Situation may have changed

What the heck happened last Monday night?
Normally, that would be pretty clear to all those on hand.
And, normally, the next day’s newspaper account would make it even clearer.
But sometimes, public expectations and governmental machinery collide, leaving behind a cloud of confusion.
That seems to be what happened Monday night.
Here’s a thumbnail sketch of the background:
•An outfit called J-Star Farms filed paperwork back in May for a large-scale poultry operation out in Noble Township. By “large-scale,” we mean about 2.7 million birds laying eggs.
•The county has seen enormous growth in the realm of large-scale agricultural operations over the past 15-20 years, and this addition would push the county’s chicken population to nearly 10 million.
•J-Star’s expert advisers filed the necessary paperwork, but then the plans continued to change and the Jay County Building and Planning office — not known to be sticklers on these things — dug in its heels and put a hold on the required notices to nearby landowners.
•J-Star complained to the Jay County Commissioners about the delays, saying the red tape could cost the company about $1.8 million.
•Then the commissioners were informed that J-Star was going ahead with construction — in violation of the building and planning ordinance — because the difference between the county fines and the potential business losses pointed in only one sensible direction, from the company’s standpoint.
•Faced with that, the county commissioners did what they often do: They punted, sending the whole thing to the Jay County Plan Commission.
That’s where Monday’s event landed.
The plan commission, working under the limits of the ordinance, eventually voted to seek a court injunction that would impose the maximum allowable fines against J-Star Farms. But those fines are — sorry — chicken feed when it comes to the real dollars involved.
County commissioner Jim Zimmerman, who also serves on the plan commission, rightly explained that under the circumstances, that was all the plan commission could do.
What Zimmerman did not explain is that for the most part the rules and regulations concerning confined animal feeding operations like the J-Star project in Jay County have been drafted and guided by agricultural producers who believe, with strong conviction, that confined animal feeding operations need to be an integral part of 21st century farming.
There’s nothing fundamentally wrong about that.
Farmers, seeing a different future, got involved, stepped up and made their opinions known. That’s the way representative democracy is supposed to work.
But in this case, there was a basic imbalance.
On the one hand, you had ag producers with a financial vested interest. On the other hand, you had localized NIMBY (not in my back yard) reactions that never seemed to jell.
Someone might be concerned about a CAFO in Richland Township, but that never seemed to click with folks in Madison Township. Someone might complain about a large-scale duck farm, but that didn’t click with people worried about a hog operation.
As a result, with one side organized and the other side anything-but-organized, the organized folks made a point of being at the table when the rules, regulations and ordinances were drafted.
Now, however, the situation may have changed.
And that may be, in the long run, what happened last Monday night.
It may be that those minimalized, marginalized, balkanized opponents to the further expansion of CAFOs in Jay County reached a tipping point.
Their very helplessness in the face of the J-Star project may have provided the spark to organize, to coalesce, to find a voice, to become involved in the political process, and to help provide better balance in local land use policy.
Only time will tell. — J.R.