Red areas are kill zones, orange areas are open city or adjoining lands that can be hunted from.
This list was obtained from an Open Records Request, but it is much shorter than prior culling kill site lists. If you become aware of a kill site not on this list please inform us immediately by email to SolonDeer at gmail.com.
Be aware that the city aggressively acts to prevent citizens from observing, filming, or interfering in culling activity in any way. Being anywhere near a kill site can be dangerous to your safety and can result in arrest on a variety of charges.
Stanek who has led this plan has abruptly retired, his former asst who also retired is expected to be brought back to manage the plan. See discussion here, Solon Patch coverage and Solon Sun coverage.
NOTE: Kill Site List last revised 1/17/12, First Draft Kill Site Map revised 2/04/12.
The agenda for the rescheduled council meeting was published and contains the following items both on the consent agenda which means there will be little more than announcement of these items and they will be passed as an emergency under suspension.
22. Ordinance authorizing the Mayor to enter into an agreement with David Hromco to coordinate and oversee the 2012 Deer Management Program
23. Ordinance accepting the bid of Smokin-T for meat processing services related to the City’s Deer Management Program ($4.99/5-pound package)
UPDATED:
These items occurred about 40 min into the meeting. David Hromco will be contracted for up to 150 hours, will receive a city cell phone and a city vehicle. The meat processing bid is for 3 years.
At 46:20 into the meeting a citizen objected to the deer culling and to them being on the consent agenda.
After the citizen spoke the council round table occurred where each councilman gave condolences to a former councilman and wishing Jim Stanek well in his retirement.
The Mayor mentioned that Stanek was at city hall for 2 weeks after his retirement and that he will be getting a new job as he is only 51. He had over 30 years at city hall and will be collecting a pubic employee retirement.
Stanek was likely to attend so everyone can wish him well and applaud his accomplishments. This isn't formally on the agenda, but it is common practice. It was expected by city officials but he did not come.
We hear there are "too many" deer, how many is too many? The city pretends to know, but the truth is they do not know by their own admission! They moved forward with the USDA contract to spend $128K to kill 400-500 deer (Aug 15 Council) and admitted on the record that they DID NOT have a deer count, just an estimated projection of about 1000 (they cancelled the aerial survey in March that the new Deer Mgt Plan requires).
The main justification for the killing is DVAs. Russo asked the police chief what the DVA count was, he admitted that he hadn't looked since May. But that didn't stop the city from moving forward not only with the USDA contract but the Deer Mgt Plan that requires them to have annual deer counts and DVA counts.
The Deer Mgt Plan claims the city goal is 206-309 (final revision pg 11), so the city's goal is to kill 700-800 deer. If the USDA killed 400, then bow hunting would need to kill as many as another 400. If the USDA killed 500, bow hunters would have to kill at least 200.
The $128K only includes sharpshooting, it doesn't include support costs (considerable support issues, see USDA post), police overtime, and processing costs for sharpshooting. And while the city won't be paying the bow hunters, it won't be free! There will be costs to administer the program, to test the hunters, to insure compliance, record keeping, and of course more police overtime.
So maybe the real question isn't how many deer are too many, but how can the city commit this much money when no numbers are really known? You have a chance to decide by voting YES on Issue 94!
At the end of the short Oct 3rd council meeting, Russo asked Stanek several leading questions on the deer issue in an attempt to refute claims that the city's Deer Management Plan only paid lip service to non-lethal methods. The Oct 3 meeting is here (for now, changes occurring at city web site), Russo's comments are at 19:20 to 26:44, over 7 minutes on the deer issue which WAS NOT on the agenda.
Russo first started talking about deer being killed by DVA during mating season and how many accidents were avoided by killing them first and then a much longer diatribe about the "non-lethal" methods that were HOMEOWNER responsibility and not the city's. While listing each of the non-lethal methods, Stanek claimed that they were homeowner responsibility so that the city had no involvement in non-lethal methods. Noticeably absent from the list was any mention of the city "maintaining the Strieter Lites".
This makes the comprehensive plan just a killing plan, and that is what we've been saying all along.
A great letter to the editor is on the news site here.
