If you shop at a local farmers’ market, it is likely that you know Meg Kennedy as “the flower girl.” If you follow local politics, you are certain to know her as the long-serving vice chair of the Otsego County Board of Representatives. I have been fortunate to get to know her in both of those roles. We recently met for breakfast to talk about her two very different and very time-consuming undertakings. While growing and selling flowers seems to make everyone happy, holding political office never will.
Kennedy comes from a long line of horticulturists. Her grandparents, on both sides, were involved in horticulture — growing plants and flowers. Her mom and dad ran a greenhouse and cut-flower farm on Long Island before their 1974 purchase of a former dairy farm here in Otsego County. An interesting fun fact: That farm property, Kennedy tells me, was once owned by Oneonta’s former mayor, Jim Lettis.
Kennedy and her 11 siblings were expected to help with the farming, preparation and selling of the flowers. When asked what that was like, Kennedy replied, “Crazy, amazing, interesting, and fun! All of us were involved in the horticulture business.”
Her dad started out taking his cut flowers down to New York City — selling to wholesalers at the 28th Street Flower District in Manhattan. Her dad, Kennedy tells me, liked to plant extra flowers around the house for her mom. One year, he went overboard and planted more than 1,000 gladiolas for her. “Wow! That’s way too many ‘glads’ for the house,” Mom exclaimed. “Why don’t you take some of the kids and go down to that Farmers’ Market they have in Oneonta?” That was 1979 and Meg said she was “one of the two of us who were chosen to go with Dad.” One thing led to another and before long they were regular vendors at farmers’ markets in Oneonta, Cooperstown, Delhi and Sullivan County. Today, Kennedy is not only a vendor but she coordinates the Oneonta market and is the manager of Delhi’s market which, she tells me, has as many as 70 vendors signed up.
I asked her a few questions about being a horticulturist:
What varieties do you grow? “I have a list two pages long.”
Do you experiment with new varieties? “Yes. Sometimes they’re a win. Sometimes they’re a flop with my customers.”
What’s your personal favorite? “Sunflowers.”
What’s the hardest part of your job? “Spring planting. It is very labor-intensive and all done by hand.”
Do you dread receiving flowers for your birthday? “No, I love it!”
Switching over to her work with the county board, on which she is now starting her tenth year, Kennedy cites the lack of affordable housing, homelessness and addiction as some of the toughest problems she looks to tackle. She recently learned of a model for addressing homelessness in Dutchess County that is having some success and she plans to visit it soon. While she is pleased that the county has received funds from the recent opioid settlement to hire more mental health professionals, she said, she is frustrated by how hard it has been to fill those positions — despite offering sign-on bonuses.
Kennedy told me she is committed to continuing to improve Otsego County as a great place to live. In the new year, she looks to keep her focus on strengthening our local economy by finding ways to attract new jobs and investments; enticing our SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College students to stay here after graduation; and increasing the county’s support of tourism. She tells me that COVID taught the county representatives how to find common ground and minimize partisanship. “We had to figure out how to adjust to things we never could have dreamed about,” Kennedy said, “There seems to be a new willingness to work together to make things better.”
Despite her hard work and long hours on the county board, I would expect Kennedy’s more visible identity, to many, would be as “The Flower Girl” — a term which, for me, brings to mind The Cowsills’ 1967 hit song titled, “The Rain, The Park & Other Things”. When I asked her how often customers sing that song to her, Kennedy laughed and replied: “Never. People ask me about county business or whom they should call when they have a problem. I am always happy to engage. I am always an ambassador for the county board, wherever I go.”