Item 3A: Approval of City Council Minutes

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the local food expert for the sustainability and planning effort for the City. She related that with the help of three students she had researched micro-livestock ordinances nationwide. They had focused on private property rights and the liberties associated with them, along with the impacts on a neighborhood. She stated that they had attached their report to the draft Food Security Plan. She said they had formulated a model ordinance. After reviewing data, she believed that micro-livestock did not cause significant impacts to neighborhoods if managed correctly. She felt that nuisance provisions of the City Code would suffice to take care of neighborhood concerns and urban sensitivities. She stated that 43 cities had no restrictions on chickens. Katja Kohler-Gause , 2520 Van Buren Street, thanked the people who spent time researching and gathering information for the City's Food Security Plan. She also thanked the Environmental and Natural Resource Law Program for their sustainable land use project. She said many of her neighbors and friends were urban farmers and were hopeful that the City Code would be revised in order for them to live a more sustainable and healthy life in urban Eugene. She did not want to continue living with the stress of worrying about someone turning them in for having more than two chickens. She requested that the council suspend the limit for the time being. She stated that her family was trying to raise as much of its own food as possible. She had grown up on a conventional farm and had witnessed what went into food production. She did not want to pay someone five dollars for organic eggs if she could raise them herself. Her chickens were free range and she fed them grain. She wanted her children to know how to raise food for themselves and to live more sustainably. She added that she had lived in Guatemala where people raised all kinds of livestock and on much smaller lots than the one upon which she lived. She listed five Oregon cities that did not have a limit on urban chickens and noted that Portland has a limit of five chickens. Jamie Grifo , 3333 Storey Boulevard, law student, said he also owned chickens. He noted that he would soon be a father. He felt that it was very important to revise the ordinance. He believed that chickens were a vital part of the backyard homestead movement. Before he had moved to Oregon he had worked on a farm on which there were 500 chickens. He said three or four was completely manageable. He extolled the flavor of homegrown eggs. He wanted his child to be able to eat them as he or she grew up. Cameron wanted to testify about chickens. He said they had a family of five but only two chickens and it was hard to decide which one got the omelet in the morning. He thought that if they had more chickens then he and his brother could both have an omelet. He related that they could not buy eggs from the store because they had read The Omnivore's Dilemma, which had raised their awareness about how chickens were kept for egg production. He wanted to be able to raise the number of chickens. Sage echoed his brother's testimony. He wanted the ordinance to be changed to allow more chickens. He could think of millions of reasons why it should be changed. He said chickens lived for about ten years and only produced a lot of eggs during two of those years. He noted that people did not really want to get rid of their chickens, but needed to replenish their flock. This meant they needed to add to their flocks. He reiterated that for them, it was hard to choose who should get the omelet. Eugene Drix , High Street, had discovered that dandelions were food. He had learned that they were originally brought from Europe for food purposes. He was not certain how official this news was, but he had found out that there were sheep grazing in the wetlands. He said everything was new once. He had been thinking about who Eugene was. He loved the city because of its people, though it seemed to him that the city did not have its ducks in a row yet. It seemed to him that an appropriate phrase was "so you are from Eugene, I've heard of you, you're the blank that blanks" and the City did not know what that was yet. He suggested that they hold a party because the downtown holes were now being filled. He thought it was a wonderful cure for the downtown. Lorraine Kerwood , 2575 Friendly Street, Ward 1, member of the Friendly Area Neighbors, stated that she had previously served on the Sustainability Commission and was presently a member of the HRC and its Accessibility Committee. She was speaking as a member of her neighborhood. She thanked the council for their dedication to MINUTES—Eugene City Council May 24, 2010 Page 7 Regular Meeting