Fate of St. Charles beekeeping rules may rest with mayor

The fate of pending new beekeeping rules in St. Charles may rest with a rare tiebreaker vote by Mayor Ray Rogina despite a 5-4 rejection of the changes Monday night.

City staff spent the most of the past year trying to craft a set of rules for beekeeping that would minimize disturbances among the hives and neighboring properties. Beekeepers swarmed aldermen with letters and phone calls when the first set of proposed rules would have banned the activity from most of the city. As a result, rules discussed Monday would only kick in if a set of hives drew complaints from neighbors. City residents have only complained about one set of hives. And those complaints all centered on alleged stings from bees.

But Monday's rules eliminated stings as a valid complaint, leaving some aldermen wondering what the point was of adopting any rules.

"This will not stop anybody getting stung by bees," said Alderman Maureen Lewis. "Even if it flies up over the fence and stings them, nothing is going to happen to that beekeeper."

Bob Vann, from the city's code enforcement division, said his discussions with city attorneys hadn't revealed any path to addressing people who are stung by bees.

"There's just no way that we can determine that bee came from that location," Vann said. "If we were to adjudicate that complaint, I would pretty much guarantee that it would be thrown out."

Under the proposed rules, the only valid complaints about beehives would involve having too many hives, placing them too close to a neighbor's property or improperly, not having water for the bees or not providing some form of screening to prevent accidental contact.

When it came to a decision, five aldermen (Todd Bancroft, Steve Gaugel, Maureen Lewis, William Turner and Lora Vitek) voted against adopting the new rules. Four aldermen (Ed Bessner, Art Lemke, Ron Silkaitis and Dan Stellato) voted for the rules. The 10th aldermen, Rita Payleitner, was serving as chairman of the committee. She would vote in the case of a tie. However, Payleitner said she would vote "yes." That sets up a 5-5 tie when the rules come forward for a final vote next Monday night.

Mayor Ray Rogina, who would be the tiebreaker vote, did not indicate how he would vote if a tie materializes. Rogina's occasional comments on the issue during the public debate over the past year have indicated he is not for any rules that would place additional burdens on existing beekeepers who have not been the source of complaints.

After the vote, some local beekeepers told city staff they would prefer no new regulations, but even adoption of the pending rules would "be a win" compared with the original rules city officials considered.