Seward Nebraska newbie here! Wanting to change city ordinance but dont know how!

mooskielittle

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Hello everyone! If anyone has any info on how to get started or point me in the right direction i would really appreciate it very much. Ty so much.

Here is my story...

I am from Seward Nebraska. Located in the southeast corner of the state. 30 minutes from the state capital.
We are a family of 6. My husband is a hard working and dedicated employee at a local restaurant here in town. We have 3 beautiful boys and one girl. Boys are 14,11,8, and our daughter is 3. We began homeschooling our children 3 yrs ago when we bought our first home. Our back yard is amazing and has a lot of space in the yard. Our property is almost 1/3 of an acre. For this small town that is a very big yard. I have a pear tree and a sour cherry tree. This year we made a square foot garden bed out of cinder blocks we got from a farm near us that was hit by a tornado last yr. The only thing missing for me is having a few chickens and bee hive so that we can be more self reliant. I love the idea of backyard farming. I have to admit that i am new to gardening on my own. I did grow up here in the area on a farm from 8th grade til i graduated high school. Gardening and chickens was a regular thing when i grew up on the farm. I really miss it, With my family being a one income family it is very hard to afford a farm around here, Most land sells for minimum $8500/acre. That is just the land and not counting a house or any buildings. That is not in our price range. We also love the in town conveniences. We love our location as we are on the parade route. We celebrate Independence day as it is one of my favorite holidays.

My biggest road block is the city ordinance. We found out when moving into our first home that we had to have a permit for our snake. It is just a baby ball python. It is non venomous. A lady had stopped her car and had asked us what was in the cage when we were moving in. The next morning we had the police at our door and telling us we had to have a permit as it is considered an exotic pet. I never heard of such a thing. We lived in our apartment before buying our house and our landlord was fine with it. Never had any issues. So the permit required i had to go 200 feet from my property line and nag all my neighbors if i can have a snake. I had to do the same with our lizards we had as well. It was a nightmare. I did not have to ask the tenants i had to ask the owners. 3 of the 4 houses around me are rented. I had to hunt down the owners from out of state and request them to sign my application for a permit. That in its self was a nightmare. I was almost ready to give up and sell the snake and lizards. Needless to say i also found out that we are only allowed 3 permits per residence. So i was at my limit for permits already. I was shocked that we had to get permits for pets we bought at a local pet store one county over.

So if i wanted any chickens i had to decide to either keep my exotic pets or have chickens. If i had no exotic pets i would only be allowed to have 3 chickens total. Not very ideal for a family of 6. We go through at least 1 doz. eggs a day for breakfast. My family is trying to go organic but with prices so high it makes it near impossible.

When i moved out as a teenager my parents decided they were going to try beekeeping. They are some what successful and i wish i could have a bee hive here in town as well. But again the city ordinance is a road block. There is tolerance to have a bee hive in town. Bees are dying everywhere and its only hurting our food production causing prices to skyrocket. Most the honey in stores is not even honey its actually corn syrup with honey flavor. So again the prices are not affordable for organic foods.

I hoping to gather enough information to start a petition to change the city ordinance to allow a flock of chickens allowed within city limits that require no permit and to allow bee hives in town.
I have no clue where to start for a petition. I have no clue what other ordinances are in order to use the info for my petition. We live in a rural area, so i know that it would be very beneficial for us all to have bees in town and it would be great to get chickens in town. If anyone has any info on how to get started or point me in the right direction i would really appreciate it very much. Ty so much.
 
First thing I would advise you to post on your state thread. The NMI here gets very little exposure, and most viewing will not live anywhere near you. If you go to "where am I, where are you," in the social forum you can locate and post on your state thread. You may also want to put up flyers are the feed stores, hoping to get others to rally around you.

I've never heard of such ridiculous rules - sounds like they make them up as they go along. Is this some super elite neighborhood? Maybe they have had a lot of "critter dumping," episodes. I know in some areas if an exotic pet gets too big,(especially Florida) or starts costing too much, they get dumped in the swamp or someone's convenient farm.

Welcome to Backyard chickens. I wish you luck with your cause.
 

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