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Regular meeting June 27, 2005 yet the proposed U.City ordinance is stern and punitive, with requirements that are unreasonable and irrational. She believes that the Council should look to other local cities that have successfully adopted chicken ordinances to help revise this one to meet the needs of all residents who wish to keep chickens. Ms. Brot understands the importance of sustainable agriculture, just recently patronizing a well known organic restaurant in Berkeley with her family. The codes of University City, one of the important elements that make the city so good, establish the rules and regulations for which we live, yet they can be changed. She noted that the Director of Public Works would be administering the progress of this pilot program. Ms. Brot believes that the fee must stay the same for this one year pilot program, but after the initial one year period, she wondered if the fee structure could be changed at that point. Mr. Ollendorff responded that staff would report back to Council on the actual costs and the Council can reestablish fees at any time. Mr. Ollendorff stated that this ordinance stipulates two inspections a year and he isn’t sure if this requirement is something the Council must have, in regards more or less inspections. Ms. Brot inquired if she wanted less, if she could amend the bill on the floor right now and Mr. Ollendorff told her that she could. Ms. Brot read a statement from Dr. Thomas Heineman, a neighbor of hers and an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at St. Louis University School of Medicine. She asked that his comments be added as medical evidence in response to concerns about avian influenza: Mr. Heineman described avian influenza as a disease of birds caused by strains of the influenza virus that normally cause disease in humans. He noted the most problems have been recorded in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, where 100 persons contracted the disease, with 54 dying. He noted that most humans who have contracted avian influenza in Southeast Asia have had close contact with sick or dying poultry during the week before the onset of illness. Contact often involved the direct handling of chickens or ducks during the process of killing, defeathering or preparing them to be eaten. It should be noted that in Southeast Asia, live chickens and ducks are commonly allowed free range of the property including the human living quarters. This leads to more direct contact with the birds, and surfaces contaminated by the birds, than would be expected to arise from animals kept in accordance with the proposed ordinance. Even under these conditions relatively few human infections have resulted considering the large number of people at risk. Occasional outbreaks of avian influenza in poultry have occurred in United States. These have typically been identified by routine surveillance, and the affected flocks were quarantined and culled. Human disease associated with avian influenza outbreaks in U.S. poultry is very rare. Page 15