The good news first: We have four Yes votes - we need six to pass the change to the ordinance. Renie Peterson, Sally Mounier, Marsha Berzins, and Bob LeGare have pledged to vote yes on chickens. Our next step is to get at least one more yes vote, preferably two (the mayor votes in the case of a tie vote, and if we get one more solid Yes, we can work on him, too, as our sixth).
Debi Hunter Holen, Barb Cleland, Brad Pierce, and Molly Markert are all undecided, and need to be worked on (i.e, called, emailed). Debi responds well to calls and people's requests and communication. She is concerned primarily with attracting predators and what people do with hens when they stop laying. Barb Cleland wants to see what the committee comes up with when the issue is brought to the Quality of Life meeting in November. This committee is currently headed by Molly Markert, who is personally opposed to allowing chickens, but she, too, listens to her constituency. She is beginning to consider the idea because a neighbor of hers wants chickens.
Bob Roth is the same; he is opposed, but this is partly because he thinks everyone in his ward (5) are against chickens. If you are in Ward 5, ORGANIZE your neighbors and get petition signatures to show him that Ward 5 wants chickens, too. He listens to his constituency.
Next steps: keep collecting signatures and call those council members. In November the idea will come up before the Quality of Life Committee, a meeting you can attend but cannot comment. Then it will go to a study session in December (after the election, which may or may not affect our count of Yes votes), and may come up for a vote, if we have six yeses, in January or February.
Please also call or email Renie Peterson to thank her for her support. She gave it publicly on tv!
By the way, hens do not attract anymore predators than cats and small dogs do. They are kept in a secure coop and run, where the wire needs to be buried at least 10 inches deep so predators can't dig under the wire. Another concern people have is smell - if you keep a small coop/run cleaned (it's a weekly job or so), they don't stink. Not like dogs! Another concern is what to do with hens after they stop laying. Some people keep them, as they become attached to them as pets. Most people, however, find a person out in agriculturally zoned land to take their chickens so they can live out their natural life out of the city, where people have room to keep non-laying hens (or eat them; we don't slaughter chickens in urban or suburban settings). Same thing when you accidentally get a rooster; you give it to someone who has a farm. I personally know four people who could take any birds I could not keep. It's all about community.