At the Aug 15th Council Meeting we heard Public Works Commissioner Jim Stanek say he could have a pilot bow hunting program in place by Sept 24th, the start of deer hunting season.
In a private conversation before the Safety and Public Properties meeting, Stanek indicated that the city would NOT move forward with any killing before the election.
At the end of the Safety meeting Chairman Russo talked about Deer Mgt, which was not on the agenda. He wanted to correct some "falsehoods" (interesting word, seems he got that from SolonDeer.com); He then said there would be "No culling before the election". He was interrupted and asked for clarification on hunting vs killing by any means, including a pilot program, he responded that there would be "no hunting, no bow hunting, no culling" before the election.
So it's OFFICIAL on the record, the city will not kill before the election. They've heard the public, make sure they hear you again on Nov 8th by voting YES on Issue 94.
For more details see the meeting on video here at 7:19 pm 1 hr 29 min 26 sec to the end of the meeting
It has been Russo's habit to use his position on council to discredit those who disagree with him. He brought up the following points:
DVA accidents since culling stopped
Police chief said he had no new data since May at which time he thought they increased significantly, but had no exact figures
Choosing properties
is done on a volunteer basis, but must meet certain criteria
Safety protocols in place
A dedicated police officer to make sure no one enters a culling zone (they'd be trespassing)
Hunting or Wandering
No one will be roaming the city with deadly weapons
Scaring the public
by saying people are roaming the city with deadly weapons is a "falsehood"
No "culling before the election"
taking necessary steps to move forward IF we are going to cull
Presumptuous to assume that everyone who signed the petition is for hunting ban
Russo knows a number of people signed it so it could be settled once and for all
Taking steps to insure that we can take steps during THIS hunting season without another year going by
And as usual, Russo made mis-statements too.
He tried to say DVAs are up to justify moving forward this year, yet there are no numbers available.
In the past neighbors could "veto" a property being used, in this USDA contract, it isn't readily apparent.
While no one will be roaming the streets with deadly weapons, if a deer isn't killed it can wander onto someone else's property and hunters may track it off the approved property.
It isn't about guessing how many of the 1600 will vote for Deer Preservation Act, its about ALL 1600 expressing their right to DECIDE instead of city hall.
In order to TAKE STEPS one should have data, there IS NO DEER COUNT and no current DVA count.
Russo erroneously thought the hunting season was Jan-Feb, its actually Sept-March. One should know these things before they decide on them.
At 7:33 1:23:40, Russo was asked to clarify the "no culling", he responded, that there would be "no culling, no crossbow, no lethal methods".
Despite objections to moving forward, council discussed the plan and had it on first reading, no action was taken, the full council was not present. Next council is on a special date Sept 7 at 7:30 due to labor day.
The meeting video is here, public comment from 10:30 min to 13:20 min, the plan discussed (item 9) from 25:20 min to 29 min and comments from Russo from 57:20 min to 58:50 min.
Stanek forwarded an agreement with the USDA WS to the law director for review. The quoted price of $128K was to kill 400-500 deer. Stanek further said that if the city of Solon had to cancel the program they would only incur costs up to that point and not for cancelling the contract.
Russo asked Stanek to correct a misstatement by the Solon Sun who editorialized that lethal and contraception methods should be used together. Ohio law doesn't allow this effective method to be used.
Lobe warned that the ballot initiative would repeal any inconsistent measures they pass, he said he's not telling them not to go forward, he's just stating that it could be repealed.
Russo discussed how much food banks appreciate donations of venison.
Near the end of the meeting, Russo also disputed the claim that the plan concentrated on lethal alternatives, he claimed it was better than previous plans that did not mention non-lethal, that last point may be true, but it doesn't answer the initial concern - Why doesn't this plan give equal consideration to non-lethal methods. Russo defended the council's decision to move forward because the city can't assume the Deer Preservation Act will pass and need to be prepared to move forward. The point Russo was missing is that 1600+ people spoke up to ask for this to be on the ballot. His response was that some of the 1600 people may be against it, but again he's missing that ALL of them wanted it on the ballot.
Frequently in these posts reference will be made to the time stamps within city video. Recently I noticed that the Firefox and Chrome browsers no longer displayed these time stamps at the lower right corner. Internet Explorer still does. So for convenience of locating and fast forwarding, you may want to open these links in Internet Explorer.
