From my experience, I would suggest the following steps
prior to setting up an
online petition.
1) Find out what the current ordinance states regarding backyard chickens. Most cities and towns have websites with an electronic copy of their code of ordinances. Is there an ordinance that currently specifically prohibits chickens? Or do you want to create one that specifically allows chickens?
2) Find others in your city or town that is also in favor of backyard chickens. This is very important!
3) Get together with these people and brainstorm ideas of why backyard chickens should be legalized. It is from this information that you will start to put together a petition. For my city, we set up table at a local farmer's market to get petition signatures
in person. We provided an informational handout stating what we were trying to do and why. From that, we were able to obtain over 100 signatures in three hours time! With those signatures, we approached a City Councilman who would eventually sponsor our ordinance (see #4 below).
4) You will need a City Council representative to "sponsor" your ordinance. This means that this person is in favor of backyard chickens and will "introduce" it to the appropriate group in your city government. I've found in my research that almost every municipality does things differently so check with your councilperson and have them give you the steps required for your specific area.
Once you have completed the above steps, you can create an online petition. For our online petition we decided to keep it open to anyone. We were just looking for people that supported the backyard chicken movement. From there you can have those from within your city call their city representatives as well as the at-large seats to ask for their support. Telephone calls from citizens are very important! At our initial Ordinance Committee meeting (the first step in our city's ordinance process) we were told that our ordinance has generated the most phone calls of any ordinance that had been introduced for the entire year! That is what gets the attention of politicians and that is what will eventually get chickens legalized.
I hope that helps you get moving in the right direction. And good luck!
