4 Chesapeake Hens at City Council

We are meeting at the Chesapeake City Council at 6 PM tonight! A reporter for a local paper, the Chesapeake Clipper, part of the Virginian Pilot, has promised to meet us there. This will be nice follow-up to our recent publicity on local station WTKR News Channel 3.

Our online petition now has over 590 signatures. I have prepared not only a speech for the City Council, but I have compiled comments from the online petition that we hope they will accept and read. It is past our initial deadline for signatures, but we have received so many more due to the publicity, that we are waiting a little while so those who are interested can still sign.

We are starting to compile research for members City Council and others who may be interested. There is talk of our group being scheduled for a future work session, so we want to be prepared. Our research efforts in support of our petition are available online through Google Docs.

***Update: My speech, available here, was received well.  Andrea Ball Margrave thoroughly refuted the memo the City had sent us with outdated and erroneous information. Watch our speeches to Chesapeake City Council regarding the efforts of our group, 4 Chesapeake Hens, on this video!! Fast forward to approximately 2:22 for Mary Lou's speech, and then Andrea's starts at approx the 2:25 mark.

Thanks, Mayor Alan Krasnoff, for your interest in asking for more information (approx 2:32 mark)! He asks the City Manager to prepare a staff report, a good sign for us.

The mayor said something about "moving on this," although what he meant by that, none of us is sure. Two reporters, one from the Pilot and one from the Clipper, were there, so we are hoping to get more publicity for our efforts. City Council Member Robert Ike is working behind the scenes to get a change in the zoning process moving forward.

So far, so good.

*** Update on 7/30/12: Marjon Rostami wrote a nice article about our efforts in today's Virginian-Pilot. So far the public's comments have been very positive about the idea, and we are getting new "likes" on our Facebook page. If even a percentage of these fans are willing to get more actively involved, this will bode well for an even bigger groundswell of support at future City Council meetings.