My letter:
I find your editorial Home, Home on the Ranch to be quite off-base. Small flocks of backyard chickens are permitted in New York City. Other cities across the U.S. (like Madison, WI and Portland, OR) permit chickens, and more are changing their laws to allow them each year. Typically roosters are not allowed due to the noise, and I explicitly requested hens only to be permitted in La Mesa. Chickens are a natural complement to any garden as they provide valuable fertilizer and pest control and they convert waste products like weeds, bugs, and kitchen scraps into eggs that are more nutritious than the store-bought kind.
Letters from others:
"Home, home on the ranch" misses the point. There's more to Jill Richardson's chickens than "a few pets or exceptionally fresh eggs". Richardson is part of a movement of San Diegans who are trying to solve some serious problems with our food system.
We use too much energy, treat our animals terribly, grow our produce in chemicals instead of soil, and suffer outbreaks of food-borne diseases. We've got solutions to these problems in local farms, farmers markets, community gardens, and backyard chickens, and yet the city fights us all the way.
There are valid concerns about sanitation and noise, as there are for dogs and parties, and we should have ordinances for those specific problems. Lets not throw the chickens out with the bathwater.
Urban Chickens Boon, not Bane
I am disappointed in the UT for the editorial of Dec. 19, "Home, Home on the Ranch".
The editors show naiveté on the issue of urban chickens with their simplistic arguments. They argue against keeping chickens in La Mesa for a few reasons, including that roosters are noisy. Jill Richardson did not ask to keep roosters, and neither do most urban farmers - they don't produce eggs, and their crowing annoys neighbors. Barking dogs are much more common and can be much more of a nuisance. Chickens can also serve as both a control for insect pests and a source for soil fertility in backyards.
The editors condescendingly tell Richardson to take "a day trip to explore and get away from it all while hardly leaving [her] back yard." Driving to visit the country is cold comfort for those interested in backyard birds as a means to maintain control of their food supply and decrease carbon emissions.
La Mesa was actually receptive to Richardson's idea; they will be considering the suggestion when revising the city's general plan in 2010. Here's hoping that La Mesa is the next city to allow its citizens the freedom to eat healthy, homegrown eggs
No Roosters Needed, Thank you, But Hens Are OK
Regarding local food policy author Jill Richardson requesting a change in La Mesa policy on having a small number of egglaying hens in at a residence, she is talking about having the right to raise her own food.. No roosters are required. If having laying chickens causes problems for a neighbor for any reason, I assume the chickens would have to go. Ridiculing Ms. Richardson about this request is not very intelligent. Not everybody can live in Jamul. Everyone should have the right to raise their own food to the extent they can and we should help them to do this instead of ridiculing them.
I didn't know The Grinch works at the Union Tribune. If The Grinch had bothered to do his/her homework, they would know that roosters were excluded from the request to legalize chickens in La Mesa. The writer seems to have been in a foul mood (no pun intended) and a La Mesa resident took the brunt of it.
The article was flawed in content and mean in spirit.
I read your editorial, "Home, home on the ranch" (12/19), with sadness and frustration. I live in Clairemont and have 4 chickens that my children love and my neighbors never notice (except when they say "thanks for the eggs"). Chickens (1) are no more unsanitary than other pets, (2) are no more guilty of breaking the peace than are dogs, cats, and children, and (3) do not require roosters to lay eggs. Children should not have to drive to the "open country" to see chickens or have some connection to their own food supply. San Diego has reasonable regulations for chicken ownership, and there is no reason to mock Jill Richardson for desiring the same for La Mesa.
I am writing in response to your editorial "Home, Home on the Ranch" (12/19/09). I know Jill Richardson personally, and it's unfortunate that you've written an uninformed, negative editorial about her when you could have learned a great deal from her about sustainability and farming politics. Backyard chicken coops are gaining popularity as part of a sustainable lifestyle, and it's worthy of serious consideration. It's a new idea to many, and you took the opportunity to fear-monger, rather than inform. Your article makes claims about noise and sanitation without facts or figures, and you raise the specter of the crowing rooster, ignoring that Richardson's proposal was strictly for the keeping of hens. Why not write an in-depth, factual article about the pros and cons of keeping chickens, as well as some comparison to other urban areas that already allow them? Don't scare people--inform them and let them decide for themselves.
UPDATE: Here's a new letter - it's a great one!
A goose egg is what you get for your editorial "Home, home on the ranch." (December 19) We applaud Jill Richardson's efforts to loosen La Mesa's unnecessarily restrictive backyard chicken ordinances. Madison, Wisconsin, Portland, Oregon, and even New York City are now chicken friendly. Why not here? Imperial Beach is now considering lifting its ban and others will soon follow, but only if people like Jill Richardson, Lauren Giardina and Ian Blake continue to prod our elected officials to do so. They need our encouragement, not derision. Your objections are easily answered. Like grey water, public health and sanitation problems can be safely regulated without an outright ban. Rabbits are just as inviting to bored dogs and cats and are not banned. Roosters crowing at all hours? We're talking about laying chickens here, not roosters. So, Jill may be new to La Mesa, but she is much better informed than you are about these archaic restrictions. We hope your next editorial will be more supportive of the dedicated people who are working to make it easier for all San Diegans to grow their own food inside the city limits.
Previous installments of The Chicken Project:
Part 1: Initial Planning for Chickens
Part 2: Oops, it's not legal
Part 3: My public comment at City Council
Part 4: My letter to the city
Part 5: Bad News
Part 6: City Council Tables the Issue
Part 7: We Made the Local Paper!
Part 8: The San Diego Paper's Anti-Chicken Editorial |
