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- Why did the chicken cross the road?
- Thank you Teri!
- NBC 15 features the Ice Arena
- On the New Ice Arena
- Despite problems, Janesville has residents with right stuff
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- Search Councilman Yuri
Sometimes an issue comes up in front of the council that does not have a clear cut answer. To me, the matter of letting the residents keep a few chickens, is just one of those issues. Personally, I very much doubt that I will ever be raising chickens in my home. Buying a dozen eggs at Woodman's on a semi-regular basis works for me just fine. I'm also not into doing more housework than I have to. So to create more mess that somebody would have to clean up, feels counterproductive to my goals.
However, over the last couple of years, several people have approached me about allowing Janesville residents to keep chickens in the residences. Regardless of how I feel personally about raising chickens, I feel that this is the right time for the council to weigh in on this matter. After all, sometimes the best thing the government can do to help the residents, is just to get out of the way, especially in these tough economic times. Simply not blocking the ways for people to become more self-reliant and to control their cost of living can be a very useful function of government.
The fact that Madison passed a similar ordinance which appears to have resulted in very few problems is important though Janesville is clearly not Madison (not that anyone would ever imply that). Still, it is encouraging at the same time because as Madison is a community larger than ours, I would expect there to be proportionally more problems with this type of an ordinance. But according to story in the Gazette, Madison code inspector has received just 3 complaints this year in connection with the chicken ordinance.
There are some questions that need to be answered: If my neighbor decided to keep a few chickens, how would I feel about that? My first instinct is that it's my neighbor's business. But sometime shortly after or even before considering the benefits of the whole enterprise, I would think about the impact that my neighbor's decision is going to have on me. Will the chickens stink? Will they keep me or my family up with noise? How messy is the whole thing? So while it is up to an individual to decide whether this makes sense for them and their lifestyle, the questions of potential impact of such ordinance on people living close to a henhouse need to be addressed.
So now it is time for feedback and I'm glad to report that everyone I talk to about this, appears to have strong feelings one way or the other. Some people have been raised with chickens and therefore they see the benefits of keeping chickens themselves. Others have been raised with chickens and therefore they do not want to have chickens anywhere near them.
All in all, the next logical step seems to have the Sustainability Committee take a look at this issue and report back to the council with some recommendations. In the meantime it is important for all of us to learn more about this in order to make an informed decision whether we as a community will allow chickens to be kept in individual residences or not.
And to answer the question posed in the title of this post: Evidently the chickens are planning on crossing the road in groups not to exceed 4 (no roosters allowed) with the goal of producing eggs at individual residences. Not that funny but could be a good idea.
Teri Huber has been running the
Janesville Farmers Market for the last 4 years and now that its season is officially over, Teri deserves a great deal of gratitude from our entire community.
I don't want to speculate, but it's pretty obvious that without Teri, the market would feel and just be very different. (You may have seen Teri skate up and down the market in her roller blades, but did you know that she had to replace the wheels on her blades this year because she wore them out at the market?) Her enthusiasm and willingness to make the vision of local producers marketing their goods to local buyers has come true and we are all better for it.
At the same time, Teri has had a lot of help from different people including Renee Dommershausen and the entire JATV crew, who filmed and broadcast the Weekly Market Updates. The Busker program, featuring street performers (spearheaded of course by Judith Detert-Moriarty) helped raise the market experience to a new level.
The market has become a weekly community event where one can not only buy some local produce, as well as check out arts and crafts, but also the place to meet and chat with friends and even see what the different organizations such as the Beloit Janesville Symphony are up to.
By helping make all of this happen, Teri and the Janesville Farmers Market reminded us of the fun and the value of shopping Local.
And for this, Thank You Teri!
Today, I got a call from Chris Woodard at WMTV NBC 15 in Madison. He read my post on the New Ice Arena and was able to come down and do a story about it. Here it is. I think it turned out quite well: entertaining, informative yet respectful.
So the question is: if you take a stand and the Gazette does not cover it, did it really happen? Thanks to WCLO for including my comments in their coverage.
Over the last few weeks and months, I have heard quite a bit from you about the possibility of building the new ice arena. Some of it was to my face, some of it was anonymous, but I very much appreciate all the feedback that I get though I will always give more credence to opinions with real names attached to them. Being on the council is a huge responsibility and it is very important for me to hear from you.
