Anti Agricultural Bias In Goverment Bureaucacy

Enid, like so many other places in America has problems from time to time with bureaucrats who seem to think they know better than their consituents.

This recently came to light earlier this week when the city council voted to enact a livestock ban. As you'll note by the story and the editorials linked to in this blog post, this ordinance was posted without giving any thought whatsoever as to how it could be improved.

There is most certainly nothing wrong with drafting a livestock ordinance of any kind specifically when it involves trying to keep your community as respectable as possible.

However, such an ordinance requires time to make sure it is done properly. Unfortunately, it appears that this was not the case here. That the Enid city commision acted very recklessly and without any regards whatsever to whatever concerns people might have had.

The conduct of the Mayor in this case was very disgraceful. And, as you read from the article and the responses, a lot of the folks were not very happy with how he and the city council acted.

The elections are not very far away and people do tend to have very long memories when it comes to things like this. It should be noted that Enid is the agricultural hub of Northwest Oklahoma which is a major agricultural region of the country. When you start to show a bias against agriculture, people in this region do tend to take it personally.

Again, there is nothing wrong with drafting an agriculture ordinance for the community but you should try to do it properly and make some accomodations for people who depend on the profession for their livlihood. It appears the Enid city commision did not do it in this case.

From the Enid News And Eagle;

Proposed Livestock Ban Draws Heated Exchanges.

Rush To Draft Livestock Ordinance Stymies Opportunity For Review.