The City of Batavia may have to get its ducks in a row after the City Council president on Monday night expressed his view that farm animals living in the community apparently have gotten his goat.
Eugene Jankowski Jr. said he was compelled “to start a conversation” over the fact that he has received a couple complaints from residents about neighbors who are keeping animals such as goats on their properties – resulting in excessive noise, excrement and other byproducts of such species.
“What we’ve had in the last year – we’ve had a couple of interesting cases where people had multiple goats on their property and it kind of disrupted the neighborhood,” Jankowski said. “I don’t know what we can do, if anything? I don’t know what the public input is on this, but I wanted to start the conversation and at least have some direction from Council …”
Jankowski suggested looking at what other municipalities are doing in similar cases, adding that maybe the city can act to limit the number of non-traditional pets and possibly to install some enforcement measures.
“When you have multiple goats in the backyard and they’re kind of loud and they scream and make weird noises, and they also leave a lot of dung laying around. Maybe we should have some oversight on it,” he added. “It’s not something you’d really expect to see in the city … (where) a person has to wake up with a goat screaming right outside their bedroom window at 5 in the morning.”
Terming it a “low priority” at this point, Jankowski asked for input from his colleagues.
Patti Pacino spoke up, stating, “If it’s disturbing someone, I think we need to look into it.”
Robert Bialkowski said he dealt with this issue in the past and noted that code enforcement officers treat farm animals differently than pets.
“If you have a lamb and it’s a pet and it’s named as a pet, there’s nothing they can do about it,” he said.
Bialkowski said in his case it was St. Bernard dogs “which probably leave as much waste as a small goat, and we couldn’t use our backyard in the summer because the flies were so bad; they didn’t clean up after themselves.”
He said he turned it over to the county Health Department and it was resolved quickly.
Jankowski said they he did try to resolve it but found it was a “gray area.”
“It wasn’t the same as a dog or a cat … and again I don’t want to prevent people from,” he said. “If they have a horse and that’s their means of transportation, where some communities do that … I wouldn’t want to prevent someone from living in the city and not having their transportation.”
The council president said he was referring more to goats, geese, ducks and even roosters who count themselves as city dwellers.
“I was told that Rochester has certain regulations on chickens,” he said. “Nothing like if you’re working the midnight shift and you just put your head to the pillow and you hear a rooster out your bedroom window. It kind of makes you angry.”
City Manager Rachael Tabelski, responding to Jankowski’s request to “find out what our options are,” asked what direction she should take.
“Are you directing me to look into all types of animals on city property or specifically goats, or cloven hoofed animals which would be considered sheep, goats, horse and cattle?” she asked.
Jankowski said he was thinking about animals normally considered to be raised on a farm, which produce food and eggs. He said he wanted to make sure the animals were treated humanely and safely, and were located in an area where they didn’t disturb the neighbors.
Again, he suggested finding out what other communities do and to get public input on the matter.
At that point, John Canale, speaking remotely, said he wished to stay “fairly neutral” since he is dealing with the same problem in his neighborhood.
“I, too, have received complaints about it and I am very apprehensive about making a move in any way because I get along with all my neighbors tremendously well and I certainly don’t want to put myself in a situation where I upset some neighbors and don’t upset other neighbors.”
Canale said if it came down to involving his neighbors that he would recuse himself from the fray, but agreed that Council should look into it.
“Totally understand,” Jankowski replied. “And one of the complaints I received was your neighborhood.”
Concluding the nine-minute discussion, Jankowski called for a “fact-finding thing” and report back in February or March.
