A variety of topics came up during Wednesday evening’s (July 5th) Danville City Council meeting.
For the first time since a committee meeting in March, one of them was “should Danville change a current ordinance and allow families to keep chickens at their homes?” But after hearing commentary from the audience much in favor of it, a straw poll taken by Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr showed much skepticism from the council. Six members firmly said; “no, let’s not take the time to explore writing an ordinance that would allow this.”
Aldermen Robert Williams, Eve Ludwig, and Sherry Pickering were all in favor of at least pursuing it; while Jon Cooper said he needed more information, and Ed Butler said chickens should be allowed to begin with, and no ordinance should be needed to allow or disallow it.
Interesting commentary came from City Engineer Sam Cole. He’s hoping the council reconsiders sometime in the future. Cole says he grew up with chickens, and when you compare them to other animals, “What’s the big deal?”
Resident Ethan Massey and former Danville Alderman Ethan Burt state their cases to the Danville City Council for allowing Danville residents to keep chickens at their homes.
AUDIO: I’ve never seen anybody with chickens that were so disruptive. For me, if people don’t take care of their dogs; barking all night long, they’re getting out and they’re bothering my kids, or doing sometime else making me feel uncomfortable. Chickens go to sleep at night every single time I’ve been around them. Maybe that’s youth and naivety; but I’m optimistic about what they could be, done right.
Meanwhile, Vermilion County Mental Health 708 Board Executive Director Jim Russell stated his case for the City Council to contribute $25,000 for part of an initial one year salary for the board to hire a full time coordinator to help put the ROSC system to work. ROSC is “Recovery-Oriented Systems of Care.” And Russell says the idea is with so many struggling with addictions such as opioids fentanyl, and more; let’s bring in a liaison to help connect those that NEED help, with those that CAN help.
Vermilion County Mental Health 708 Board Executive Director Jim Russell asks the Danville City Council for support in funding a new coordinator position to help the board connect residents with services that can help them.
AUDIO: If a family member’s looking for help they can call our office and we can get them connected with service providers. We can also get them connected with the support groups that are available throughout the county. And there’s a lot of those that are going on that the general public doesn’t know a whole lot about. So we hope to better communicate, and better coordinate, all of the efforts that are going on.
Danville’s Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr says this will go to the Public Services Committee for initial discussion. But he’d love it if the city could do this.
AUDIO: Given the epidemic that we have in this country, and specifically in our city and county; with opioid and other addictions, and also mental health issues; I think for $25,000 it’s a small investment that we could make, so people who need assistance overcoming their struggles are able to. I think that’s a small price to pay.
Jim Russell said the Vermilion County Board will be considering contributing $75,000 of COVID relief money to the position at their next meeting.
FINALLY, Danville Public Works Director Carl Carpenter is reminding families to NOT let your children play anywhere in, near, or around the still closed Lincoln Park. There is much storm debris to clear, and loose tree limbs could very easily fall and severely injury someone.
