PEORIA, Ill. – The Peoria City Council has again held off on a decision regarding allowing backyard chickens in the city.
The council tabled the issue at Tuesday night’s meeting, with 5th District Councilman Denis Cyr the only vote against tabling. The topic was also tabled at the end of June.
At Tuesday’s meeting, council was presented with new information from Peoria County’s perspective on costs relating to backyard chickens. In a letter from County Administrator Scott Sorrel, Peoria would incur an increased annual cost of $257,420.
Sorrel in the letter says the increased costs would come from the hiring of two full-time employees to Peoria County Animal Protection Services, which would include an animal control officer and an administrative assistant, along with a vehicle and equipment for the new officer. Sorrel also restated concerns over risks of disease and added costs for enforcement.
Community Development Director Joe Dulin says there would also be increased costs to build additional storage for confiscated chickens. He says there would also be a burden to code enforcement officers who are already trying to catch up to current violations, and to train them on dealing with chickens.
For Peoria Mayor Rita Ali, the concerns were a little too much.
“The cost is substantial, the county has concerns, and I am not comfortable directing staff to create an ordinance to allow for this,” Ali said.
At-large Councilman Mike Vespa says he was “skeptical” of the proposal, saying shelters in the county are already full, and would become a bigger problem with chickens and potential diseases they would bring.
4th District Councilman Andre Allen restated a suggestion made at the meeting in June, where the city would run a pilot program to test out how the concept would work in Peoria.
If the issue were to be brought up again, it would need a majority vote by the council to place it on a future agenda.
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