Big News in the Lombard, IL chicken movement. Your support needed!

[nico demouse]

I've been working with a small (but growing) group of people in my town to get our chicken ordinances changed. We are calling ourselves Citizens of Lombard for Urban Chickens.

We have the chance to present at the October 26th Environmental Concerns Committee meeting at 7:30 pm in Lombard, IL. This would be a first step towards getting our ordinances changed to allow chickens. In order to move ahead, we *need* a show of supporters at this meeting. If you are available (just to show up, no speaking or homework required!) please let me know via the forum, Facebook, or e-mail.

Our Facebook page is: www.facebook.com/lombardchickens

And our e-mail is: [email protected]

If you are not in the DuPage county area OR not available that evening, you can still help by "liking" us on Facebook. Part of this is a numbers thing, and if I can say we represent xx number of people who support backyard chicken keeping in our town, it will help our cause.

Thanks!

 

[Duck_feeder]

I'm definitely interested in how this turns out as I live in Chicago and plan to move to the suburbs in the next couple of years.

Is your group pushing for just chickens or fowl in general? If you succeed and the law covers ducks, I will have to buy a house in Lombard!

 

[nico demouse]

Hi Duck_feeder,

Right now we are just focusing on chickens as that seems to be where the most support is. Truth be told, I'd love to have a broader change in the ordinances to allow more varieties of small livestock. It seems like chickens are the "gateway' animal.

We do have some information on our facebook page about other nearby cities that allow chickens...in my readings of ordiannces, I don't know that I've seen anywhere that ducks are allowed unless there are multiple types of livestock allowed. Most villages/towns seem to *specifically* ban poultry. I'm assuming ducks fall under that (or I'd have a duck pond in the backyard already!)

For others following the thread: If anyone is interested in lending their support but cannot make that meeting, we will be circulating a petition and doing some letter writing. More details to follow!

 

[IvoryLotus]

I "liked" your FB Page and I will follow along.

 

[nico demouse]

Thanks for the support!

We now have a webpage for those folks who are not on facebook: http://lombardchickens.blogspot.com

If there are any Lombard residents reading, there is a link on the website to our petition!

 

[nico demouse]

Just wanted to bump this in case any Chicago area peeps haven't seen it yet. Our Facebook group is almost at 100 members, now we just need some of those folks to make it to our meeting with the village....

Info about the meeting is here .

 

[jpittssr]

Quote:
I would call the group "Citizens of Lombard for Urban Chicken Keepers.

Then it would be: CLUCK

 

[nico demouse]

I know, I know. I thought of that about 2 seconds after I created the Facebook group, and they don't allow name changes.

Such an opportunity missed....

 

[nico demouse]

Well, our meeting with the village Environmental Concerns Committee was very positive. There were one or two people vocally against it. But the committee is 12 or so people. There was a lot of very good discussion, lots of questions.Over 20 community members showed up (they had to pull out extra chairs for us, so I guess that was more of a crowd than they're used to!). We also have over 140 signatures on our petition.

They have agreed to consider the issue and draft code amendment at the next meeting, which is November 23 at 7:30 p.m.

We were also interviewed by the Daily Herald...the story is here: http://dailyherald.com/article/20101027/news/710289849

Please consider leaving a pro-chicken comment...the positive comments will help our cause!