Last night we had our first council meeting. Our proposal was up for a vote within the Public Safety Committee. There are 3 council members on that committee - we would've needed 2 to vote yes. We were unfortunately voted down. 1 yes, 2 no's. Here are some of the statements made by the 2 "no's"
Councilwoman: What if people start slaughtering their chickens? She went on to state that she realized our proposal stated "no slaughtering of chickens" but that people do not always follow ordinances.
Councilman: You can actually go out to the country and RENT a piece of farm land. That would be a great option. You can rent a piece of land from a farmer and you can build a coop and raise your chickens there. Then you can drive out every day and take care of your chickens and collect your eggs.
Councilwoman: (in response to the above statement) Yes, I was going to suggest the same, actually.
[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]Councilwoman: What if people decide they want 8 chickens, not 5. We can't expect people's neighbors to be looking over the fence and counting chickens. We would need to hire another animal control officer just to deal with the chickens and think of all the neighbor complaints! We already have enough complaints and ordinances we can't control.[/FONT]
[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]Councilman: I really believe we need to keep rural and urban areas separate. People move into urban areas with certain expectations and people choose to live in rural areas with expectations and knowing what is there and what they can do. Even this data (we provided them all with the data for the surrounding cities that allow chickens), suggests that LESS than 1% of people in these cities actually end up getting chickens. To me, that seems to further prove that people in those cities also want to keep rural and urban separate. [Then[/FONT] he went on to list the cities near us and that ONLY 2 permits in Afton, 1 permit in Prescott, 4 permits in Stillwater... etc... ]
Councilwoman: And with regard to ALL those permits. Who is going to handle that added work load and what is the expense to do that? Plus she goes on to say, what about ALL those people who have covenants in their neighborhood. So if we let chickens in backyards there are so many people that wouldn't be able to because of their covenants (HOA's). (that would seem quite contradictory to the councilman's statement right above, wouldn't you say?)
Councilwoman: I know you all (talking to the crowd) say they are pets but I just cannot imagine a CHICKEN as a PET. I would definitely not want a chicken walking around in my house (then she sort of laughs, as does the councilman next to her who is also opposed).
The councilman that was in favor even offered up a motion to TRY it on a TRIAL BASIS FOR ONE YEAR... and the other two did not go for it. To not even TRY it. He was so great - he even said "how are ALL of these other cities able to allow this and pass this and they have no problems and we can't even TRY it". He emailed me this evening and thanked me for our hard work and research and that he is still in it with us. He said that MANY things do not pass the first time around and to not give up. We (our group) are going to start a petition locally and focus on the districts to those council members opposed. We will then submit the petition to our mayor and request a WHOLE council vote on it.
So our Hudson Patch editor is calling me at 1pm for an interview. ANY ADVICE?????
Jen
www.facebook.com/HudsonUrbanChickens
Councilwoman: What if people start slaughtering their chickens? She went on to state that she realized our proposal stated "no slaughtering of chickens" but that people do not always follow ordinances.
Councilman: You can actually go out to the country and RENT a piece of farm land. That would be a great option. You can rent a piece of land from a farmer and you can build a coop and raise your chickens there. Then you can drive out every day and take care of your chickens and collect your eggs.
Councilwoman: (in response to the above statement) Yes, I was going to suggest the same, actually.
[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]Councilwoman: What if people decide they want 8 chickens, not 5. We can't expect people's neighbors to be looking over the fence and counting chickens. We would need to hire another animal control officer just to deal with the chickens and think of all the neighbor complaints! We already have enough complaints and ordinances we can't control.[/FONT]
[FONT=lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif]Councilman: I really believe we need to keep rural and urban areas separate. People move into urban areas with certain expectations and people choose to live in rural areas with expectations and knowing what is there and what they can do. Even this data (we provided them all with the data for the surrounding cities that allow chickens), suggests that LESS than 1% of people in these cities actually end up getting chickens. To me, that seems to further prove that people in those cities also want to keep rural and urban separate. [Then[/FONT] he went on to list the cities near us and that ONLY 2 permits in Afton, 1 permit in Prescott, 4 permits in Stillwater... etc... ]
Councilwoman: And with regard to ALL those permits. Who is going to handle that added work load and what is the expense to do that? Plus she goes on to say, what about ALL those people who have covenants in their neighborhood. So if we let chickens in backyards there are so many people that wouldn't be able to because of their covenants (HOA's). (that would seem quite contradictory to the councilman's statement right above, wouldn't you say?)
Councilwoman: I know you all (talking to the crowd) say they are pets but I just cannot imagine a CHICKEN as a PET. I would definitely not want a chicken walking around in my house (then she sort of laughs, as does the councilman next to her who is also opposed).
The councilman that was in favor even offered up a motion to TRY it on a TRIAL BASIS FOR ONE YEAR... and the other two did not go for it. To not even TRY it. He was so great - he even said "how are ALL of these other cities able to allow this and pass this and they have no problems and we can't even TRY it". He emailed me this evening and thanked me for our hard work and research and that he is still in it with us. He said that MANY things do not pass the first time around and to not give up. We (our group) are going to start a petition locally and focus on the districts to those council members opposed. We will then submit the petition to our mayor and request a WHOLE council vote on it.
So our Hudson Patch editor is calling me at 1pm for an interview. ANY ADVICE?????
Jen
www.facebook.com/HudsonUrbanChickens
