Cambodia Town Night Market and Community Garden Update

There was a Town Hall meeting at Mark Twain Library this evening. The subject was the Night Market which is slated to start Sundays at MacArthur Park from 4pm to 9pm on August 2nd. The goal of the Night Market, which evolved from the suggestion of a Farmer's Market at the Anaheim Corridor re-visioning meetings was meant to promote affordable, family friendly and fresh produce. There would likely be native Cambodian foods as well as food trucks. This would be the first Farmer's Market in the 6th District and the only one taking place at night. Anyone who would like to be involved can email LBNightMarket@gmail.com or call the organizers at (562) 388-4978. You can also like their Facebook Page to stay informed.

The community garden is planned for the vacant lot at Peterson and Anaheim. The tentative name is the healing fields. The group creating the garden already has a community garden at Dawson and Anaheim [I will show you pictures when I find it]. They plan to remove the cement from the lot, install new fences and add in gas and water meters. The garden will be multicultural with several volunteers working different plots on the garden. The group creating the garden, SCIC, is creating an advisory group to start that organization of volunteers. The location of the garden  is controversial because it was formerly used at the Cambodian Genocide Memorial every April 17th, the date the slaughter of 2 million Cambodians began. And those who held the memorial on that plot expressed strong disappointment that the plot isn't being set aside for that memorial anymore.

Cambodia Town Revisioning: Kick Off Meeting

From Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia via Facebook:  One of my commitments during my campaign for Mayor was that the city would invest to make Cambodia Town on Anaheim more walkable and livable. Today we kicked off the first community visioning meeting to talk landscaping, sidewalks, and lighting. Join us at the next meeting on Saturday April 18 at 2:30 at the Mark Twain Library.

Since I moved here in 2004, I have rarely frequented this area of my community. The idea is to turn Anaheim into more of a destination than a way of getting somewhere else. In other neighborhoods this has been accomplished by adding seating, widening sidewalks and adding awnings for shade. There would also be a focus on better lighting and the kind of overall design that would make Cambodia Town function more as a collective place to pass your time rather than a collection of individual shops.

I would also personally recommend the city incorporate as many suggestions as possible from it's own assessment of MacArthur Park. This would include better bike paths, repaired sidewalks, a renewed attention to neighborhood parks as well as giving local residents a better selection of healthy good often not found in poorer neighborhoods.

Suggestions on the Mayor's post honoring the campaign pledge to make Cambodia Town more walkable and livable included: waterwise landscaping, bus shelters and less ridged architecture such as rounded edges and tiered domes.

I personally would like to see all businesses in on Anaheim, Orange and Cherry take the city's pledge to keep the city clean.  I also think it would be nice to have the kind of medians that you find in Wrigley and Bluff Heights which welcome you to the neighborhood while also slowing down the car. The next meeting for this project will take place on Saturday April 18 at 12:00 noon - 2:30pm at the Mark Twain Library.