From their own lips:

August 22, 2006
Marty Shane told the audience that "we hear you and we empathize." Addressing the Board he said, "There is a deer problem. But it's not worth 30-50 deer to have so many people upset. I'm out of the game. These people are dead right."

Carmen suggested it be up to individual developments whether or not they want their neighborhoods hunted. He suggested the same democratic, majority wins approach that the Township currently uses when deciding whether or not to install speed bumps in a development. Carmen then stated that he did not want to waste more time "for a couple of deer."

[Marty Shane] said hunting would not be effective if done in a piecemeal fashion.

September 19, 2006
Don explained [an opt-out option] would involve taking a poll of each household, which is simply not possible. Carmen stated that he is in favor of an opt-out program, and recommended that neighbors sit down and talk to each other to decide whether their neighborhood would support a hunt or not.

July 10, 2007
Joe would like to know what the Township can accomplish in the 20% of the land mass the Township controls. He also wants to know the potential for success of each deer control method mentioned in the report.

July 17, 2007
Joe said that the Township can't have a successful hunting program unless the large private property owners in the Township also participate.

July 24, 2007
Rick advised that the Township only owns or controls a small percentage of the land in the Township.

OCTOBER 23, 2007
Jim raised the issue of surrounding townships. If they do nothing, then the deer will immigrate back into East Goshen, so this would have to be an ongoing program.

[Joe] feels the township doesn't own enough of the open space to make an impact, so private landowners will have to be involved.

November 13, 2007
Marty said he's of the opinion that a hunting program won't do any good without a high level of participation from private landowners, because any deer that are killed will quickly be replaced with others.

January 22, 2008
Don said he did some independent research that showed the DMC's recommendation to hunt only on Township open space -- if implemented -- will effectively have limited impact on the herd size.

February 5, 2008
Marty stated that he is in favor of the Board implementing a full hunting program to reduce the deer herd in the Township, or dropping the whole thing, with no in-between. He said that having a limited hunt that will yield at best 40 deer (assuming none of the four neighborhoods opt out), is not worth all the angst and public backlash and the expense of hiring a Township "deer czar."

February 19, 2008
Joe said that even if the Township hunts all four open spaces, the area covered would still be very small and may not yield a meaningful harvest.

July 22, 2008
Marty said that no other local Townships are hunting their open space because their Boards don't want to go through the pain of the approval process.

Carmen said he was getting irritated with being accused of something when no resident has asked him directly for his opinion. He stated that different views are represented on the Board, and that not everyone on the Board is necessarily in favor of everything about the Deer Management Program in its present state.

And finally:
Marty said the Board members are elected to represent the residents, and they serve for six-year terms. In response to comments that the Board would see results of resident displeasure with their performance at the next election cycle, Marty noted that the Board members get very little negative feedback on the how the Township is run, but if it is true that most residents are displeased with the Board, democracy will win out in the election process. (Marty, you are so right! We will not forget this. Thanks for reminding us - the residents. Too bad you all seem to have forgotten that.)

The above statements were obtained from the Board of Supervisor's Meeting Minutes.


Here you will find a copy of a document we compiled from all the minutes for the last three years in which there were discussions regarding deer.

http://safetyfirstforeastgoshen.org/petitionNotice.asp

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