Main Street Oshkosh

Modified from an e-mail announcement:

Just a reminder that on Tuesday night (6/30) there will be a forum at City Hall on the topic of deer management. If you want to see changes in the city's deer culling policy, it is important that you come to the meeting and make your voice heard. A brief review of how we got to this point:

*Beginning around early 2008, citizens in the Vulcan Quarry/National Guard Armory area approached the City Council and City Administration about their frustration with damages to their property caused by urban deer.
*The police department surveyed residents in the area and found that a large majority preferred nonlethal solutions to problems caused by deer.
*In May of 2008 the City Council passed a "deer management plan" that included a mix of nonlethal and lethal solutions. The nonlethal solutions, which included a ban on deer feeding and education on how to "deer proof" your garden, were supposed to be given time to work before lethal means would be used.
*In early June of 2008 a speaker from the Humane Society of the United States came to Oshkosh to talk about how to deer proof a garden. Her workshops were poorly promoted and not well attended.
*In December the City Council approved the deer culling procedure, which led to a wave of protests. Sharpshooters were brought to Oshkosh and killed around 6 deer in three attempts. At least one other deer was killed by overfeeding.
*During the spring campaign season, mayoral candidate Paul Esslinger said that he supported the creation of a deer management committee that would be charged with examining a range of options.
*Mayor Esslinger now claims that he wants to have a community forum before creating any committee--thus tomorrow night's meeting.