Claim of 830 people opposed to backyard chickens is challenged

To the Editor,Tonight [Monday, Jan. 19], at the Tecumseh City Council meeting, I posed a question to councilman Gary Naugle about his statements he made during the last city council meeting. At the last city council meeting, Mr. Naugle made the claim that why would he vote in favor of backyard chickens for 20-30 people when 800 are against them. So I asked Mr. Naugle where he gathered this data from, what source or polling could he cite for this large number.To my surprise he was informed by Mayor Jack Baker that he didn’t need to answer my question. To that Mr. Naugle stated he wasn’t going to answer me and said “I know how many people I talked to.”Further making it clear that his initial statement was that he indeed spoke to 830 citizens of Tecumseh, which, according to the latest data I can find, would be close to 10 percent of Tecumseh, a fact I find very hard to believe. I don’t care if you are for or against this issue, anybody should be taken aback by a councilman that makes up figures to justify his vote. I know that I can state with great confidence in my own figures, one of which that I presented to the council is the Tecumseh Herald’s own poll where just over 200 voted and 84 percent were in favor. I can tell you for a fact that I spent an hour with another advocate for liberty talking about this issue on WLEN and the vast majority who called in were in favor. Mr. Naugle, I ask you again, where did you get your numbers? Did you dream them up or do you indeed have some source you drew your data? Judging by your response tonight, I would guess the former. I guess in a way you did answer me tonight and you spoke very clearly about whom you serve. Unfortunately it isn’t Tecumseh.Tommy HawkinsTecumseh