(Email to my friend and Attorney, Ms. Tracey Westerhausen, Esq.)

September 9, l999



Tracey -

I called the inspector who came to the farm, a Dale Hawley, at 0830am yesterday. (9.7) I am sure the complaint comes from the turkey man across the street, as I asked who had filed....Stornetta (the dairy farmer who owns the land) or Nicholas, and got the 'we cannot tell you' response. Hawley said it may go to the county commissioner's board, if it has to go that far I do think we are speaking 'harassment' here, as all along we had been talking to the office of Planning and Building in Fort Bragg, and no one ever said "no parrots'. Did I fax the sequence over to you? I am building a file, and have so far searched the zoning rules, both county and coastal zone, on the internet and by keyword search find no exclusion or mention of 'parrot' or exotic. I did tell Dale Hawley he was welcome to put his fingers into any cage, and see that they are not pets, although pets are allowed on AG property but they don't see how they qualify as AG.

Even yesterday's Martha Stewart had a guest animal expert on, who said (and I printed it off the web) that once macaws and parrots are paired up, they are no longer pets....and must have privacy and minimal human contact to breed. He said 'but you cant eat the eggs'.... and I told he we sure could. And so it goes......I did talk to my dad, who is a Broker, and he says the county can go all over the board, depending on who is lining the political pockets ....and so I am still doing some homework. It's amazing what you can find out on the internet. I am assembling my international correspondence, our articles and book publication sites, website award, etc. I enclose two addresses....what I found last night about the landlord/dairyfarm folks.

http://www.sfc.ucdavis.edu/pubs/SFNews/Winter99/clover.html
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/12.18.97/dining-9751.html

and the mendocino code books search page, which is page 44 ( I sent it separately). I have the code book for coastal zone over there, and probably need the non-coastal book too.. Alan Ferrari (supervisor) said AG zoning takes precedence (verbally anyhow) over coastal zoning. On Tuesday I asked Dale Hawley specifically if I needed a permit for chickens, answer 'no'. Do I need a permit for turkeys' -- no-- a permit for ducks -- answer no...guinea hens -- no - (he does not know what they are), permit for cows -answer no...horses - no.....as they are 'common' barnyard animals. This gentleman does not seem to understand that people nowadays farm iguanas, alligators, fish, as well as parrots.

My dad suggested that orders might be coming from higher up' not to qualify our parrots as a farm. I did send a long list of species to Alan Ferrari ,at his request in July (before the complaint, I'm sure) requesting a use permit for the parrots (because he thought I needed one) and for the trailer farm housing. I also told him of other farm uses (row crops, orchards, sheep) that would be AG uses as we developed this neglected farm. This would help to explain why my application requests for even the paperwork seem to not arrive, and why I keep getting bounced from office to office. I have talked to Dave and Woody in Fort Bragg since last November, and run the properties we liked through those two for qualifying zoning. (verbally). They are the ones who told us that the best thing we could do would be to get an AG property. We also qualified for RR, or rural residential, with 40 'animal units' allowed per acre, no differences being specified between gold fish and elephants!! I have talked to Dale Hawley, inspector, and Alan Ferrari, a supervisor in Ukiah, and to Raymond Hall, Director up in Ukiah.

Yesterday I told Hawley I would call him when I was over there, and he and his supervisors were invited for 'cheap tour' if that is what is needed to clarify this before it goes any farther. That's it to date......thanks for listening,

your friend,

Barbara