That's what we're being told we're getting, let's take a closer look.
They start with a little history, then discuss the major safety problem, Deer Vehicles Accidents (DVAs) and promptly state that none of the solutions are "proven". Later they discuss the other problem, landscape damage, list all the plants deer don't eat, then say that if there are "too many" then they'll eat anything.
How many is too many? Well they just pick an imaginary number (see Cultural Carrying Capacity), and the number they've chosen is half as many as we've ever had, even during the height of culling. Why?
If you pick a low enough number, then you'll always have justification for killing more deer.
They mention "public information and education" briefly, they admit this is a sensitive issue, and the solution is to "educate" the public. Clearly they don't really want critical evaluation of this sensitive issue, they've made that clear with their adversarial stance on all opposing views. Just think of this as the propaganda component of the plan.
Next they have the monitoring component. They'll measure citizen complaints about deer damage (DVA and garden). But they don't mention collecting info on culling/hunting accidents, suffering deer outside the hunting areas, compliance with culling/hunting regulations. In keeping with their one sided lethal agenda, they aren't monitoring things that aren't part of their lethal program. They also mention citizen surveys, again just the complaints about deer, not about the city sponsored killing.
They'll also count the deer, it will always be higher than the new low target, so they'll always be justified to kill more. And of course they'll count the number of deer they kill, so it looks like they are doing something useful for the hundreds of thousands of dollars they'll be spending every year.
Under non-lethal alternatives they mainly list plants deer don't like, then point out that deer will eat anything. They mention repellents and then say that they won't work if the deer are very hungry.
They also list a feeding ban on citizens so sharpshooters can be the only one to lure the deer with bait stations to their own demise.
Two very effective non-lethal methods (contraception and relocation) are listed as "non-traditional" because the hunting interests won't allow them in Ohio.
Then comes the real meat of the plan, the killing methods (Captive Bolt, Bowhunting, and Sharpshooting) with nary a downside mentioned.
Nothing about rebound, nothing about the prior 5 yr culling failure.
So in conclusion they mention everything, but will be doing only one thing - KILLING!
A plan was recommended to Council by the Safety Commitee, its been discussed for over a half year and still no specific costs are available.
Russo introduced the discussion of the plan commenting on how much work had been done. Pelunis questioned what the plan would cost, Stanek still had no answer and was asked to obtain costs for the next council meeting on June 24.
Stanek said we need to decide how many deer to kill, but how will they do that when they haven't obtained an accurate count yet.
Russo insisted that bow hunting was needed to reduce costs of sharpshooting. He compared costs of sharpshooting at $400 / deer and bow hunting "essentially" $0 / yr. Kraus said he "isn't comfortable" with bow hunting.
See the Council Meeting here, discussion starts at 1 hr 2 min until 1 hr 12 min. At 1 hr 18 min, two residents spoke in opposition to bow hunting until 1 hr 26 min, at 1 hr 28 min Russo challenged the public comments as Stanek did at 1 hr 35 min.
Russo stated that the hunting would be on city land, but App 1 C, pg 14, 2nd section talks about lands used with no such restriction. While Russo is quick to complain of other's misstatements, his own record of misstatements is poor.
Russo also took the opportunity to plug the city's web site as a source for information about the deer mgt issue.
It was pointed out that an update at the last Safety meeting inserted words to the effect that we'd follow the ODOW rules, which is a lower standard than the proposed bow hunting which both ODOW and USDA WS referred to as "over regulated". Stanek mentioned something about "expanding" the bow hunting after people got used to it to save money. The way to expand bow hunting would be to reduce regulations to the state minimum.
While the lack of costs was a major reason why council could take no action, Kraus also mentioned the absence of Councilman Bell. Both these shortcomings are to be addressed at the next council meeting and it would be possible to pass it under suspension on that day.
First of all most of the content came from Granville a small rural town, add a new front page, throw in some Solon graphs and viola, you have a comprehensive custom Solon plan. Kraus put this on the record at the last Safety Meeting.
And if copying from Granville weren't enough, they ask ODOW and USDA WS to edit the plan. These two organizations depend on lethal methods for their budget, hardly an unbiased source.
