Village to ban industry, allow chickens

Expressing solidarity with Portland, Oregon, and despite the strong objection of one member, the Trumansburg village board has moved to reverse it's decades-old ban on the keeping of farm animals within the quaint Finger Lakes municipality's boundaries.

“We’ve got a lot of requests to allow chickens,” said Petrovic. “Freeville allows them and it’s going fine. Right now they are specifically excluded from our law. But I’d rather be inclusive than exclusive and see what kind of comment we get from the public.”

    “We already have dogs and cats to deal with,” said Watkins. “To add chickens to that is just another nightmare.”

    Cassetti disagreed. “This is part of the whole ‘locavore’ movement,” he said. “You’re seeing this in Portland, Oregon, New York City, and other places. Trumansburg is a progressive community.”

Apparently not a "progressive," Watkins' concerns were dismissed by her more enlightened colleagues.

“I’ve spent a lot of money on my back yard,” said Watkins, “and I don’t want to not be able to sit out there because of the odor and the noise of my neighbor’s chickens.” Watkins, however, got no sympathy from any of the other trustees or the mayor.

At the same meeting the village board moved ahead on a new ordinance that will ban "heavy industry" from the village.

Attorney Helen Slottje of Community Environmental Defense Council gave a short presentation to the board about a proposed addition to the ordinance that would ban high-impact heavy industry from the village. The towns of Ulysses and Dryden are considering similar laws.

Slottje listed land uses that she described as “really negative high impact industries” associated with natural gas drilling, including wastewater treatment facilities, injection wells, truck terminals, and “land-spreading” of drill cuttings, which were “detrimental to rural character.”

While cloaked in the areas' dominant "no fracking" dogma, the real outcome of these decisions will be to allow Trumansburg's elites to enjoy the pungent aroma of poultry, while at the same time denying economic opportunity to the common folk.