association that we circulated.
In March of 2012, I reached out to Dyan Arkin, the City Planning
Department staff member with responsibility for the Bessemer Center, to
discuss the possibility of a coop grocery store. It took a while to set
up the meeting, but we finally met in early June. Dyan went to some
length to help us understand the history of the by-that-time “past due”
contract with East Market Street Development Corporation and New
Bessemer Associates (the 75% occupancy deal). She encouraged us to give
the coop grocery a try, since there seemed to be no other action on the
Center at that time.
On July 10th, Ed, Sohnie, and I convened an exploratory meeting with
Ralph Johnson, Bob Davis (co-chairs of Concerned Citizens), Wes McGuire,
Mac Sims (East Market Street Development Corporation), Jim Kee, and
Dyan Arkin, in which we explained how coops work, and asked for their
ideas about whether/how to proceed. Goldie Wells was invited to the
meeting but was unable to attend.
The very next morning, with no consultation with F4DC, Concerned
Citizens or CEEJ, Jim scheduled a press conference at the Bessemer
Center, and at least one TV station filmed Jim’s press conference. The
news story,
which can be viewed in its entirety here, included these statements and quotes:
The Concerned Citizens group who live in East Greensboro
is talking about starting a co-op grocery store. In this case it would
be owned by investors and people in the community who would also invest.
“The great thing about a co-op is that the community gets to decide
what they want in the store, how they want the store to look, how they
want the store to operate,” said Kee.
Jim also mentioned F4DC’s role in helping to find financing for a
coop grocery store and compared the potential of the Northeast
Greensboro effort to the recent successful coop grocery startup in
Burlington, Company Shops Market. (F4DC had provided information about
Company Shops the night before, as an example of how a community came
together to build itself a grocery store.)
In late July and early August, Ed, Sohnie, and I made presentations
about the coop approach at CEEJ, Concerned Citizens, and Woodmere Park
neighborhood association meetings, to drum up interest for a field trip
to Company Shops Market.
On August 8, 2012, F4DC sponsored the field trip to Company Shops
Market, and took 2 van-loads of folks from the neighborhood to tour, eat
lunch, and talk to a founding board member and the general manager of
Company Shops. Jim Kee, Ralph Johnson, Bob Davis, Goldie Wells, and Mac
Sims were on the trip, as were many of the people who went on to form
the core of the RCC Steering Committee. About 25 people from the
neighborhood decided over lunch at Company Shops to continue to explore
how they might, as ordinary people working together, form a coop grocery
store.
Throughout the fall, these folks met regularly, studied, and got more
people involved. Jim Kee attended a few of these meetings. In November,
the group decided to formalize its organizational efforts, and voted to
name itself the Renaissance Coop Committee, because they knew the name
of the shopping center was slated to change and because they liked the
association with the concept of “rebirth.” The Renaissance Coop
Committee publicized the fact that they would be electing officers at
their next meeting in December. A front page Peacemaker article featured
the RCC and its efforts.
In its December 3rd meeting, which, like all its meetings, was open
to the public, the RCC elected officers and decided to commission a
market study, to assess the viability of operating a full-service
grocery store. Jim Kee was in attendance at that meeting, and Ed asked
him if it was time for the community to formally ask the City to stop
seeking a grocery store for the site, because the coop was going to take
care of that need. Jim responded that there was no need to slow the
process down since it had been many years since the grocery store had
closed and there was no progress. “You couldn’t go any slower,” he said.
He then went on to say that he wanted to remain open to any and all
proposals, but that there was nothing in the works at that time.
Two weeks later, at a specially called CEEJ meeting to discuss the
proposed sale of Redevelopment Commission property on Phillips Avenue to
Dollar General, Skip Alston made an announcement that he was working
with a group of investors who wanted to bring a full service grocery
store and a renovated shopping center to the Bessemer Center. He stated
that he had been working with Jim Kee on this for a few weeks. When coop
people in the crowd asked Skip if he knew that there was a community
group interested in opening a community owned cooperative grocery store,
he responded that he did not know anything about that. Skip was then
asked if his group of developers would be interested in working with the
coop in a scenario where the coop group would operate the grocery store
and his developers would operate businesses in the remainder of the
Center. He responded that his group was not interested in that. “No,” he
said. “We want the whole thing.”
The next night, at the December 18th City Council meeting, Jim Kee
formally asked City Council to work with the new development group that
Skip represented on the proposal that would include giving the ownership
of Renaissance Center to Skip’s group of investors. In that discussion
he made no mention of the community’s interest in opening a coop grocery
store. In his presentation, Jim stated that he had been working with
Skip on the project for the past two months.
Epilogue: In mid-February, 2013, Skip contacted the
RCC to offer the coop a corner of the grocery store that his group of
investors would own and operate and to say that the coop might even have
its own cash register there. He was told that the coop was interested
in opening a full service grocery store, not just a fresh vegetable
section of a larger store. He said that he did not know this. It was
later erroneously reported to City Council that Skip’s investors had
offered to support the coop and that the coop had rejected the offer.
Since that time, there has been continued work in the community by
the RCC leadership group and growing understanding and support for the
coop grocery store. Skip and his investors met with the RCC and amended
their original offer to say that they are now willing to lease the
grocery store space to the coop at the same rates the coop requested
from the City. RCC also met with New Bessemer Associates, the developers
who are seeking the contract for doing the construction and upfit work
on the Center, but are not seeking ownership. They too expressed a
willingness to work with the coop and offered the fact that they had
built the successful Deep Roots expansion as proof of their competence
and willingness to work with coops."
Continue reading
What The Media And The City Aren't Telling You About The Renaissance Community Co-op Part 11
