Ella Jo Simmons (Coop)

Colleagues, as AGATA’s Cooperative Senator who has witnessed firsthand the immense, often invisible emotional labor sustaining our hospitality ventures—from the barn café to roadside stands—I affirm my strong support for Amendment 9. This amendment rightly consolidates the critical inclusion of Long-term Ecological Stewardship as a core pillar in our Time Priorities Charter. Our 70-acre farm and cultural lab depend utterly on an explicit, binding commitment to stewardship that spans decades—embracing the realities of invasive species, feral animal control, and sustained ecosystem care. Previous debate has shown unanimity recognizing that without this foundational ecological promise, the resilience and regeneration we seek are fundamentally compromised. Let us acknowledge that our work is not only seasonal or fleeting, but part of a long arc of care for the land, the labor that tends it, and the community nested within and around it. I urge my colleagues to vote yea and enshrine this vital commitment in our Charter.

Colleagues, as Cooperative Senator Ella Jo Simmons, I rise to affirm my strong yea on Amendment 8, which explicitly anchors Long-term Ecological Stewardship within our Time Priorities Charter. This is not just an ecological imperative but also a moral and cooperative responsibility. I want to emphasize how vital this is to not only securing the regenerative capacities of our 70-acre farm but also to honoring the lifelong labor and care woven into our community's fabric.

From my years witnessing the emotional and physical labor sustaining our hospitality spaces—like the barn café and roadside stands—it's clear that ecological stewardship is deeply intertwined with the well-being of all workers, neighbors, and visitors. Our farm's vitality and cultural pulse depend on a living, breathing ecosystem that we commit to steward rigorously and respectfully across decades.

Amendment 8 rightly responds to the urgent calls from our farm and ecology senators to embed concrete, binding commitments to managing invasive species, supporting pollinator habitats, and addressing feral animal impacts. This is essential not only for climate resilience but also for sustaining the community's health and sense of connection to this land.

Moreover, weaving Long-term Ecological Stewardship firmly alongside the principles of Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, Education, and Accessibility crystallizes how our project enacts its cooperative values in practice. It grounds our time legislation in the lived reality of ecological rhythms and communal care—ensuring no pillar stands without the others.

I urge all to consider how this amendment harmonizes and elevates our shared commitments, enabling AGATA's farm, arts, and educational mission to endure and thrive in our changing world. This is a foundational step to truly steward the land and people entrusted to our care.

Colleagues, as Cooperative Senator Ella Jo Simmons again, I rise in strong support of Amendment 7, enshrining Accessibility as a core pillar alongside Resilience, Redundancy, Regeneration, Community, and Education. From my decades working the front lines where emotional and practical labor meet—whether at our barn café or roadside stands—accessibility is fundamental to truly realizing community embeddedness. It is not merely about physical or digital access, but about honoring diverse ways of being and participating, including neurodiversity and hidden labor roles often invisibilized. Making Accessibility a generative design constraint ensures we do not replicate exclusion in our temporal rhythms, trainings, or labor structures. This amendment is urgent: our neighbors, all who pass through or work at AGATA, deserve no less than a commitment to inclusive care that sustains both the land and the people who tend it. I urge my colleagues to support Amendment 7 to ground AGATA’s work in equity as profoundly as in ecology and resilience.

Colleagues, as Cooperative Senator focusing on the often unseen emotional and relational labor that animates our farm’s community-facing ventures—from the barn café to the roadside stands—I must stress the profound importance of this amendment embedding Long-term Ecological Stewardship. Our resilience as a cooperative and as a community hinges on not only the health of our soil and ecosystems but also on the durability and dignity of the labor that sustains these spaces day in and day out. Stepping into the long-term fights against invasive species and feral hogs, while intensifying ecological stewardship, is not merely an environmental imperative; it is a call to honor the laborers whose efforts knit together farm vitality with neighborly harmony. I have seen firsthand in my work how care labor, especially in hospitality, is undercompensated and frequently overlooked, yet it is indispensable to the lived experience of AGATA’s regenerative mission. This amendment crystallizes that same commitment to honoring essential labor, this time ecological and intergenerational, enshrining a decade-spanning vision that protects both ecology and our cooperative community. I stand in strong support to affirm that our time priorities are not only a bureaucratic framework but a living contract to uphold the intertwined fates of land, labor, and neighbor.

Colleagues, having witnessed the vital conversations and acknowledging the sweeping near-unanimous support for Amendment 5, I rise to affirm my strong yea vote. As Cooperative Senator, I know all too well the hidden emotional and relational labor that underpins AGATA’s hospitality endeavors — from our barn café to roadside stands. This amendment’s explicit embedding of Long-term Ecological Stewardship is crucial. It not only safeguards the health of our farm ecosystem over decades but complements the labor and care of all who sustain AGATA’s living, breathing community space. It affirms that our work here is not just for today, but for future generations of neighbors, artists, and workers who will share this land and its stories. Let us vote with the full weight of AGATA’s mission behind us.