National media makes flap over town’s feral chickens; council
turns off the feed
San Juan Bautista made the front page of the L.A. Times this
week
– and it wasn’t for the stalled water infrastructure grant or
even the town’s outrage over the proposed widening of Highway
156.
Yes, you guessed it. Chickens.
National media makes flap over town’s feral chickens; council turns off the feed
San Juan Bautista made the front page of the L.A. Times this week – and it wasn’t for the stalled water infrastructure grant or even the town’s outrage over the proposed widening of Highway 156.
Yes, you guessed it. Chickens.
“It must have been a slow news day,” surmised City Manager Jan McClintock.
On the heels of a Los Angeles Times story, CNN made calls to McClintock, followed by calls from National Public Radio. On Monday, CBS news clucked about the quirky controversy at the top of its radio news hour.
And while a national news camera rolled in the council chambers Tuesday night, the council was giddy when the agenda finally came around to passing an ordinance to prohibit feeding the town’s feral chickens.
Opponents are fed up with the town’s mascot: a chicken – or rooster –strutting freely among tourists as they sip sangrias at cafes, peruse old-fashioned store fronts bulging with antiques or visit the historic Mission Plaza. Except it’s not just one chicken at this point. It’s hundreds, and many business owners and residents say the birds and their droppings have become a nuisance.
“Let’s get down to the meat of it,” said Councilman George Dias. “I say fry ’em.”
The chambers erupted in giggles.
“It’s something we can’t enforce,” countered Councilwoman Priscilla Hill.
Councilman Chuck Geiger agreed with Hill and suggested placing signs up that say, “Please don’t feed the chickens.”
“I don’t think we need this ordinance,” Geiger said. “We can’t enforce it.”
Indeed, in the words of Sheriff Curtis Hill quoted in the L.A. Times article: “We are not going to put even a drop of ink to any citations,” Hill said. “Period.”
Nonetheless, Councilman Art Medina said he favored the ordinance.
“This came before us two years ago and at that time we chose to take no action,” Medina Said. “Six months down the road we can get rid of the ordinance.”
Clearly, this was going to be… dare it be said – a game of chicken?
Residents of the historic town are just as divided as the council is over the flap. Susan Brady, a resident of San Juan for 10 years, said she just got over knee surgery after falling in the holes the chickens have made in her yard. She told the council that last month she had to shoo 27 chickens off her property, and said if something wasn’t done the only alternative was, perhaps, a lawsuit.
“I am tired of being under attack,” Brady said. “If you think that’s funny then you got a problem.”
But the chickens have their champions.
“In 1869 when this town was first incorporated, the chickens were part of the citizenry,” said Rebecca McGovern, town historian and local activist, to the scoffs and guffaws of the anti-chicken forces. “We just have to be careful when we destroy what has been a part of San Juan. Let’s be kind to feral chickens.”
For several months, San Juan do-gooder Grace Nutter and a platoon of volunteers have been gathering up the chickens, when they can catch them, and giving them to good homes – away from town. So far, she reported, she and her chicken relocation team have gathered and adopted out between 70 and 100 chickens, and they’re still at it.
Nutter said the answer is not in killing the chickens, which seems to be a preferred solution for some drivers in town who, she says, actually speed up when they see a chicken crossing the road.
“How about an ordinance to cite people who speed up to run them over?” Nutter said. “I saw it. [The driver] didn’t see the 10 or 12 fourth graders walking down the street.”
City Manager McClintock brought up another side issue: will the council want to cite visitors and tourists – the town’s bread and butter – who feed crumbs of their lunch to freeloading chickens on the Plaza Green?
“I’m talking about the people who go out with a bag of food in the morning,” Dias said. “I’m not concerned about the fourth-grader at the Mission getting rid of his sandwich.”
“I don’t want the teachers to get all freaked out,” McClintock said.
The freak-out was the vote. When it came time to voice their will, Medina and Dias loudly said “Aye!” Geiger and Hill each said “No.”
And then came the feather that broke the chicken flap’s back and shocked the chambers: “Me too,” said Mayor Dan Reed, siding with the anti chickenfeed contingent.
With that, the national news camera operator packed up and went back to San Francisco. Print reporters scurried out as well.
With no police department, and the sheriff pledging not to enforce the ordinance, people can continue feeding the chickens without going to jail – but it is ill advised. You just might find yourself and the chicken you’re feeding at the wrong end of an irate citizen’s frying pan. Further, McClintock said that feeding chickens also sets the table for rats and other pests that the city would like to discourage.
While she recognizes the chicken flap as a “major controversy” in town, McClintock is still mystified about the national to-do over the affair and has mixed feelings about it.
“Any press is good press,” said the new manager. “So this is certainly going to bring San Juan to the attention of the world. I am totally amazed at how much this has captured the people’s imagination, but I’d love for people to understand what we have here. Where else can you go, beside Boston and back east, and go back in history for centuries?”
