To the Editor:

You know, with all due respect, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I saw that the Village Trustees were actually going to hold a hearing on this request for raising chickens in the village.

If such a thing is approved, we will once more be on our way to becoming “Petticoat Junction.”

We already have a potty and clothesline corner on Market Street, plus an annex on Maple Street along with a couple of ramshackle houses which are in plain view of Clarkson University, and an eyesore to anyone entering our village from the south, let alone to all of us who live here.

Do we clean any of this up? Nah, not a chance, and neither will we be able to stop future chicken coops if they become a reality.

So, if this chicken thing gets out of the coop and becomes legal, where and when may barns and fences be put up? Tell me, will I be able to put up a coop and fencing right next to Hosmer Hall, adding to “scenic views of Potsdam “in some of our promotional literature?

Why not concentrate on something that is costing us millions of dollars, like the hydro dam? There it sits after three years of futility, or is it four?

However, there is an incomplete building sitting there --maybe with a little chicken wire and a roof, the village could have an elegant chicken coop and sell the eggs to local restaurants under the title of “ eggs a la dam.” Our first big profit out of this project!

Dick Hutchinson, Potsdam