Council slams barn door on ducks in city

A woman’s push to keep ducks inside the city limits was thwarted Monday when the Kalispell City Council heard from people with complaints about her waterfowl.

Tenth Avenue West resident Diane Groves made the request after being ordered by the city to get rid of her ducks. For several years she has kept ducks and chickens and sold eggs to supplement her income.

The council considered amending city regulations — which allow people to keep up to 15 chickens — to allow ducks, but decided against that move when neighbors complained about Groves’ animals and their living conditions.

“I’m tired of the city allowing all these farm animals in town at my family’s expense,” said Amy Kenfield. She said she had to replace hundreds of dollars of insulation and drywall after a mice infestation.

Kenfield was one of several neighbors who said that mice eating food left out for Groves’ ducks and chickens and living in a compost pile in her yard are overrunning the neighborhood.

Randy Saunier told council he had never seen a mouse in or around his house until Groves started keeping her chickens and ducks.

“We have them now,” he said.

“You either need to eliminate [people keeping] fowl on a 50-by-140 lot or make some serious setbacks ... They’re 10 feet from the corner of my house. I can’t open the windows any more because it stinks.”

Council member Jeff Zauner said he visited Groves’ property after council agreed at a work session to consider allowing ducks.

“I don’t believe any resident should have to tolerate this type of condition,” Zauner said. “I think we need to not allow ducks and take another look at our city ordinances on poultry in general.”

All nine council members opposed a motion to let people keep ducks inside the city limits.

City Attorney Charles Harball said Groves has since indicated she will get rid of all her ducks and chickens.

Regulations let people keep up to 15 chickens, but only hens, as long as they do not adversely impact neighbors. All other fowl are prohibited. An exception for chickens was made in an ordinance the council passed last November.

“I thought it was interesting that after they did the chicken ordinance we ended up with a poster child for why it’s a bad idea,” Harball said. “The question is how do you deal with the nuisance when someone isn’t taking care of [the birds] like they should.”

The council has scheduled a work session for next Monday to review the city’s animal regulations because problems related to ducks could happen with chickens, which are still allowed in the city.

COUNCIL members passed the first reading of an ordinance to significantly expand a West Side Urban Renewal Plan that dates back to the mid-1990s.

The proposal would expand the plan’s boundary to include the Flathead County Fairgrounds and a 1.3-mile block of land along the railroad tracks that runs from Seventh Avenue West to the eastern city limit, bordered to the north by Washington Street and to the south by First Street.

New goals for the plan include removing or relocating the railroad tracks, improving street connectivity in areas split by the tracks, installing new sidewalks, improving the appearance of the fairgrounds and turning it into a year-round event center, replacing aging water and sewer lines, cleaning up suspected environmental contamination at about two dozen sites and working with property owners to redevelop about 19 acres of vacant land and buildings in the expansion area.

A motion by council member Tim Kluesner to remove the fairgrounds from the plan failed. The plan will come up for a second and final reading at the next council meeting.

If the measure passes, city planning staff and the Urban Renewal Agency would flesh out the plan and recommend specific public works projects or private developments.

Council could then be asked to issue bonds for those projects as a way to expand and extend the life of the West Side Tax Increment Financing District, a financing mechanism that overlays the original West Side Urban Renewal Plan.

The tax-increment fund holds about $2 million and is on track to sunset in March 2012.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.