What the Cluck? Feathers Ruffled During Talk of Chickens Roosting in Pottstown Backyards

Blogger's Note: The National Dad Jokes Institute has issued an EPW (Extreme Pun Warning) for this blog post. 

A proposal to change the borough's animal ordinances to allow (and regulate) backyard chickens has some officials crying fowl.

Currently, Pottstown's animal ordinance prevents the keeping of "farm animals" in the borough, including cows, pigs, horses and, yes, chickens.

It seems that the urban chicken movement, if there is such a thing, is underway in Pottstown and despite the ordinance preventing it, many people already have backyard coops.

And an eggs-esstential  movement is growing to legalize the keeping of cluckers rather than make all those who raise them in Pottstown hard-boiled poultry pirates.

The idea has evidently been discussed already by council's "ordinance review committee." 

But before the recommendation, if there is one, could be outlined Wednesday night, council permitted Katie Scanlan, Pottstown's very own self-professed "Crazy Chicken Lady," to make what turned out to be a very well-researched and thought out proposal.

She was invited by Mayor Stephanie Henrick, who also supports the change to allow chicken raising. (That's "raising," not "braising.")

Scanlan, who has a deep background in education, said she believes the best approach is to create a permit for people to keep chickens. To obtain said permit, anyone looking to take up back-yard bird husbandry would need to show they had taken a class, or watched a video to learn the basics.

A slide from Katie Scanlan's presentation.

"Chickens are not easy," Scanlan said. "I'm not suggesting everyone get them."

Additionally, anyone seeking the permit would need to present forms signed by the neighbors saying they do not object to having hens in the neighborhood. 

"It's important to have the neighbors on board," Scanlan said.

I say hens because Scanlan has also suggested the ordinance change disallow roosters.

"For Pottstown, roosters are really noisy. Really noisy," Scanlan said simply. (As someone who lives in a neighborhood with one, I can certify this statement is cock-a-doodle-true.)

But there are upsides to chicken husbandry, not the least of which are the eggs. 

Educationally, it's good to teach children where their food comes from, Scanlan said.

Nutritionally, eggs from the backyard have more vitamin D than those from the supermarket, she said. And "they taste better," she insisted, offering to flip over an omelet made with her chickens' eggs to any council member so inclined to test the thesis.

Environmentally, "chicken manure is incredibly valuable as compost," said Scanlan, noting that Dan Price, who runs Pottstown's two community gardens, supports change and, presumably, would be happy to have the manure. 

Chickens also "eat anything" and can help control fleas and ticks, said Scanlan.

Having brought council abreast of her proposal on the subject, a drumstick beat of clucking took wing, and all of council began talking at the same time, like (wait for it) chickens with their heads cut off.

(You must realize by now folks, that I am going to mine this story for every chicken pun I can cook up.)

Pottstown Borough council met virtually online Wednesday night.

First out of the henhouse  was Councilman Joe Kirkland who, it turns out, "grew up on a farm where we had upwards of 200 chickens." He supports the idea with the controls Scanlan outlined.

Also speaking in support was Councilwoman Lisa Vanni, who said she "has gone back and forth on the issue." 

But ultimately, she said, her research supported the idea.

"The world is changing whether we like it or not and people do want to source their own food," said Vanni. As an example, Vanni said she has turned an upstairs bedroom into a vegetable garden, which I feel is a statement we should return to and examine more closely at some point.

Vanni also said she feels its important to "listen to our constituents." Scanlan had said a Change.org petition she posted attracted more than 200 signatures in just two days. 

Council President Dan Weand, representing the bantam wing of borough council, observed that 200 people may have signed the petition but Pottstown has 23,000 people "and so far they have been silent on this issue."

Since they are silent on most every issue, this strikes me as kind of a half-baked argument. 

He further argued that "all these people who already have chickens are in violation of the ordinance," and changing the ordinance would reward these cooped-up criminals and their semi-secret chickens.

Speaking of shitty arguments, Councilwoman Trenita Lindsay said she too supports the idea, but is worried about smell. 

"My only concern is I get complaints about dog poop and I don't want complaints about chicken poop too," she said.

Borough Manager Justin Keller also had a bone to pick with Scanlan's presentation, noting in the last three years, police and codes have collectively received about 11 complaints about chickens including, and I kid you not, chickens crossing the road..... yup, that's what he said.

Keith Place, director of the licensing and inspections department, said he himself has had chickens as well, "so I am familiar with the issues." (Don't worry, I don't think he lives in the borough, so there's nothing to get steamed about.)

Animal Control Officer Jon Daywalt is on the front lines of dealing with Pottstown's chicken complaints and said at one site off Manatawny Street, he had to chase down 15 to 20 chickens. I guess he never saw "Rocky."

Daywalt and Councilman Don Lebedynsky offered up the over-easy argument that renters who get chickens, and then get evicted, would simply leave the chickens behind, making them easy pickins for dogs and foxes "who want an easy chicken dinner." 

I swear that is an accurate quote.

This specious argument begs this little nugget of a question, given that renters (or those who default on their mortgage and lose their home) are also capable of leaving behind dogs and cats and ferrets and budgerigars and turtles and rabbits. Why are they not banned on the same grounds?

Speaking of rabbits, Vanni said she has found domestic rabbits in her yard that escaped, or were set lose, by neighbors. Wouldn't they also be tempting fox fare?

Kirkland was not too chickenshit to peck a few holes in this cock-a-mamie line of objection.

"You want to deny 200 people having chickens because one or two might leave and leave them behind? We can always come up with scenarios of what will go wrong," Kirkland said. 

"If you're just coming up with stuff out of thin air, that's being set in your opinion. I understand people are set in their opinion and they're not going to change no matter what, but we can't deny people the right to do something that's not affecting their neighbors," Kirkland said. 

Henrick poached this argument and pointed out that there are a few people in Pottstown (a few?) who have dogs that bother their neighbors, but dogs are still allowed in the borough.

"If it doesn't work, we can stop it," added Vanni, which is exactly what happened in the City of Reading, said Daywalt. "Reading did this for a while, and they revoked it, because it got so bad with the smell," he said.

But other cities seem to manage it, like Conshohocken, Henrick argued. "If Conshohocken can do it, and they're like a city, Pottstown can do it," she said.

"They're not asking to put a slaughterhouse in their yard, or have cows or pigs. They want to have their own eggs," said Vanni. "If we remain so close-minded and don't listen to people, we're not doing them a service."

Keller said he did not want council to think he is taking sides. 

"You do get bad actors. It's not the majority of the people, but they can ruin it for others. A lot of bad actors don't respond to fines and code enforcement and I just want you to keep that in mind," Keller says. "You heard the up side, we're obligated to give you the negatives."

Three members of the public, Marie Haigh, Darlene Bainbridge and Kelsey Schwenk all spoke in favor of allowing what they considered to be an egg-cellent suggestion. 

(It really helps that I grew up watching the campy Adam West "Batman" on weekday afternoons. One of his villains, Egg Head, played by the incomparable Vincent Price, was always willing to come out of his shell and egg-celled at offering up all kinds of egg yolks.)

Schwenk said she and her husband would like to raise chickens and volunteers to be part of a pilot program to see if an ordinance change can work. 

"Don't let a few rotten eggs spoil the bunch for the rest of us," Schwenk said in a better ending for this farce than I ever could have egg-spected.

As this gaggle of a discussion came to a close, Weand said the matter will be put on Wednesday's agenda for a vote to see if a large enough clutch of council wants to move forward with a change on this poultry issue.

Click here to see the Tweets from the meeting and confirm that I am absolutely not making this up.