RaZ, Garden City has less than 30,000 residents, which means that even the new 2012 GAAMPS - even if legal and binding for cities of over 100,000 - don't apply to you.
Who is the city attorney?
Who is the city attorney?
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
I do sell my eggs.@Raz - do you sell your extra eggs? If so, do you have records showing you are a business - a farm?
I didn't get a chance to voice that argument. In fact, I was prohibited from speaking at all. All i was afforded was the option of a bench trial or a jury trial.RaZ, Garden City has less than 30,000 residents, which means that even the new 2012 GAAMPS - even if legal and binding for cities of over 100,000 - don't apply to you.
Who is the city attorney?
Ugh. The village informed me today that they were following through on their original letter about the chickens and that they had to be gone by tomorrow or face prosecution. They have not responded to my original response or said why I am not covered under RTFA or dispute my assertions at all. The Chickens have been moved to a foster home while I fight this and determine how far I want to take this. (It helps that we have 3 attorneys in the family, although this is not any of their areas of expertise.) I have requested a hearing with the appeal committee. And a letter from them responding to my response that I posted here. I spoke to my local MSUE land use educator and he said, going by what I told him that I should be protected under the RTFA. He was also the one that suggested the appeal. But basically said that he can't come and talk to the village unless they request him. I also talked to the guy in charge of this at MDARD. Had a very long and informative convo with him. It appears that MDARD and MSUE are in a pissing match over the RTFA and how it applies. MSUE sides with us (basically...) and MDARD sides with the municipalities (basically...) that they can zone in regard to livestock/chickens/etc. Basically his position is that if you are zoned residential, you cannot meet GAAMP because of the zoning. He was very clear that there is no difference between less that 50 animal units and more than 50 animal units. (Like has been discussed in this thread) Everyone must comply with all of GAAMP including the zoning and site selection. It appears that MADARD is ticked with MSUE about the RTFA "if/then" chart because they feel it is horribly incorrect and simplistic and is leading to tons of people like me and many of you getting backyard chickens to have a mini-homestead believing they are covered under RTFA when the MDARD believes they are not. The problem is that MSUE is putting out a ton of documents and such that say people are covered under the RTFA, but MSUE has no power of follow thru or jurisdiction over RTFA or GAAMP. That is MDARD, and MDARD has jurisdiction and interprets RTFA directly opposite of MSUE but has no info/documents to get that info out so that people like I would know not to get started with chickens when we do our research on this. He started out rather huffy, like "why don't people do research on this, and believe opinions on the internet" until I pointed out to him that most of us feel like we did do our research and based our beliefs off of the MSUE documents and information and that MDARD did not have anything out there for us to tell us otherwise. I think he did get that point, but also implied that in some ways their hands are tied because they are trying to get MSUE to pull some of their stuff through political channels. So basically they don't want to post anything because then they are seen as giving legal advice and the real decision making happens in the courts, so basically you either give in or sue to protect your rights. I pointed that out to this guy. I guess that Schindler's Land Use page is a thorn in MDARD's side. Hopefully he will put a bug in someone's ear that they need to have some sort of concrete document out there for the public. I hope this wasn't too confusing, but I tried to simplify it as much as possible.