Commissioners say no to chickens

CLOVIS — Most of the five dozen residents at Thursday night's Clovis city commission meeting had no problem with the idea of themselves, friends or neighbors getting permission to keep up to five female chickens.

However, plenty of citizens had weighed in before the opening gavel pounded. And those concerns were enough to help sway the commission, which voted 6-2 against revamping a decades-old ordinance after 80 minutes of discussion.

Commissioner Fidel Madrid said he couldn't support the measure, given an overwhelming amount of constituent phone calls against the ordinance. After the meeting, Commissioners Chris Bryant and Helen Casaus said the same thing.

The ordinance, if given final approval Thursday, would have allowed people in residential single family (RS designation) districts the ability to keep up to five female chickens — provided they paid a $25 permit fee that would be renewed every three years.

Joy Sumner, speaking for a group of residents, said flatly, "We do not want backyard chickens in our yard or our neighbor's yard." She asked if homeowners association rules or covenants would supersede the ordinance. City Attorney David Richards said an HOA can independently create and enforce its own rules, as long as those rules do not allow something the city defines as illegal.

Among the residents speaking in favor of keeping backyard chickens:

• Carolyn Spence made an appeal to basic freedoms, noting, "Government should be empowering people to be able to access the tools for what to do in their lives, and not just a force for restricting them."

• Marci Hill of Clovis said if there were four or five bad dog owners, nobody would outlaw dogs, and the same approach should be taken with chickens.

• Lindsay Dunahee of Clovis said backyard chickens are part of teaching people to be self-sufficient, noting that places with natural disasters suffer more because everybody depends on the grocery store.

"You need the guy who raises chickens and the monster zucchini in his backyard, and you become friends with him," said Dunahee, who later noted that situation also builds neighborhood camaraderie.

Commissioner Sandra Taylor-Sawyer, who joined Commissioner Ladona Clayton in voting for the ordinance, said she wouldn't get chickens but liked the idea of knowing where her eggs came from instead of going to a grocery store and guessing how long eggs were at the store or elsewhere.

Clayton said it comes back to a question of responsible pet ownership, echoing something Commissioner Tom Martin said earlier in the meeting. Clayton also floated the idea of a pilot program should the overall vote fail; City Attorney David Richards said she was free to propose that for a future meeting.

Ashley Hummer of Clovis said responsible pet ownership does come with stringent enforcement. She noted that when she first moved to Clovis, she wasn't aware of a free pet registration program — but she did it the morning after she found out because her dogs deserve a responsible owner.

Among the three other commissioners who voted no:

• Mayor Pro Tem Juan Garza felt the ordinance would be opening a can of worms.

"I think the burden is going to be on our animal control personnel (to inspect pens and enforce the ordinance)," Garza said, "and the $25 fee is not going to be enough (to balance that)."

• Commissioner Gary Elliott — the lone dissenting vote during the August vote to introduce the ordinance — felt there could be problems with more rats, skunks and foxes and that the ordinance would overburden animal control.

• Martin said he could go either way, but he considered chickens being raised for eggs to be livestock and decided to vote for what he thought was in the city's best interests.