The New York City Council, the Borough Presidents and the City Planning Commission have come up with a program, called the FRESH program that works on giving people reason to develop grocery stores in neighborhoods that have poor access to good food, like Harlem.

As we all know, it is really hard to find good, healthy food here in Harlem. Most of the supermarkets we have are small, have no variety and very few unspoiled fruits and vegetables. Even the farmers markets that they have only have limited hours and are in few locations.

This FRESH program is a great step in bringing in new developers to the area and giving us more supermarkets, more of a selection, and more healthy food!

So what's the problem? The problem is that the program doesn't require these new businesses to have fair business practices. There is no built in selection process in which supermarkets can participate. We want this program to only benefit businesses that meet these guidelines:

Good Jobs: All supermarkets that participate in this program should be required to commit that all jobs at the store will meet minimum good jobs standards: fair pay, employee benefits, etc. The wage and benefits should be determined by the program, not by the employer.

Job Creation: These new supermarkets should create many new jobs for the public. Preference should be given to supermarkets with more than 25 employees, which will create more jobs.

EBT/WIC: The participating supermarket should be required to accept EBT and WIC.

Warehouse Clubs: The program should clearly define the term "supermarket" so that incentives only go to true supermarkets and not to big box stores.

Good Food: The program should carefully monitor food quality at participating stores.

Community Involvement in Planning Process: Supermarkets seeking loans and assistance should appear before the community board to consider community input on issues including, but not limited to, products, diversity in hiring, local hiring, pricing, and auxiliary services being provided.

Transparency: The participating supermarket should be required to report publicly on a bi-annual or annual basis with information necessary to evaluate the food quality and employment standards (e.g. job and wage data) at the supermarkets participating in the loan program. All information should be available online.

If you agree with this and want to send your councilmen a letter to show your support for them to includw these conditions in the FRESH program, please go to the BuildingBlocks webpage and enter your information.