Sugar Grove trustees disagree on proposed chicken trial
Sugar Grove officials will vote as soon as June 20 on a proposal to test letting residents raise chickens in their backyards.
It could be a close vote.
Trustees Mari Melson Johnson, Rick Montalto and Ted Koch said Tuesday, during a discussion of a proposed trial run, that "most" people they have spoken to about the idea oppose it.
"I have asked numerous times to different people, and had so many people contact me, and they are not in favor," Johnson said.
She also said the village doesn't have enough workers to investigate reports of violations, such as being able to smell the chickens in neighboring yards.
"To me it is just one more way you are going to pit neighbor against neighbor, if they have a problem," she said.
The trial run would go through the end of 2018. People could keep four hens. They would have to be enclosed in pens and coops. Feed would have to be kept in rodent-proof containers.
Eight permits would be available for the test.
They would have to get a $65 building permit for the structures, and a $65 chicken permit.
Montalto said people are concerned about chickens attracting rodents and coyotes.
He suggested the village should just do what it does now - prohibit chickens, but only enforce the law when someone complains.
"I think we are doing an awful lot of work for a pilot program for something that is already going on," he said. "It (the current practice) actually gives the chicken-keepers more of a reason to keep things up and up, so neighbors don't complain about them."
Trustees Sean Herron and Kevin Geary favor the pilot program, as does President Sean Michels. Michels could vote to break a tie. And Trustee David Paluch noted chickens won't be allowed in a lot of the town's subdivisions, due to prohibitions placed by homeowners' associations.
Herron said he raised chickens as a youth. "Four chickens don't stink," he said.
Geary said raising chickens is valuable because it teaches kids about where food comes from. "It (chicken) doesn't come as a McNugget or a hockey puck," he said.