The World War I poster proclaims: "Uncle Sam expects you to keep hens and raise chickens...In time of peace a profitable recreation; in time of war a patriotic duty."
A century later, the Richardson City Council spent over an hour discussing updating the City's animal ordinances, much of the time spent on setting a limit on how many chickens one household can keep.
Years ago, I chaperoned Boy Scouts to a City Council meeting. One of the requirements for them to earn the Communication Merit Badge was to "Attend a public meeting (city council, school board, debate) where several points of view are given on a single issue." The July 22, 2024, Richardson City Council meeting would have been an ideal one for that purpose. Even children can understand a debate about how many chickens a household should be allowed to keep. Unfortunately, helping the Boy Scouts is not enough to warrant an hour of a City Council's time. Not when the City is faced with serious challenges: a sales tax shortage that's blowing a hole in the City budget made worse by unexpected expenses to clean up after a major storm; a chronic housing shortage (or escalating housing prices, depending on which way you prefer to see the problem); and a City Comprehensive Plan that's sadly out of date, which might be one cause of the budget and housing problems. The City Council could and probably should spend an hour or two on these other topics every week. It's a poor use of their time to spend an hour debating how many chickens a household should be allowed to keep in their backyard. Let others take on the minor problems. It's too easy to get sucked into something like this because everyone thinks they understand it.
Councilmember Jennifer Justice, the Council liaison with the Animal Services Advisory Board, opened Councilmember comments by saying, "The Animal Services Advisory Board spent a long time discussing it, and I think that what is proposed is in line with what other cities are doing, it's in line with State law...I think that what is proposed tonight is a good balance between allowing people to maintain chickens if they wish and also respecting neighbors who are not a fan of the noise or the smell. So I applaud [City staff] for going out and doing the research and for taking it to the Animal Services Advisory Board and for the great work they did on this."
Justice later pushed back against proposed amendments by saying, "This was discussed at length with the Animal Services Advisory Board and the Director of the animal shelter and this was very well researched. I would defer to what they think is best practice." I agree with that in principle, but given what was shown and said, I have doubts about the depth of the research in this case. Personally, I would have sent the matter back to City staff with directions to explain and justify their recommendations better. Instead, City Council tried to use their own (lack of) expertise to craft their own ordinance, making a bad case worse.
In the presentation, City Staff says one of the purposes of the ordinance update is "To align with comparable neighboring cities and current best practices." Mayor Bob Dubey reiterated that in his closing remarks when he said, approvingly, "Y'all stated that we're going to follow best practices..." My problem with this is that City staff conflated aligning with neighboring cities as adopting "best practices." Research into best practices demands that City staff understand why other cities do what they do. What results are they trying to achieve?
Mayor Pro Tem Arefin asked a good question. "Is there...any study done that [finds that] six is the number or is this just because everybody does that, we're doing it?" The answer? "We're just going by what the State requires." Wrong answer. Just setting the ordinance at the most restrictive level the State allows is not how best practices are determined.
It's not even an accurate reading of State law. The proposed ordinance "specifies no more than six hens." Councilmember Dan Barrios pointed out that State law prohibits cities from setting a maximum number of chickens at less than six. It doesn't require the maximum to be six exactly. Cities can set the maximum at 8 or 10 or more. Councilmember Curtis Dorian says he noticed Austin's limit is listed as 100. Just taking the average from other cities, or the most common maximum, does not make it a "best practice."
To claim to have a "best practice," you need to specify what your desired results are and why 6, or 8, or 100 chickens leads to those results. Obviously, as that World War I poster demonstrates, what society might consider to be desired results changes from time to time. You should at least start by spelling out what Richardson wants in 2024.
If City Council failed to define what the City's desired results are (which I think is a root problem in this case), City staff should start by trying to lay out their own best guess as to what they think the City Council wants. Then, City staff, after consultation with the Animal Services Advisory Board, should recommend amendments to City ordinances to achieve those desired results. Research into best practices is a means to that end. City Council should limit its questions to confirming that City staff conducted proper research. If they did, City Council should accept their recommendations. For example, when Dorian mentioned that Austin's limit is 100 chickens, the response from City staff was, "I don't have that on hand." This response is evidence that City staff didn't do adequate research. Not only didn't they understand why other cities set their maximums at different numbers, they didn't even seem to know outliers like Austin even existed. Again, I think Councilmembers should send the matter back to staff with directions to explain and justify their recommendations better. But instead City Council tried to craft a detail of the ordinance then and there. And with that, they laid an egg.
My advice to them is to quit clucking and get back to defining goals and instituting strategies that will solve our budget problem and craft a City Comprehensive Plan for the next generation.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
"Century has passed,
Council debates hens anew.
Hours spent on clucks."
—h/t ChatGPT
2 comments:
Re: "...made worse by unexpected expenses to clean up after a major storm"
My understanding is that the City of Richardson will be reimbursed by FEMA as stated here:
https://www.cor.net/departments/communications/press-releases/severe-weather
"Due to requirements for FEMA reimbursement, piles were not collected if they contained non-vegetative material (example: metal, construction debris, fences), green newly cut vegetation or items that could not be associated with the May severe weather event."
Anonymous, commenters are encouraged to leave their names. But thanks for the feedback. At the 2024/08/05 City Council meeting, City Manager Don Magner said, Storm cleanup expernses were "paid out of a reserve fund that we have, and so it's a reserve for situations just like like this or similar and so, hopefully we will be able to recuperate approximately 75% of the total expenditures and we'd like to put it back in that reserve fund."
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