As of 12/06/2014 there is also a thread on Backyard Chickens .com concerning this issue . you can view it here :
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/940829/a-coop-for-washburn-il
UPDATED AND CORRECTED 12/8/2014
Without going into to much detail, I will attempt to explain how this all happened to the best of my understanding of the entire situation. I will update this to try to keep the statues as current as possible.
I have multiple medical issues and illnesses that I deal with daily. Most are physical in nature, but as is the nature of these things coupled with those contributed to the natural aging process and well, there are some resulting mental and cognitive issues too . How much one type of "issue" has come to affect the other type "issue" is any body's guess.
The fact is they exist and I Am Fighting To Live in spite of them and with them .
Among my medical problems , I have allergies to many antibiotics and other substances. I am allergic to or sensitive to Most antibiotics actually. Some sever enough to induce anaphylactic shock . Among my other medical conditions I have a stomach disorder and
it is unclear weather part of the issue was a direct or indirect result of the unwitting and continual consumption of allergens, even in what could be perceived as minute doses, through things such as basic food sources or if the reaction is solely due to the long term build up of them in the body tissues, but the resulting subsequent continual illness as reaction ( allergic reaction) to these antibiotic and other substances in foods is at play ( in other words the presence of the substances in daily foods is what make my body sick through allergic reaction) ; or was the medication for this condition causing a heightened sensitivity to those antibiotics and other substances found in beef, pork, chicken and other poultry/fowl, and yes EGGS and dairy ?
It doesn't really matter which causes what.
What matters is:
I need to improve My health and in doing so my quality of life and my ability to live it healthy, to the best of my means and knowledge as is my basic unalienable human right.
I should be able to work with my medical problems and learn to live with them in a manner that has dignity ; in a manner that promotes self reliance; in a manner that works safely and cleanly to resolve and/or alleviate as many medical problems or their symptoms as possible; in a manner which provides my basic human need of a clean, sustainable, readily available, economically feasible, self controlled, easily digestible form of consistent basic nutrition; and in a way that helps to promote my mental well being; on my own property where it is readily available and easily accessed by my self .
Because of my disabilities getting out to earn an income that can adequately support my medical needs or to go to a store to purchase the needs is more often than not impossible for me.
It is vital to my health and well-being that I to be allowed to keep 4 hens for the purpose of laying eggs, and as companion pets.
From a nutritional stand point I can reasonably monitor the bird I am getting eggs from and insure they are healthy and as clean as possible so as to safely and cleanly provide me with vitally important nutrient packed protein source as is needed in my diet . I can ensure they are not given, fed, exposed to, treated with, injected with, Any substances such as antibiotics directly , antibiotics through the practice of feeding meats and fish meal: antibiotic through beef, goat pig, chicken- fowl- poultry or other treated, medicated meat shavings and cat food often fed to chickens so that the eggs I consume are free and clean and safe for me to eat. Also I can ensure they are not feed several other substances which must not be part of the feed rations for reasons of allergies, sensitivities or other medically related issues and because they, even at trace levels, can interference with needed medications, supplements and nutrition needs which in turn effects my physical issues; ingredients such as flax seed, soy, sulfa,high levels of iodine and rye.
From an emotional and physical stand point, the support I receive from managing and feeding and caring for and getting to know 4 lovely birds as pets is a welcome ray of light that guides me away from the darkness of depression and loneliness. They engage my mind and give me cause to be present and observant in a way nothing else has since our children. They require I be active and diligent. They don't run from or ignore my disability, but instead simply accept it as part of who I am. They are not anything I could imagine my life without now because they have made medical things, made me personally , and made my life in general so much better .
And that is Why this all started.
Pre April 21, 2014:
Years of medical issues prompting continual dietary changes often resulting in a lack of proper balanced nutrition, medication, physical therapy, and the never ending quest for simpler healthier solutions to combat things that my body can not tolerate the medication solutions for.
Moved back to Illinois to be with family as health continued to deteriorate. Purchased a house in the Village of Washburn. Found new doctors in Illinois who identify cause for my body's resistance and inability to absorb proper nutrition and prescribed new medications with changes too, the dietary needs to help facilitate the easing of the condition and increase absorption. Find new way to deal with chronic , often severe, depression and social anxieties as my system rejects yet more medication for these issues as well.
The discovery that antibiotic and other trace chemicals in beef, poultry, pork, other meats, eggs and dairy are accumulating and staying in body tissues or are the cause of prolific and prolonged bouts of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea , muscle aches, joint pains, weakness, extreme physical exhaustion, confusion, general dysfunction and a multitude of other physical and mental ailments.
The discovery of a possible vital and much needed source of reliable clean protein could be had and readily available by raising chickens for their eggs.
Search the internet and asked all we came across who to speak to for inquiring about ordinances listed on the Village web sight to discover if they have been changed or up dated or how we can get a variance.
Obtained the name and number of a Zoning official listed on the Village website and placed a call.
