Pigs in blankets of red tape

People have been raising livestock in my neck of the woods for as long as there's been settlement here. This is the kind of place where you can drive down the road and see goats munching on weeds in yards, cattle grazing in fields, pigs wallowing in pens, chickens in coops ...

You get the idea.

There's exotic stuff too. Some people around here raise such animals as llamas. I'll be damned if I know what they're doing with llamas, but to each his own.

But we're getting an influx of new people, some of whom want the rural way of life without, you know, those icky rural parts. They don't like to see trucks parked in yards or to hear chainsaws tearing into firewood or to see people loading up guns for hunting season. Basically, they just want the view, and they want to move out the folks already here and share the setting with people like themselves.

And they really don't like to smell animals.

Somehow, enough of them have apparently congregated down the road in Camp Verde to force through an ordinance that requires people to seek special use permits if they raise more than a few animals a year. The law was originally targeted at one guy who raises pigs for sale, but since the U.S. Constitution so rudely bans bills of attainder, the wording applies to anybody who raises livestock anywhere in town.

This raises special concerns since, among the most enthusiastic breeders of animals in Camp Verde, are kids raising pigs and other critters for 4H and Future Farmers of America. "The town is so adamant to stick it to us that they are willing to sacrifice what is going on with the 4-H program," the pig breeder targeted by the bill told the local paper.

The petty bureaucrat detailed to enforce the law begs to differ, of course.

[Community Development Director Nancy]Buckel said she has yet to set guidelines for the use permits, but has a basic idea of how that process will go.

"We will draw up a simple application form, where the 4-H member is going to have to do some work. They will have to outline their 4-H practices, how they are going to dispose of manure and draw up a map of how the housing will be laid out.

It's not going to be a free gratis thing. I think going through the application process will not cost them anything but will be a learning process," Buckel said.

Oh, what a valuable lesson. The virtue of begging a government official for permission to do on your family's own property what your parents and grandparents did on their own initiative. That's right; teach the kids to bow and scrape.

Inevitably, the paperwork burden will simply dissuade many children from raising animals, ending generations of tradition and what I consider an important measure of self-reliance. Of course, that may be the idea.

Nancy Buckel, nasty piece of work though she is, didn't pass the ordinance, but she's as good a place to start as any. She can be reached at: 928-567-8513 x118 or plnrnan@cvaz.org

The Camp Verde town council as a whole can be reached at: towncouncil@cvaz.org