BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM -- The village board of trustees will seek public comment about a proposed local law to allow residents to raise chickens inside village limits. The trustees have set a hearing on the matter for Monday, June 15 at 4:15 p.m. in the civic center board room on Park Street.
At a village board meeting on May 18 held on Facebook Live, Village Trustee Maggie McKenna asked if the board would wait until its July meeting to approve the law. The board could immediately vote to approve the law the same day as the public hearing on June 15, said village clerk Lori Queor.

"The reason we started talking about this I think, is because we want people to have food sovereignty and be able to make their own food," McKenna said. "And if we are waiting another two months before we allow this to happen people are not going to be able to get chickens this year when they probably need it most."
McKenna asked if the board could approve the law sooner than the July meeting. The proposed law involves changing the village zoning code, which previously triggered a village planning board review. The planning board leveled a negative declaration against the idea at the time. The planning board is slated to review the proposed law again on June 4 prior to the public hearing.
The trustees and mayor briefly discussed having to reschedule another public hearing if the planning board changes the local law or once again gives a negative recommendation on the issue.
Normally the board would wait until the following month after the public hearing to pass a local law to allow yet more time for the public to comment. "You can raise chickens through October," said Village Trustee Abby Lee who raises chickens outside the village. "I guess this is a big issue, and I would say that in fairness, people… the
public must be able to comment on it."

Village Mayor Ron J. Tischler said once the public hearing was held, a special meeting could be scheduled to vote on the law.

Lee said if the planning board reviews the law she would like to hear more specifics on the issues presented to them which led to the negative declaration the first time around. "It was the fact that urban chickens tend to attract vermin. Rats, coons . . . skunks, weasels,
foxes," Tischler said.
"And there were some people in the community that didn't want that in their neighborhood," said Queor. "And that was part of it, that some taxpayers made."
An article on the website Backyard Poultry called "How to Keep Rats Away From Your Urban Chicken Coop" at https://bit.ly/2WTmVBT talks about keeping chickens within city limits in Portland, Ore. A public health official in that article is quoted as saying that chickens themselves don't create a rat problem, but chicken feed can give rats that are already in the area another food source.
The article goes on to say a bigger contributor to vermin issues in urban landscapes are hanging bird feeders, as birds tend to spray seed all over the ground. The article gives some suggestions for securing chicken coops and feedlots against rats and other predators to limit the problem, as well as securing chicken feed and scheduling feeding times.

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