Link to the Village of Washburn, IL., Web site
http://www.washburnillinois.org/villageboard.html
(Please note than many listed on this page no longer serve as listed)
April 21, 2014:
Response to call placed to zoning official listed on the village website came . He is now referred to as "THE- Individual" from the Village website's list of government officials speaking with my husband tells us there is Nothing illegal about having chickens. He informs us we can have 4 hens, no roosters, no free ranging chickens . They must be in inclosed coop and run at all times. He tells us to be sure our neighboring property owners have no problem with us keeping chickens and all should be well .
April 21, 2014:
Began our search for chicks that met our criteria for my safety.
Between this date and acquiring the chicks we begin to buy brooder/holding pen, coop, run building supplies, basic needs for the birds like bedding and books to help us learn. We search and research and search some more.
June 11, 2014:
We received 4 -- 4 week old chicks who had not been given any vaccines either through the egg shell nor through the method of injection at hatching. They had not been raised to this point on medicated feed to the best of our knowledge and not once in our care.
July 1-9, 2014:
While my husband is talking to our Village treasurer at the water department building she informs him we were told wrong and we can not have chickens in town . She calls every official she can think of and verifies this fact. We seek out others and others seek us out and then some one tells us on Friday July 7th that we need to go to the Village community board meeting on July 10th and begin the process to request a variance. We are told to specifically not use words and phrases like "companion animals" but to base our request solely on proof of medical need or they will shut us down and table the subject. And we were told to not openly admit to having acquired the chickens already .(also i would like to state that at no time did any one ask for a doctors note just the general " bring documentation and proof " ). When asked why not to speak of my companion animals as companions I/We were told that, "that opens up a whole can of worms nobody wants to deal with. They don't want an onslaught of people asking for variances for keeping chickens as companion animals. ", end quote.
The Problem
We have a PDF of the documents scanned that we asked our village police chief for.
The problem with the ordinance as it stand is that there are not a lot of houses with at least 1 acre of land in the Village limits, ours among them.
July 10, 2014. 6pm:
We attend the meeting . Explained our situation and brought our request . We brought files, one for each of the member of the board, containing a copy of the ordinances that we asked our police chief for and he gave us on an informational basis, a hastily written letter of introduction, a simple map showing property size and approximate planned placement of future coop and run (which the location of has since changed), my medical conditions, medications, testing, and research to back up that my medically psychically needed claim is significant and a suggested list of rules that may help craft the variance. Any time I found I had to mention the companionship found with these chicks , and how having them , with out outright admitting we had them already , had helped to lift my depression in turn adding to the numerous physical benefits they had already provided me before they had even given me their first egg, I was , in a manner of prompt curt form and utter disregard, completely dismissed.
I had explained at the beginning of the meeting my difficulty with speech and the need for patients and the need to handle this in a manor slowly enough that I could communicate my need and sentiment with them and comprehend what they were telling me in a form that we could all clearly understand. This resulted in everyone speaking at once and over the top of myself, my husband and others in the room specifically by one individual who immediately vocalized her blatant resistant brought on by the shear mention of the word "Chickens" ! She, who shall be referred to from now on as "THE Board member", was undeniably inconsiderate and rude about the topic and to me and made it quite clear through her mannerisms, that she at best had little or no patients for my "issues and conditions".
The end of the our portion of the meeting came with the conclusion that this should be handled by the zoning officer first and we should go home and wait to hear from him.They would want him to hold a zoning board meeting to hear and receive my variance request.
It was also divulged that no one seem to know were to locate a copy ( updated or otherwise) of the ordinances books. We let the board members know that our Chief of Police for the Village had one with the thought in mind that they could photo copy his copies. We have a .pdf of a scanned copy of the ordinances the police chief gave to us that he said he works from. . Since then we have manged to find a copy on the internet that can be viewed here .
http://www.washburnillinois.org/…/Village%20Code%20-%20Draf…
We were informed that the person we talked to, "THE- Individual", and gotten our information about the ability to have chickens from , had not sat on the zoning broad for over a year, and that there had been one other individual who served as the zoning officer between "THE- Individual" and who is serving in that office now. We were informed our zoning officer had only held the office for about 4 to 6 weeks at that point. And that many who had served on a zoning board were unavailable to do so now for a number of reasons ( sadly, including deaths).
As the weeks went by we inquired as to the zoning meeting status . We were given different excuses why this hadn't happened yet. We were told our zoning officer was having trouble finding enough people to sit on a board meeting for various reasons, and the zoning officer couldn't find his copy of the zoning book, among other reasons given to us in "defense of" no answers as to time or date or why he had not yet himself contacted us.
August 8th, 2014:
With help from an individual, whom we met for the first time out side of the first board meeting we attended on July 10th, 2014, a Facebook group was set up called Coops For Washburn Il .
O.K., so was it just me or is "THE Board member" making this personal. Why no response from zoning? While we waited I took a moment and looked at the world outside of my needs . "THE Board member" seems to hold the concern that I would open an unwanted messy "can of worms" with my request. Well, yes it could I guess. So shouldn't rules and such be looked at and established in order to determine the best way to manage this issue preemptively then? Why couldn't my request help set those standards? I am ok with helping them and letting them use my situation as the test situation. Use my situation to help find out what will and wont work. Beyond that shouldn't "THE Board member" want ordinances in place that might help draw potential home buyers to our area? Many "good" people want to live where they can raise gardens and have a few chickens and be a little more self sustainable.