But where's the meat? No specifics, no implementation, no costs, no action plan. What is council "deciding"? They'll be "adopting" an idea, leaving the implementation to Stanek, an avid hunter.
Stanek was asked last month to obtain a cost for someone else (USDA WS) implementing the whole plan. Stanek did not do that. Russo reminded him of that request.
Kraus tried to remove bow hunting, Russo objected and wanted to recommend the "plan" to council.
Kraus asked about competitors to White Buffalo, Stanek said that there aren't many competitors, not with their "credentials" who would do it as "professionally". But then Stanek admitted that if we were to consider White Buffalo, we may want to "exclude an individual", seeming to admit that the city has a problem with someone from White Buffalo.
Russo was concerned that they act in time to get this done this year.
The first action would be "public education" and we've started that. I think that is the "deer damage" form and MetroParks link on the city's home page.
Next would be to start bow hunting late Sept 2011.
Culling effort would begin early 2012.
At 58 min in, Russo put his foot down to discourage "cherry picking" and pushed for sending the "plan" to council tonight. Kraus made a last ditch effort to not "recommend". Russo made the motion to recommend. Kraus clarified that he voted NO because of bow hunting.
For the original plan, twice updated since, see this article.
At the last safety meeting where the plan was unveiled, the "Deer Park" was removed because if we feed deer, ODOW will not grant a license to kill deer and Russo was insistent about needing to kill deer.
At this meeting, the following changes were made:
On pg 6, A disclaimer that if there are "too many" deer they'll eat anything, so even deer resistant planting could be deemed ineffective. Reinforcing the idea that killing is required.
On pg 9, #2, Fixed a typo saying that a method was impracticable.
Emphasized that "Trap and Euthinize" (Captive Bolt) requires an ODOW permit and that the city must be involved and that residents can't directly approach the ODOW to get a permit.
Both Peters of the ODOW and USDA WS suggested that we are "over regulating" bow hunting. Stanek believes this is "absolutely necessary" in the beginning because of citizens concerns. This regulation can be viewed as safe guards to the residents. Then in the next breath, Stanek contradicted himself and got the committee to pass an amendment adding that we would "follow ODOW standards in use in neighboring communities" (who don't "over regulate" to protect their citizens).
The meeting video can be found here, the deer topic runs from 37 min to 1 hour 1 min.
The Administration promised a "Comprehensive Deer Management Plan" in May. Its May and we saw the plan. Its unimpressive, especially when you consider that the only thing unique about it is a few graphs.
Councilman Kraus touched a nerve when he called Stanek on the fact that it seems word for word the same as the "Granville Plan", a small rural community nothing like Solon. When challenged if comparing their needs to ours is "Apples to Apples", Stanek bristled stating its "Apples to Apples to Apples to Apples".
The plan predictably mentioned everything, but said nothing. It mentions many non-lethal options, then promptly dismisses them as "ineffective". They did say they'd "continue to maintain" the Strieter Lites which inexplicably have 500 ft gaps to reduce their effectiveness.
The one item they definitely wanted removed though is the "deer park" idea, it is number "5 Supplemental Feedings" on page 9 of the draft plan. The ODOW would not issue a nuisance permit to allow killing deer to a city who was feeding deer. This is a deal breaker for the city, they won't do something that will prevent lethal options.
In the lethal department, everything was on the table, Captive Bolt, Bow Hunting, and Sharpshooting, A question was raised about lethal options cheaper than Sharpshooting, one would think this would have been done, but Stanek said he'd look into it.
Captive Bolt, or as they refer to it, "Traps and Euthanasia", is among the cruelest methods, despite its nice name. The deer is caught in a trap, struggles to get free and then is shot with a bolt in the head. The plan mentions that our Animal Warden could do this, he runs a side business in Pepperpike doing it.
Bow Hunting was raised again and it appears the same draft plan was added to the end of this new plan. Our former police chief and our former deer sharpshooter (White Buffalo) both criticized this option. Russo said it won't be people "running around with bows and arrows", actually crossbows are more deadly. It was also implied that large areas would be used, but Stanek said that was unnecessary when he discussed this a few months ago.
The implication was that this deadly activity would be on large remote lands. The last program had nearly 70 kill sites, one may be near you!
