Regarding the pigeon-feeding & urine-dumping ordinances
Dear Councilmen:
I am the pigeon-feeder and alleged urine-dumper that the Commission is thinking of passing laws against. The following are some facts which may interest you, along with (when relevant) the locations on the Internet (URLs) where you can read the facts supporting my assertions.
FACT: I have fed pigeons in Sunset Park every day for more than FIVE YEARS, and never had a complaint until a few months ago when the two houses adjoining the park changed hands and the new owners decided to make problems for us.
FACT: According to the experts, pigeons are HARMLESS TO HUMANS. In particular, they pose NO DISEASE RISK, and their droppings do NOT stain cars or buildings, but wash off in the rain.
URL: PigeonsDoNotSpreadDisease.html
FACT: Pigeons have been raised for thousands of years, and have made many amazing contributions to human welfare, from providing gourmet poultry to winning numerous medals in wartime. I have prepared a FACT SHEET detailing many of the contributions at the URL below:
URL: SPBird-AssortedDocuments.html#Pigeon Facts
FACT: Many famous men have raised pigeons, from Charles Darwin and BF Skinner to Roy Rogers and Mike Tyson. Here is a partial list:
URL: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/4497/famousfanciers.html
FACT: Every single one of the people behind the ordinances has behaved UNETHICALLY in trying to get us removed from the park. Their shameful behavior is detailed in paragraphs 7 and 8 (and their sub-paragraphs) of the following document which was filed earlier this year in Pinellas County Court.
URL:SPBird-MotionToDismiss.html
FACT: Since health concerns are evidently not the REAL motive for those behind this ordinance, there must be others. Here are some suggestions:
URL: SPBird-AssortedDocuments.html#Possible Motives
FACT: The urine-dumping business is a red herring intended to prejudice people against me and my birds. (I did notice, of course, that -- according to a 19 Oct article in the St Pete Times -- Council members were quoted as having no objection to urination in city parks under certain circumstances, as by soccer players and the like, so perhaps you could clarify exactly what it is you are trying to pass a law against. Is it just me, as Councilman John Bryan suggested, or is it something else?)
However, you can read some interesting facts on the harmlessness and positive value of urine at the URL below -- facts which make it clear that the proposed ordinance is silly.
URL: SPBird-AssortedDocuments.html#Urine Facts
IN CONCLUSION: By passing the proposed ordinances, you are going to hurt a lot of innocent people, from midgame soccer players and older folks with incontinence problems to tourists and other people like myself who enjoy bird feeding. I am glad you think I am so important that you are willing to contemplate hurting so many people just to get at me, and I am glad you are helping to secure my place in the Guinness Book of World Records with so many laws passed against me (yours, including the emergency ordinance, will make six), but there is one question you ought to ask yourself: Do you really want to vote for an intrusive Nazi-like society in which the government attempts to suppress or seriously interfere with harmless personal behavior? Pigeon feeders may not be a big political constituency, but people who love animals and also those who hate overweening government are another thing entirely. Channel 28 has already run at least two features on us (Wed 1 Nov and Thur 2 Nov), and if an ordinance receives further consideration, I am certain that there will be as much or more coverage than the saturation coverage we received five years ago (at least 30 stories) when St Pete Beach passed a law against me. And in case you don't remember, the prime movers in St Pete Beach and South Pasadena who engineered the laws all went down in political flames within a year after those laws were passed, including Danny Walker, Lou Ippolito, Mayor Horan, and several others. God works in mysterious ways ...
NOTE: A copy of this letter is being (or will be) sent to the various newspapers, radio and television stations in the area, and will be posted on my website, www.TheBirdman.Org.
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