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Posted on Tuesday, September 02, 2014
Does Cumberland County Need to Change Our Chicken House Ordinances?
The argument about people at Equity Group losing their jobs is bogus.
Equity will maintain or enlarge the work force as more chicken houses
are built if the demands for their products increase, regardless of
whether those 20 new chicken houses are built in Cumberland County or
surrounding counties. In my estimation the number of jobs at Equity will
be affected more if chicken houses are built in Cumberland County versus
other surrounding counties due to less transportation being needed, thus
less drivers. Will 20 new chicken houses built in Cumberland County add
jobs? Maybe a few jobs and most of those will be unskilled minimum wage
chicken catching or cleanup manure jobs.
If current site restrictions are changed or removed in Cumberland County, what is the ideal situation for Equity? All chicken houses would be as close as possible to the processing plant to reduce as much transportation costs (fuel, Insurance, maintenance) as possible. This would result in more and more chicken houses being built in Cumberland County with other, farther away chicken houses being abandoned as newer houses closer to the plant begin production. What happens to the 15 year contract to supply chickens to Equity when they want to renegotiate for a lower price, or even worse, when Equity changes it’s name again and the contract is no longer valid? The chicken houses that would be abandoned are not the responsibility of the processing plant; the farmer/owner would be left without a contract and probably with a large unpayable loan (secured by 40 acres of their farm land) to the lender. The lender would probably then repossess the farm. There is also this thing called “whip sawing”, using one supplier to cause another supplier to lower their prices until their chicken houses are no longer profitable and they are forced to still supply chickens to Equity.
If there are already job openings at Equity and workers either will not apply or can’t be hired due to drug screenings, if it affects local property values negatively and everyone knows, they might not want to admit it, but it will definitely affect water and air quality negatively, will these 20 additional houses help tourism in Cumberland County? With all these detriments to the county, property values, air and water quality, possible loss of tourism, how does an ordinance change possibly help the people of Cumberland County?
No one is asking anyone to quit doing what they are currently doing. All we are asking is the ordinance to remain as written. The current ordinance will allow new chicken houses to be built here. It just does not allow chicken houses to be heavily concentrated in areas, which is what Equity is promoting.
Lastly, Equity has made money and expanded its operations within the current guidelines/ordinances, why should our elected officials change what has worked for several years to protect the public of Cumberland County, its air and water quality, just to benefit an extremely profitable corporation, and in doing so, to turn neighbors against neighbors in a debate that has been settled several years ago to most of the residents’ satisfaction?
Please call the Judge Executive & the Magistrates and express your
opinions.
Judge Executive
John Phelps
(270) 864-3444
District One Magistrate
Thomas Brown (270) 433-5625
District Two Magistrate
Edward Anderson (270) 433-7372
District Three Magistrate
James V. Groce (270) 433-5201
District Four Magistrate
Rickie White (270) 459-1854
Posted on Tuesday, September 09, 2014
More Chicken Houses Coming
Larry Anderson and Dave McIntyre cut the hay for the third time on
Monday.
Garmons
will probably need to wait another week before they make their last cut
on the fields across from the house.
The meeting for changing the
chicken house ordinance was held at 4 PM and the Cumberland County
Courthouse was packed. The Fiscal Court quickly finished the normal
business and then opened the floor for an hour for discussion of whether
the ordinance should be amended. Each side had several people go to the
podium and speak, including me. Every person was asked to state their
name and then to limit their time to a minute or two. Most did as they
were asked. There were people that felt strongly on both sides and it
was easy to tell people were nervous to speak to the crowd, but they
felt it was necessary. After the hour was over, the Fiscal Court called
the Equity Group representative to the podium, asked him if these were
the alterations they wanted.
He
said yes. They deliberated for a minute or two, then took a vote. All 4
Magistrates voted yes to making changes to the ordinance. Then Judge
Executive Phelps added that he also supported changing the ordinances.
They gave Equity Group every change they had asked to be changed. Most
people filed out of the courthouse at that point.
Posted on Sunday, September 14, 2014
Painting In Daleville
Thursday, Linda had some minor surgery at Dr Rice's office, then came
home and we loaded the Malibu and headed to IN. We were in the 'going
home from work' traffic most of the way, but it wasn't the worst we've
drove to IN in at all. We picked up groceries and a pizza in
Chesterfield and then went to Daleville.
Friday morning, after
breakfast, we began painting the dinning room ceiling tile. We taped the
trim around the room, then Linda was using a brush to paint the grooves
between the tiles while I began painting with the roller. It didn't take
very long to get that done, then we decided to paint an old cabinet that
was Mom's. Linda and Stacey went to buy the paint while I stayed at the
house with Coco. They returned and we spray painted the cabinet and left
it on the front porch to dry. Kim Bourke stopped at the house after she
got off work and talked with Linda and I until about 10 PM.
