Britton and I have been thinking that life is like that Talking Heads song, Once in a Lifetime. “You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?” Sometimes Britton and I just look at each other and smile knowing that life is but a dream. You never know how one moment will lead to another. Yesterday, for instance, our cat and chickens were on the front page of the news.

It is sad, really how the whole chicken debate turned out. Mostly for people who will continue to live here and try to make this city a better place. I have tried, and believe me, it can be done, but it is HARD work. It is underappreciated work.

But Britton and I are ready to move on both literally and figuratively. We booked our next trip to Puerto Rico in mid-March! We are going to find a house! We are super excited. I can’t wait for the next moment when I look up and ask myself, “how did I get here?”, and then I’ll remember; what a strange life it is going gently down this stream.  

At the council meeting there was a large group that showed support for changing the ordinance in regards to backyard hens. A veterinarian, several well educated folks and basic hard working people. There were a few people who were against this change and they were against it for reasons of commercial scale operations, disease and one because she was allergic to feathers. One lady (this was the best one) was against it because chickens can be used to smuggle drugs. Yes once again, they are the root of all evil.

When it came time to vote the council members in support Mike Finn, Donna Sapienza and Sandy Elder provided the reasons for their support and I do appreciate that. The council members who voted no didn’t provide any rhyme or reason to their decision. They had no valid reason except that they didn’t agree with what I am doing in my backyard even if it has no effect on them. Since the vote was a tie, it didn’t pass.

I’m disappointed in our local governments ability to listen to the public and make a decision that empowers the individual.

Drawing by Rob Smith, Jr

Here we are at the finale, finally. How this issue got so big, I have no idea. People have been keeping chickens in Greeley, legally and as pets for many years, but this time it has the attention of the city and state. Apparently almost all the local radio stations and news stations were talking about them this morning. 

Britton and I just kind of chuckle to ourselves that we were a large factor behind this whole thing, and didn’t even want to be. We just wanted to be left alone to run our lives as we see fit. We weren’t bothering anyone; no one, including our next door neighbors even knew for almost 2 years that we even had them!

We aren’t too worried about the outcome. Either way, we get to keep our chickens. Both options are also actually not ideal. Option 1 is to keep it the way it is which is confusing because they allow 1 chicken for every 1/10 of an acre of land as part of the commercial livestock code. There is also another code, the domesticated animal, or pet code, that says “domesticated birds” are allowed, and there is no limit. So under that code, anyone with any chickens as “pets” would be fine.

Option 2 is the proposed code. To me, this is actually worse than option 1, but at least it legitimizes people having more chickens than the commercial code specifies. Option two is not ideal because it gives government WAY too much power and creates a problem where there isn’t one. To see the proposed code, go here.

The main arguments against chickens in general I hear are 1) smell or noise, 2) Greeley’s image and 3) they belong in the country. While I have already addressed those, I thought I would  give another response.

1) They do not smell any more than a dog or cat. If you keep their coop cleaned and especially if you allow them to free range in your yard like we do, there will not be any build up. If people keep a reasonable number as they would any other pet (say 4-6), there will be no smell to speak of. They are not noisy birds. From our front yard you could not tell we even had them. After we were in the newspaper the first time talking about our hens and got turned in by someone, the code enforcer thought she had the wrong house because she couldn’t see, smell or hear anything coming from our backyard.

2) Greeley’s image. Ah, yes. This is the ever lasting debate about Greeley. If you are not from Greeley, maybe you don’t even know this, but apparently Greeley has an image problem. I don’t think Greeley has too bad of an image. I’ve lived here my whole life and have never felt threatened, unsafe, or that our city services weren’t adequate. The only things I can think of is that we are an agricultural community with an economic base in feedlots and slaughterhouses. While I don’t agree that that is how we should raise and process beef and I think Greeley is a great case study of what our food system should NOT be doing, that is the reality.

With that basic fact, we have the occassional awful stench that hovers over Greeley, lower overall wages (and therefore lower cost of living which I think is great!), more poverty than elsewhere and the associated problems that poverty causes to a community.  Many of the people living in poverty come from Central America and Mexico to make a better life here and this is really what this chicken debate boils down to: racism. People are afraid we will turn into a “3rd World Country”. People have actually said this to me.

There are so many things wrong with these statements, but let me put it to you this way. Chickens and dogs live in developing countries. They also live here. Are dogs (or chickens) inherently bad just because in some areas their laws are different than ours? I agree that we need humane laws (like the current ones we have in Greeley), that chickens  -and dogs- should be fenced, that dogs and cats should be spayed and neutered and kept out of the streets. But this is not a reason to ban them altogether. Chickens don’t make “3rd World Nations”. They also don’t cause image problems, nearly every city in Colorado allows chickens. Many large, metropolitan and “hip” places (with great images) allow for chickens.

3) Chickens belong in the country…or…your backyard interferes with my backyard. Why do chickens belong in the country? Because that is the social norm? Do you realize that over 90% of the population lives in cities? And it’s only growing moreso. There are fewer and fewer “farmers” and unless we want all of our food and therefore our ability to be self-reliant and self-sufficient to be wiped away completely, we had better protect our ability to grow our own food, raise our own pets and know a little bit about what it’s like to live without the government or food conglomerates supporting us.

We should be allowed to be a little different. If we don’t have tolerance of others who are different, who try to live life differently in a way that is beneficial to them what’s to say that your differences won’t be on trial next? If your backyard can have 10 dogs (which in Greeley they can any number of pets), why can’t mine have 4 hens?