There is no question that comments have been mixed but I felt that the reasonable argument last night rested on the side of waiting to see what impact the Jets will have on the existing facility. When the old ice arena is known in the community as the "white elephant" for 30 years, it should take more than a handful of exciting games by a new semi-pro team to warrant building a new ice arena. After all, the current ice arena is likely to be in usable condition for at least a couple more years and at that point, with the Jets doing well, hopefully, I would expect the community to demand and expect a new ice arena to be build.
Naturally, I appreciate the private partners stepping up and looking to raise millions of dollars for this project. At the same time, the city will be borrowing its share of the funds and at this time of economic distress, I feel it is perfectly justifiable to be cautious about overextending ourselves.
As far as "let's not pour money into the old facility" argument: the current ice arena location is only one of possible sites for the future fire station #1 and it is not unlikely that the old ice arena facility will continue to exist but serve a different purpose for the residents than it does now. In that case, it makes a lot of sense to do the basic improvements such as addressing the roof needs. And considering the the compressor would be moved to the new ice arena, paying for the piping underneath which would remain with the facility regardless of its future use, would have been a good price to pay to ensure that the ice arena continued to function while we took a reasonable amount of time to figure out what is the best thing to do next.
I think it's important to point out that I have been a supporter of the new hockey team in Janesville from the beginning. Having lived in other communities, I've seen first-hand the value of sports to a community's spirit. Frankly, considering how much of our state pride seems to be affected by how well the Packers and the Badgers are doing, one does not have to go far to see the importance that sports play in our lives.
Finally the location. I continue to insist that it is disingenuous to speak of the value of the Downtown to Janesville, and then proceed to take away a facility that is finally bringing over 600 people to the area every Friday and Saturday. But considering the moving parts involved such as the possible location of the new fire station #1, and the overall rush to get the new ice arena under way, the south side of town in my opinion is the better of the two real choices available.
The key to our future success continues to lie in working with other communities and to take advantage of our central location in the region. Beloit is in at least or probably more of a dire need of a new ice arena than Janesville, and taking the time to bring them or perhaps even the County into this discussion would have been another good thing that the council could've accomplished last night by delaying making the decision to proceed with the new ice arena. After all, the new location was chosen to make it more attractive to Beloit residents.
When I ran for a position on the Council two years ago, I said that it is very important to make sure that all the voices are heard when an important decision is made. I feel that last night we missed an opportunity to hear other voices that will be impacted by our decision.
Here's my latest Messenger column published today:
Late last year, while talking with a friend who specializes in video production, I said that I'd like to host a talk show that features regular people as guests; not stars who have books and movies coming out, but regular people who are busy living their lives and making a difference every day. my friend like the idea and helped me with the taping of the first episode. This month, we taped the 11th episode of "Discover Janesville," and there are more on the way. You can watch the program on JATV and at www.DiscoverJanesville.com.
This has been quite a year for Janesville as we near the one-year anniversary of the closure of the General Motors plant, and it is fair to describe Janesville as a blank canvas. We are a community that can be anything we want to be. We continue to have a great location and we will remain attractive to businesses that understand that value of a city with all the amenities, located close to Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago.
But as a community in upheaval, it is clear that we need to recognize and celebrate our strength and assets. The main asset of any community always is its people - people who who leadership and who work hard to preserve our culture and history, and people who make our businesses and our city services run.
So, what is "Discover Janesville", and what does it look to help the community? Of all the different types of talk shows out there, the one that appeals to me the most is when the host does the least amount of talking possible and gives the guests the time they need to give a thoughtful answer. In other words, "Discover Janesville" is designed to be about the guests. My guests have included the person who runs Spotlight On kids, the chairman of the Janesville Historic Commission, the vice president of the Friend of Riverside Park, as well as a member of the Janesville School Board, two Rock County Board supervisors and a great-grandson of George S. Parker.
What do all of these people have in common? They all care about doing good things for our community, an dI am really interested in learning what it is that motivates them. Why are they involved? What lessons have they learned? And of what are they most proud?
"Discover Janesville" also offers an opportunity to learn about people who work and make Janesville a better place for the rest of us. Too often, we only know people in our immediate circle, and we forget that we live in a community where our neighbor could be running the farmers market, or be a longtime school principal and an accomplished educator. All of these people have lessons they learned while becoming engaged and taking on leadership roles. Theirs are the stories that I want to share with the viewers.
In fact, one of my proudest moments on the show actually occurred off camera. While preparing for the taping, it turned out that two of my guests lived only a few houses away from each other for years, yet they did not meet until they were both guests on "Discover Janesville."
In the end, it is simply important to see that, no matter what happened in the past, there are people in Janesville who are optimistic about the future, and they ware willing to work hard to make sure that we get there as a community.
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