Saturday
I needed to take some pictures of the other house we have in Daleville.
I'm planning on disputing the 'assessed value' this fall to try to get
the taxes lowered. No one has lived in the house or trailer and it is
depreciating quickly IMO.
With
that done, I went back to the other house and put a second coat of paint
on the ceiling in the dinning room. When it dried, Linda and I agreed,
it looked a lot better. I also moved the cabinet we painted into the
kitchen.
When
we were finished, Linda and Stacey went to Pendleton, picked up Nana and
went shopping. Linda drove Reba's truck when they went shopping and they
picked up over 20 sheets of tile backer board at Lowe's. Then they all
came to the Daleville house and Linda showed Nana the improvements we
had made while I unloaded the sheets of backer board. Then we all sat
down and talked for a couple of hours before Linda, Stacey and Nana went
to Muncie for a little more shopping. Linda paid to fill up Nana's gas
tank, right before taking her home, so she wouldn't be worried about not
having gas in her truck again. When Linda and Stacey came back to
Daleville, it was late and I was already sleeping. They talked, but I
don't know what they said.
Sunday morning, I wanted to leave early to
avoid the traffic backups at the three construction zones between
Daleville and Elizabethtown, so we packed up, shut things off and left.
We grabbed some breakfast wraps at McDonald's and were on the interstate
towards home. They told me some things, that I didn't remember them
telling me last night, but it sounded like Nana, Linda & Stacey had a
good time together. We made a quick trip back to the farm in KY with
hardly a slow down at the construction zones. We did stop in Columbia
for a few groceries and then rolled into the garage at home a few
minutes after noon.
Posted on Saturday, September 20, 2014
Bluegrass Festival
Stacey and I went to the Blue Grass Festival about lunch
time. There were local groups playing in a talent contest while we were
there and other groups playing all around the park.
Of
course we went to the food vending area almost as soon as we arrived. I
search out these events just for the Italian Sausage with green pepper
and onion sandwiches. Some people go for the music. It seemed like the
attendance keeps getting larger each year they have the event. It's free
and that's what people like around here.
I've
been working on a ditch, about 3-4 hours a day, for three days and I'm
going to call it finished until we get enough rain to see how the water
flows out, or if there are high spots that need cut down.
The
picture on the left is the way it looked when Joey moved to another spot
to work. He never returned because his track loader broke down and is
still setting in the back of the 'holler' across from the house. So I
finished the ditch the best I could with two of my tractors.
Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2014
Technicalities Stop Chicken House Ordinance Change
The following statements are excerpted from the Cumberland County News:
The
September 8th Cumberland County Agriculture Committee meeting in which
the committee agreed to present changes in the poultry ordinance to the
fiscal court has been found null and void due to the meeting not being
posted correctly.
Cumberland County Judge Executive John Phelps said
someone had complained to the Attorney General’s office that the meeting
was not properly advertised, and he was contacted by that office about
the complaint.
Phelps said the agriculture committee meeting wasn’t
posted in the building where the meeting was held, and the attorney
general’s office felt the meeting could be declared invalid.
That
means the committee will meet again. It also means the Cumberland County
Fiscal Court’s approval of the amended poultry ordinance on September
9th is void, and they will have to approve it once more for it to be
valid.
The Agriculture Committee will meet on Monday, October 6 at
4:00 p.m. on the third floor of the courthouse. The committee’s agenda
is: agenda approval, approval of committee chairperson, open discussion
of possible changes to Ordinance 199899-03 Poultry House Restrictions,
hear Keystone request pertaining to Ordinance #199899-03
(replacement/changes), public comment, approval of suggested
replacement/changes to Ordinance #199899-03, adjorn.
The Fiscal Court
will meet in special session on Tuesday, October 7 to discuss possible
recommendations from the agriculture committee.
<end of excerpt>
Can
you imagine having FOUR of these houses about 1,500 feet from your
bedroom or living room window?
This is what we get when we don't
elect smarter people to run our county.
Posted on Friday, September 26, 2014
Cruise To Sonic
We had met a couple of friends from earlier car shows on Wednesday and
they had told us, if we weren't busy to cruise over to Sonic on Friday
night. So when Linda came home from school, we drove the Mule down to
the pole barn, uncovered the 65 Mustang and loaded into it. We drove
with the top down to Albany and stopped at Sonic. We backed into a spot
like we used to do at Frisch's in Anderson and watched as others arrived
and parked their hot rods.
We
met some people we already knew and also some people we didn't know. We
walked around looking at the other cars for a while and talking with the
owners.
We
ended up setting at the tables out front and having a little grub to eat
as we listened to and told hot rod stories. We had called Brent earlier
and told him to call us when they were about half way to our house. He
called about 6:30 PM, so we said so long and headed back to the farm.
It
was great timing because, just as we turned into the pole barn driveway,
Brent and his family were headed up the driveway to the house.