The city's target deer population is 206-309, a new all time low that will require killing over 700 deer the first year,
The city mentioned other local communities with deer killing plans including ---
A copy of the plan is on Solon's web site here. The meeting video is here, Deer Mgt starts at 28 min in. The issue is covered as Deer Management under the Residents tab here.
Councilman Russo stated the deer are starving. He has seen them. Is he a wildlife biologist? Agents of the ODNR have stated they have had no reports of starving wild deer in the state of Ohio. There are also locations in the US with healthy herds at population densities of more than 200 deer/square mile.
FACT: Deer metabolism is different from human metabolism. According to deer biologists, deer adjust their caloric intake by the season. In the fall they eat to put on weight, and in winter their metabolism adjusts to the diminished available food and they eat less. Even when food is abundant, a typical white-tail deer in northern latitudes will lose 20% of its body weight by spring. In other words: Deer get skinny in the winter. It has nothing to do with overpopulation.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources says the herd is healthier than ever. Mike Tonkavich is a biologist with O.D.N.R. and helps track and count deer.
Anthony DeNicola of White Buffalo,Inc., was contracted by The City of Solon from 2005 - 2009 for both his biology degree and "sharpshooting skills".
In his summary report for 2005, his first year in Solon, he reported our herd as being healthy... prior to the first season of killing, when our numbers were approximately 1,000.
At 52 min into the Safety Meeting we saw the city ready to spend $180K to repeat a failed "solution" to a problem they can't even articulate. They killed deer for 5 years at over $ 3/4 million and the deer are still here, while they ignore cheaper more effective non-lethal methods. They talk about "doing it" and "deer problem" but they can't even say exactly what the problem is, but that doesn't stop them from having a solution. They want to spend $30K to count the deer they've already decided to kill, why? They also got only one qoute, shouldn't there be a competitive bid? They are counting deer in Glenwillow, but can't say why? Are we killing their deer for free, just like they got cheap fire protection, then refused to pay us a fair price? Hunter Stanek asked US govt groups who are paid by how much killing they do and guess what they advised? Hunting. And what tactics did they use FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt and outright lies. They mentioned Lyme disease which isn't an Ohio problem. They said deer get "aclaimated" to Streiter Lites, despite Kraus' observation, despite 10 year studies showing their effectiveness for the whole time with large herds of deer and elk in Montana. Does that mean Solon deer are smarter than Montana deer? Or more likely they think Solonites are to dumb not to question them. For more information on this topic Web:http://SolonDeer.com/ Blog:http://blog.solondeer.com/ email:SolonDeer@gmail.com
While the city is busy "managing deer" who's managing them?
Typically Solon has not placed limits on public comment although there is a provision in the charter that gives the chair discretion to limit comments to 5 minutes or not have public comments at all. In practice these "gag" rules are only invoked for "hot" issues.
Last month's Safety Meeting on allowing Hunting in the city caused the usual few attendees to ballon to over 35 and also included print media as well as TV.
Russo, the chair of the Safety Committee responded to the large crowd by instituting a 2 min limit (down from the charter's 5 min) and a 30 min max (no such provision in the charter). For this he was roundly criticized even by his political supporters.
This month's meeting, Public Works Commissioner Stanek brought in the ODOW and USDA to speak of a comprehensive plan for nearly 1 hr consisting of all maner of lethal methods while quickly dismissing non-lethal methods. At no time did any city official address the huge costs of lethal methods compared to the lower costs and higher effectiveness of non-lethal methods.
After this very bias presentation, by people who get their funding by Hunting, Russo allowed the citizens to speak for 30 min. After 20 min, he halted the discussion. To his credit, and no doubt because of political pressure, he did allow each of the 4 people to speak for 5 minutes each. He even allowed the citizens to ask questions, many weren't answered but at least they were asked on the record.
This in combination with Councilman Toni Richmond's lack of tolerance for questioning of her Bainbridge Rd Sidewalk Survey and her suggestion that Council limit public speech is a disturbing trend of intolerance to the citizens to whom they represent. Both these councilman come up for re-election this year. How ironic the city is holding it's first annual tolerance fair this Sunday, will city officials learn to be tolerant of their own constituents differing views?
