Chicken talk on the menu
Chickens found their way back onto the town council agenda last Tuesday night, and now the town council is looking to know what the public thinks about allowing chickens inside city limits.
Chickens found their way back onto the town council agenda last Tuesday night, and now the town council is looking to know what the public thinks about allowing chickens inside city limits.
An informal public opinion poll located at the town hall is available for residents to sign up either for chickens in town or against.
Although historically chickens have been allowed inside Plains' city limits, they were disallowed in 2005 during a housecleaning of city ordinances.
Now Taloni DuBois, Plains resident, among others would like to see the chickens allowed back in town.
"I think in this economy...I should be able to have chickens on my property as a food source," explained DuBois during Tuesday night's town council meeting.
She went onto explain that she had three growing kids to feed at home and inherited a chicken coop when she bought her property, which lies just inside city limits.
After hearing DuBois' plea for allowing chickens, several town council members and the mayor discussed the pros and cons of allowing chickens including the possibility of attracting skunks and wolves inside the town, problems the police already have policing dogs and cats in Plains and the benefits of Plains 4-H members to be allowed their 4-H projects without having to find a substitute location outside of Plains.
An idea was then raised to initiate a complaint system whereby neighbors could keep themselves accountable for their chickens should an ordinance allowing the poultry go into affect.
"Someone is going to complain if I'm not taking care of my chickens," said DuBois advocating the effectiveness of a complaint system.
It was only four months ago that Thompson Falls passed an ordinance allowing chickens inside city limits, and Chris Allen, Plains town council member, reported that the Thompson Falls clerk and recorder had said there haven't been any problems yet. He also conducted further inquiries into whether there had been any compaints to the city police and Thompson Falls reported to him that there had been non so far.
Along with placing petitions at town hall the town council decided to form a committee to put together a proposal ordinance. The committee will consist of any resident who is willing along with Plains Chief of Police, Shawn Emmett, and Allen.