The late Jesse helms must be smiling. He might get his fence around Chapel Hill, after all.

Helms, the conservative U.S. Senator, once quipped during debate on whether the state should build a state zoo, ”Why build a zoo when we can just put up a fence around Chapel Hill?”

To Helms, of course, Chapel Hill already was a “zoo” and he wanted to keep all the liberal creatures penned up. But now it is the Chapel Hill council that is talking up a fence around the town, this time to keep wild things out.

Council member Mark Kleinschmidt brought up the idea of a fence to keep deer out of town, said the Chapel Hill News:

“If the deer aren’t thinned they’re going to die in another way,” he said. If deer are traveling along certain corridor, the town could even consider a physical barrier like the “Rabbit-Proof Fence,” he said, a reference to the 2,000-mile long fence Australia built in the early 1900s to keep rabbits out of the western part of the country…

Deer represent a real problem for the council, which always is reluctant to disturb any creature with the possible exception of taxpayers. In addition to the fence, the council discussed deer birth control, presumably on a massive scale, and rejected the idea of an archery season.

Good fences, it is said, make good neighbors. What they keep out they also keep in. Ol’ Jesse would approve. Posted by Leroy Towns

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Government, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.