The Lafayette Downtown Development Authority (DDA) board convened on January 12, 2026, to approve the 2025 annual report and a 2026 funding agreement for the Lafayette Farmers Market. Director Barnes recused himself from a specific grant discussion, and Director Harty was present. The meeting focused on finalizing the inaugural year's achievements, outlining the farmers market's financial needs regarding traffic control, and discussing future marketing strategies and the new DDA website. The board moved forward with approvals while directing staff to refine reporting requirements to better highlight community access and food waste initiatives.
2026 Farmers Market Funding Agreement:
2025 DDA Annual Report:
Staff Updates (Grants & Marketing):
Executive Director Keating and we have a roll call that Director Barnes, Chair Kagan. Here, Director Harty. Director Hubbard. Director LaCoe. Director Munding? Here. Okay. Um, first on the agenda is public input. If any of the member of the public wishes to speak. Okay, state your name, you have five minutes to speak. No, thank you. I'll uh close public input. Uh we'll now move on to approval of the November tenth, twenty twenty-five meeting minutes. Are there any corrections? Okay. I'll make a motion to approve the November 10th, 2025 meeting minutes as written. Is there a second? A second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that passes. Moving on to regular business, the first agenda item is approval of the 2026 lobby at farmers market funding agreement. So I'll turn it over to Executive Director Key Day. Great. Hi everyone. Um I'm joined here with Peter as well. I'm gonna be doing a presentation about the agreement, but Peter's here also to answer any questions. And so um we uh last heard from Peter back in September about how the farmers market went, and um you all had a commitment to um wanting to see a partnership for funding, and so tonight you'll be considering that funding agreement. And so I'll give a brief reminder about the farmers market, the proposed funding agreement, some next steps and post-motion language. And as always, feel free to jump in at any time with questions, either for me or for Peter. Um maybe you should do this one. Happy to this is your farmers market. Um yeah, so in our uh first year launched in the farmers market in 2025. Um we had 65 post-weekly vendors, um, total of about 75 vendors that some of them are now, and some are seasonal as agriculture is. Um, but we had over 150 applicants in the first year, which was great. And um, we're actually in the application process now, and it's it's going well, it's growing, so it's going in a positive trajectory. Um 16 farmers rangers dairies, it's kind of the core constituents that we're looking for to be really grocery focused, 100% growers focused, 100% local. Um, and then this is just kind of what I guess, but 100 to 1500 weekly attendance. We have nice full streets, so that's what we're gonna say. Um, and then uh a million and a half plus in total sales. So if you just kind of account for all of the small business sales, all the vendor sales continue. That's basically what we would estimate. Um, probably between a million and a half and two from Sundays 9 a.m. to one p.m. public season. Great. Um, so because it's on public road, um, through the uh city's community event permit process, um, it requires that a certified traffic control company actually comes in to close down the road. Um, and that that is a lot of work because that not only do they need to um keep uh traffic moving on baseline and also direct people in public, um, but we also have some pedestrian um barricades that are there to um protect participants from um vehicles. Um and so that is a big undertaking to have that certified um traffic control company um do this every single week, and overall the seasonal cost is over 32,000.