Chickens Chapter 18 52 035 FINAL DRAFT 12 29 092

We are on a chicken rollercoaster.

We are getting very indifferent on the issue. Either situation isn’t completely desireable. The current code isn’t good but the proposed code is almost worse because of all the micromanagement and bureaucracy.

Reminds me of a saying. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

The headless chicken AKA Greeley City Council: alive but barely functional

First they pulled the chicken ordinance from the consent agenda. Sometimes they will do this so that they can clarify certain items so this didn’t surprise us. They talked about it a little and then the oh, so eloquent Maria Secrest “kind of” suggested that they kill the ordinance and not even move it to public opinion and input. Which is what we have spent the last 6 months working towards! She was not very clear though, so someone else, Sandi Elder made a motion to review the ordinance in a year if it passed on February 2nd.

Then John Gates said that it depended on if the first motion carried. Well, it wasn’t exactly a motion, but then Secrest decided to make it a motion. Poor old Archibeque didn’t even know which item they were voting on, but upon hearing that Gates and Secrest didn’t want to continue with it he said that since EVERYONE didn’t want the ordinance that there was no sense in talking about it. (Since when did 2 people out of 7 become EVERYONE?) But happily, he did ask why Secrest wanted to kill the ordinance in the first place.

This is where the comedy gets really good...she said that if we allowed chickens in Greeley, PEOPLE MIGHT SHOOT EACH OTHER! Yes. That was her excuse for not allowing chickens. I had to close my eyes and blink extra hard to see if I heard that right. I thought I had every myth and fallacy out there covered.  But no, I hadn’t heard about that…I couldn’t help but laugh…yes…this is what she said…If a person’s dog went into another person’s yard and they had chickens and the said dog killed those chickens, the crazy chicken owner might just grab a gun and SHOOT the neighbor and she would not want on her conscience the death of a toddler. WHAT??! WHAT??! Am I living in the Twilight Zone? Is she that off her rocker?

Gunned down by a chicken

Apparently she and three other council members are (off their rockers) because they decided to take a vote and while Mike Finn, Sandi Elder and Donna Sapienza mentioned property rights and at least hearing from their constituents at the next council meeting, the other four voted the measure down out of the consent agenda. This was not after considerable confusion about whether or not they were voting the item down or voting the item in…that damnastid double negative language the government loves to confuse us with. I was watching the whole thing with my mind swirling… now what exactly is happening? A “no” vote means “yes” and a “yes” vote means “no” to the measure. Ok…wait, now what are they voting on again?

In the end, I am not sure what exactly happened but apparently the “yes” votes said “no” to the ordinance continuing on which in essence left us with nothing. No chance to speak, no chance to be heard, no respect for the process, nor our time, the time of the city staff, the planning commission or even the people who were against it who may have been planning to come out in two weeks to give them a piece of their mind. This was the most disgraceful example of local government ineptitude I have ever seen. Incredible!

What will this mean for us? Well that remains to be seen. We still have our original defense which we never had a response to. We also have a few more tricks up our sleeves. In any case, this is not the end of the matter, and we will happily continue our lives in Greeley with Schnoodle, Kitty, Henrietta, Omelette, Football and Greenfoot, at least until we get the hell out of this crazy warp zone.

And when it does get done, I am beginning to see who really runs things. In the case of Greeley I see that it is not the planning commission, nor even the city council, but the city staff. The Community Development Director runs the show in this backyard hens thing. She is considered the expert and therefore a lot of leniency goes to her opinion. Same goes for the city attorney. While ultimately the city council makes the decisions, the specifics of the codes have been worked on behind the scenes long before.

I almost think in the case of this ordinance that we would have been better off leaving it alone and buying more land behind our house than having to deal with all this bureaucracy and pleasing of every different type of person. Of course we had our chickens without approval for over a year and no one said a word until we were on the front page of the paper.

But there were other people who are not as rebellious as we are and went through all the proper channels and were frustrated with the current code. So when we go and try to change it I think, this will be fairly easy. We simply have to change the code in one of two ways:  a) call them pets and be done with it, b) go from 1 chicken per 4000 sq ft to maybe 1 per 1000 sq ft. But no…we have to write a whole book on the matter plus multiple meetings, committees, discussions, revisions and bring in all the experts.

No wonder we have so much gridlock at the national level to get things done. I am sure this is not just the case in government, but in corportation boards and other entities, but government is where we, the people, are also privy to the goings-on (if we can stand it without tearing ALL our hair out, not to mention that for people who work or have other less flexible jobs than Britton and I do this would be impossible to be part of).  

Why are they picking on us (or is it pecking)?

I  guess sometimes I wish we had the more simpler time when corporations and huge government entities didn’t run things with such thumbs-on control. An inspector for your backyard? A fee and permit to raise/grow your own food? What will we think of next? Now I know where science fiction novels get their premises from. When did we get so backward that there is no license in Colorado required to sell tobacco, the deadliest consumer item out there, but we have to have a permit and fee to get our own eggs? Oh yah, big corporations that control the big bureaucratic government. If the business is big enough, the local, state and federal governments see dollar $igns and will forgive any transgressions including killing 1200 Americans DAILY, but if it is an individual trying to make a difference by raising her own food, being environmentally and economically conscious, CHARGE her.

Yah, you could say I’m a little frustrated.