" Our Village should pride itself on being sustainable. We
are rural and agricultural with great potential to be a leader in
sustainability through our future growth. Allowing backyard chickens
would help nurture that philosophy in our future, younger and all
generations in our Village. Pride in our heritage leads to pride in our
future . People shouldn't find themselves outside the law because they
have a health related need for clean sustainable foods or simply because
they want to be healthy and self sufficient or want to lead
agriculturally sustainable lives." Coops For Washburn Il Facebook Group
Well, I wasn't asking for the Village as a hole at this point, I was asking for me. For my purely selfish need to eat safely, and to live and to find some relief from pain.
So the Facebook group was started . mainly so i can keep track of things , but if it has the benefit of helping someone else get what they need then I would be glad it could.
August 20, 2014:
We were notified at approximately 3:30 there would be a Zoning board meeting about our situation at 6:30 pm that night. This was done when my husband went up to the village water department office on a different matter altogether. .. No one called or came to our home. No honest attempt was made to notify us of the meeting. We attended.
The people who were there with the zoning officer to serve on the board for this matter were in fact, polite, kind and patient. When they asked questions they gave me the time I needed to respond with as much information as I could offer. And They Listened. At the conclusion of the meeting we were given some tasks to preform , one of which was to have our neighboring property owners sign something that stated they had no problem with us keeping 4 hens, no rooster, confined chickens . I offered to do other things as well such as to have NPIP testing and inspection done, to have my girls checked for avian influenza and anything else I could do to answer any concerns that there may be. The zoning officer said he wanted to do some more research on some questions he had and that he would notify us when he would want to reconvene the next zoning board meeting to compile the information .
At this meeting I offered him the file and I offered some new additions that I thought might also help him/them . Among them was the document titled
Allocating the Burden of Proof in Disability Cases Under the Fair Housing Act fact sheet.
which in its Overview clearly states that :
"Federal law forbids housing discrimination against people with disabilities.1: In addition, the Fair Housing Act (FHA) requires housing providers,local zoning authorities and others to make reasonable changes or “accommodations” in rules, policies, practices or services. 2: Accordingly, a person with a disability should have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling unit and the common areas in Disability Cases Under the Fair Housing Act"
( I wish I had found this document before the Village board meeting in July, I would not have turned over so much of my personal medical information, as according to this Fact Sheet , it was not needed to provide proof of need)
This document also states:
"In enacting the anti-discrimination provisions of the Fair Housing Act, Congress relied on the standard of reasonable accommodations developed under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, codified at 29 U.S.C. § 794. Shapiro v. Cadman Towers, Inc., 51 F.3d 328, 334 (2d Cir. 1995). The FHA reasonable accommodation standard protects people with disabilities by making it unlawful to “refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services when such accommodations may be necessary to afford... equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B)."
Weeks went buy and we heard nothing. Nothing from the Zoning office, nothing from the board. Nothing . Then unofficially, our chief of police saw my husband at his employers and told him that apparently in the October Village board meeting the board voted against us keeping the chickens. When my husband finally saw the zoning officer out in the village he asked him about it and was unofficially told that just before the meeting "THE Board member" had called him asking for a status update at which time he told her he was still doing his investigation. "THE Board member" took it upon herself do decide that it was a negative from the board and forced a vote apparently and supposedly at the October board meeting ( which we are not sure if it was an open public or closed village meeting).
As far as we officially know we are still working with zoning and we have not been officially notified of the second zoning board meeting or that this issue is on the docket for any community board meeting that we should attend for the purpose of addressing this issue.
December 05, 2014:
Last night a town officer came to ask if we still had our chickens, we said yes and explained that as far as we know we are still working with zoning and have not officially been notified otherwise. He let us know that he will most likely be bringing us a citation in the near future because "THE Board member" is " applying pressure to the Chief on this issue".
So he went back to talk to the chief and advised we should go to the next Village board meeting on December 8, 2014 at 6:00 p.m., And see if we can figure this out and what to do next.
December 08, 2014:
The village meeting was at 7:00pm not 6:00pm . One of many misunderstanding in this situation . I can say after the meeting tonight we have a clearer understanding of the interpretation of the ordinances and how notifications happen. I have confirmation that it is nothing personal as "THE Board member" is rude to everyone. I am not giving up my fight but I do realize to continue my fight I can not afford steep citation fines/fees and so must find a solution that keeps me with in the boundaries of the battlefield and still strong enough to fight the war. The reason given for the zoning denial and subsequent denial by the board was yet again " with sympathy to your situation, your request was denied because no one wants to open that can of worms. "
( I know what I need to do . But how to do it and benefit from the clean safe eggs and be sure they haven't been given something or gotten a hold of something toxic to me? How and keep my bond with them? How and not be the one who watches them grow and develop their personalities and all their beauty? How and not have them to talk to and sing with and cry with ? How?)
I'm not giving up my fight. I will keep this blog and record the efforts and progress. In the mean time I will share what I have learned and will learn , what we have done and what we will some day do in the future. For now we take it back to zoning and start over.
