It was impromptu and it was impassioned.[pullquote]By supporting your local weather makers, you support The Park’s cultivators and growers and ensure the best food supply to Park residents, which, in turn, ensures a better, more secure, and more prosperous life for all.—WMPSAP president Kalliope Sun Bear [/pullquote]

Between sets by Eggie and The Pigs at Saturday’s Anixi Agrarian Jubilee, Kalliope Sun Bear, president  of the Weather Makers, Producers and Sellers Alliance of The Park (WMPSAP), took to the stage, grabbed the microphone from its stand, and uttered a heartfelt plea to the powers that be (i.e., the Park Finance Officers):

“We have seen the results of the faulty decision-making by the Park Finance Office over the past several years: the purchase of weather from outside The Park; the export of better weather produced by our own members; the resultant food shortages and increasing reliance on the importing of necessities, including food; the support of initiatives such as tourism, that have a detrimental effect on life in The Park…the list goes on.

I implore you to take a step back in order to ensure a better future for The Park and its citizens. By supporting your local weather makers, you support The Park’s cultivators and growers and ensure the best food supply to Park residents, which, in turn, ensures a better, more secure, and more prosperous life for all,” she said.

Her plea comes at a crucial time: just last week, Valentina Abeja, the new head of the Park Finance Office, announced that she would present the 2016 budget on August 1. That leaves a substantial amount of time, Sun Bear believes, to rethink our weather policy and to adjust the figures in its favour.

“I hadn’t at all planned on saying anything at the Jubilee. It’s traditionally a time of celebration, of looking forward toward the new growing season and the coming bounty. But I looked out at the crowd and I saw all the [members of] Concerned Park Cultivators, Planters, Growers, and Farmers and I thought, ‘Something has to be said on their behalf.’ I can’t look at them and not feel their fear…their insecurity. It seemed like a great place to start a discussion, with such a massive turnout,” Sun Bear said in an interview after her speech.

“I know the crowd was with me. I just hope the Finance Office heard us, too,” she said.