Search for Site Delays Farmers’ Market Start : Moorpark: The weekly event was to be held in the Metrolink lot. Conflicts with rail service prompt a hunt for a new location.

The anticipated Sept. 11 debut of a weekly farmers’ market in Moorpark’s downtown area will be delayed because of difficulties in finding a suitable site, Chamber of Commerce officials said Thursday.

Officials had hoped to stage the event for four hours each Saturday in the city’s Metrolink parking lot on High Street, but possible conflicts with rail service have prompted a search for another location.

“We’re back to square one,” Chamber President Francis Okyere said after meeting this week with city staffers who pledged to help the chamber find a suitable site. “We’re definitely going on with it, it’s just the location. We’re trying to fine-tune the location.”

Okyere said use of the Metrolink lot has not been ruled out, but appears unlikely. Alternate sites in a Metrolink parking lot on the south side of the railroad tracks and north of a High Street grain depot are being considered.

Under a plan submitted to the city by the chamber in July, the market would include 15 to 20 certified growers selling items ranging from fresh fruits and vegetables to fish, coffee, plants, bread, pasta, eggs, honey and flour. It would be operated by Cynthia Korman who currently runs the Ojai Certified Farmers’ Market each Sunday.

Okyere said that when the Metrolink lot was chosen as a proposed site for the Saturday afternoon event, he did not know that an Amtrak train routinely stops at the station shortly after 4 p.m. He also did not consider the possibility of Metrolink offering periodic weekend service, as it recently did to transport riders to the Ventura County Fair.

Another development that could interfere with the chamber’s plan is the planned opening of a produce market on nearby Walnut Street.

Okyere said the weekly event would not hurt such a business, but would actually improve it by associating produce and downtown Moorpark in the minds of consumers.

“We’re talking about an event that only takes place for four hours once a week,” he said. “That by no means is going to replace anyone’s business.”

But when the chamber first submitted its plan for the market to the city, Mayor Paul Lawrason said he was particularly interested in making sure the event did not conflict with existing downtown merchants by offering items currently available.

The mayor restated his concern Thursday.

“I just want to make sure that we’re not creating a problem for any of the existing merchants,” Lawrason said. “I want to make sure that we’re aware of that and that nothing is put in place there that is going to have any kind of a negative effect on the people who are already down there.”

However Councilman Scott Montgomery said such stringent restrictions run contrary to the basic principals of a free market system.

“The idea that you don’t want a farmers’ market because someone is already selling produce is basically like saying, “don’t approve McDonald’s or Carl’s Jr. because we already have a Taco Bell,’ ” Montgomery said. “This is a four, maybe eight-hour event. . . . It’s not going to put a real dent in his business if he’s competitive.”