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Approved <br />A Staff member stated this is something the task force can talk about as to what they and the community want or don't <br />want. He stated chickens may or may not be a problem, but the discussion is should they put appropriate measures in <br />place where they can't respond when something comes up. He stated maybe the task force will decide to leave everything <br />as it was also. <br />Mr. LeFevere stated if they think it is okay to have certain animals, then that should be stated, but if they don't want <br />certain animals, then that should be put in the ordinance. <br />A Member stated it was more general for him as he believed everyone should get along with their neighbor. Mr. <br />LeFevere stated from his experience, he did not hear a lot of people getting along with their neighbors and most of what <br />he did was people not getting along with their neighbors. However, if most people do get along with their neighbors, then <br />maybe they don't want to do anything. <br />A Member said there a lot of this was a personal struggle of what is a defmition of land rights. He stated there was <br />obviously a concern with making regulations not needed or being too broad to create a difference. He asked if there were <br />ways to adopt zoning regulations, maybe they should try and look at that. <br />Mr. LeFevere stated if they wanted to have an incentive for people to have chickens, they can do that. However, they <br />cannot make people have chickens. He indicated their tools were limited to what they could regulate or prevent. He <br />stated the people who wanted to have chickens would have chickens and if they did not have any concerns about that, then <br />they did not need a regulation. He stated they might decide that in a backyard as long as compost was taken care of <br />someone can have row crops. <br />A Member stated where is the person who does not have chickens or any other animal rights to be able to be outside in <br />their yard and have a peaceful experience without odor, noise, etc. He asked where would his rights be if he did not want <br />to have chickens. He noted the majority of people in the City did not have chickens and did not have gardens in their back <br />yard. Mr. LeFevere stated urban farming was unique in that way. As an example, he stated people might not want to live <br />next to a dog, but the City might not want to ban dogs, but the City could regulate dogs. <br />(D) Next Steps <br />Joe stated Chair Howard met with the City Council and updated them on the task force. <br />Chair Howard stated he attended a work session and discussed the meetings so far. The Council was pleased with the <br />work so far and he thanked the Members for their good work. He stated they tried to talk about the steps going forward. <br />He stated originally council set up the idea that there would be six meeting with a wrap up in March, which only gave <br />them two more meetings. He stated they need to look at this as they tried to figure out the next steps. He stated they <br />should try to come up with a sense of what the issues are that most need to be addressed and what other issues as they <br />relate to urban farming they need to look at. He stated they need to figure out what they could really accomplish and what <br />was the biggest priority that needed to be addressed. He stated they talked about the possibility of having another meeting <br />in March or April to have the public come in again. He believed Council was saying to try and figure out what could be <br />accomplished in the next couple of months. <br />Joe stated the goal for next month's meeting would be to start sorting out the information received. He stated if they <br />needed a few more meetings that would be fine, but they did need to focus this down. Chair Howard stated to be fair if <br />this was going to take another few months, they would need to revisit the time commitment. He believed it was coming <br />up with a priority of what issues they could look at with the remaining meetings. <br />Mr. LeFevere stated sometimes groups gets bogged down having intellectual, philosophical discussions, but at some point <br />they need to get to a conclusion. Chair Howard agreed they needed to figure out the topics and proceed from there. He <br />indicated one topic would be chickens. He stated he did not know if they would even need to discuss gardening or not. <br />5 <br />