<description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This interview was conducted on January 23, 2023. If you’d like to comment, feel free to add yourself as a &lt;/em&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="https://shelbyvilleidea.substack.com/subscribe"&gt;&lt;em&gt;paid subscriber&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;em&gt;, join our &lt;/em&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/shelbyvilleidea"&gt;&lt;em&gt;Facebook group&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;em&gt;, or respond on &lt;/em&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="https://www.twitter.com/ShelbyIdea"&gt;&lt;em&gt;Twitter&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;em&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The transcript below was generated electronically. Some errors may remain. Please send any corrections to ShelbyvilleIdea - at - iCloud - dot - com.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Caleb O. Brown&lt;/strong&gt;: Sally Pollett Zaring.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sally Pollett Zaring:&lt;/strong&gt; Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Tell me about yourself. I am relatively new to Shelbyville, Kentucky and I am just now learning about the people to know. You come highly recommended by several people who as far as I know do not know each other, and you're a new member of the City Council, so I can't ask you about terrible votes that you've made in the past because you haven't made...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Those are coming maybe&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Maybe they're coming but, so tell us about your background and what... Just, what do I need to know about Shelbyville?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Well, I'm a small town girl, so I grew up here and actually just a little bit down the road, but I went away to college and I was gonna be a geologist and decided that I couldn't talk to rocks all day. People are my jam. So I changed my major to education, and both of my parents are teachers, my... They still are teaching in some way or another, but teaching was a calling for me because I'm all about building relationships, so I studied in Charleston in College of Charleston and at Vanderbilt and got some degrees there, but I wanted to come back to my hometown to serve as an educator into the town that I love, met my husband on a blind date, who grew up a little bit down the road from me, I didn't know him 'cause he's a little bit older, but... You know, we won't disclose ages.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[laughter]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Good. That's much appreciated.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yeah, yeah. But... So I've been at Painted Stone teaching for the last 21 years. I was there the first day the school opened and never wanna leave, so I think through COVID, a lot of us had time to sit and reflect and think about how we wanna change the world and what we want to do to make our little world better and teaching is not something that I want to change or leave, but I thought about how I could serve the public in other ways, so city council and local government is what I thought I could do to help make an impact. It's real important to me that I build relationships with the people that I work with, and so I've had several years of getting really close to families that I work with through school, and I noticed that there were some people new to town that didn't know everything Shelbyville had to offer, you know, the coolest tailor in town or the local coffee shop, the story behind those things, and so I found myself sharing my love for the town with the new families that moved in, but also I've been able to kind of get older families that have been here connected to resources that they need or get their kids involved with the library and the parks and things, so I thought this would be a good balance for me to serve outside of school and still serve the two things I'm passionate about, people and my town.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Well, I have yet to adequately prepare the list of questions that I want to ask everyone in government, and you're new to government, so I will write those questions and reserve those for other people.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; [laughter] Great.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“… we want to have a healthy community where people are active and involved and connected, and also I feel like our downtown is a really ... That's the heartbeat of our town …”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sally Pollett Zaring&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; But, why City Council? Why not fiscal court? Why not something else? Is this a stepping stone or is this just like, this seems like a logical next step for you?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Well, I think City Council is a little bit smaller than fiscal court. My dad served on fiscal court for 16 years, and so that's kind of his arena, and I wanted to do something a little different, but I feel like the last few months have been so inspiring and have sparked new passions within me that I didn't know. I mean, who thinks you're gonna get excited learning about code enforcement and cost of living adjustments. We don't talk about this in my kindergarten classroom, but... So there has been this fire that is burning inside of me, so I feel really blessed that I have this opportunity to serve in this manner, and I'll see where it goes, I would love to serve again in two years, we'll see, but it's just really been exciting.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; For those who are unfamiliar or don't live in Kentucky, don't understand how the city government works in Kentucky, what is the purview of the City Council and what is the relationship that the City Council has with the mayor?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; So in Kentucky, we have... Our county government consists of our judge executive and our magistrates, and so they make... They are divided into regions, and each magistrate represents a small region of the county, the city is represented in fiscal court through... Each magistrate has a little piece of the city that they represent, however, the smaller government is our city government and that's our city council, so we have our six council members and our mayor, and people typically explain it as... Or they usually will say, "Oh, you work for the mayor." No, we work together. And so with that...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; And I suspect at times you also work against the mayor.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Well, you know, I haven't had that experience, but I'm sure that has happened in the past perhaps. So with the council, our six members are the ones that do make the ordinances and the orders, the mayor will bring suggestions and topics and has put us on committees and divided the council into different groups, you know, made us a part of different committees to be involved within the city, so that way we have a little pulse on what's going on in the city and we can respond and share information with the mayor to help make decisions collectively. So we could come up with a suggestion for an ordinance and the council members along with the city attorney would help write the language for the ordinance, and we would vote on it together. Now, since we're a six member team, there's occasion we could be split, and that's when we need the mayor to help break that tie.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; So the mayor is Vice President of the United States in the sense that he only gets to vote on special occasions.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yes, yes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Okay, great, and then... So when you run for office, as I understand it, you're a quite popular person, of the people that I've talked to who know you, they say, "Oh, I love her," and... So that's...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Well, I just surround myself with good people, that's the...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Okay. Well, there you go. But when you come in office, I can imagine someone like you could run for office and it would be, "I, Sally, I'm running for office," and they're like, "Oh well, great, I'll support you," but other people would have to run on something, which is to say they'd have to run on, "I wanna do X, Y and Z in Shelbyville." To the extent that that was the case, what did you run on?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; So my lens, I have tried to keep. So I wanna make this a town that I'm proud to have my family in and I want other people to feel that way, so there's a lot of pieces of that, public safety, we wanna have a town that has police and fire and all of our services are fully funded to the best of our capability, but also we wanna have a great park system, we want to have a healthy community where people are active and involved and connected, and also I feel like our downtown is a really... That's the heartbeat of our town, and downtown Shelbyville is what gives us that unique look and that's our special stamp on Kentucky, there's no other town like Shelbyville in downtown. So I really want to preserve the things that make us unique and make us special, but also just enhance some things and think about some tweaks that we can make to make these things better for everybody, a town you're proud to call home.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; So one of the questions I've been kicking around to ask essentially everyone in government, one of those questions really boils down to, what can Shelbyville do as a matter of policy to make itself more welcoming to new Shelbyvillians?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; That's a great question. I think one thing that we have done that I would like to continue is we have a committee called the Downtown Reinvestment Fund, and that is part of City Council's budget in which we are putting money aside to invest in our buildings, historic vacant buildings downtown to attract businesses, so that's a matching grant, if there's a new business that wants to come in town, they can apply for this grant, and we as a city can help get them... You know, they buy the building, they put their business there and after the project is complete, we are able to provide them with a matching grant up to a certain amount of money, of course, but...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Who owns those buildings?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Those are private owners. So any of the buildings that are vacant downtown around our Main Street and Washington and all of the cool areas around Sixth Street too... Yeah, there are a lot of vacant buildings that don't have businesses in them, so I would like to continue to see money go towards those things, helping small business owners, but also helping keep that vibe and enhance that vibe of our downtown. I think that's one thing that would be important to keep within our budget, but also ordinances that are attractive to small businesses.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Okay, what about new residents?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Ordinances for new residents?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; No, I mean making Shelbyville more attractive to be more welcoming. How can Shelbyville be more welcoming to new Shelbyvillians?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; I think... I would say probably one of the most important things I feel is the safety... I think a lot of us feel safe here, and as we are a growing community, I would like to see that continue, so I think safety and funding things for safety is important, but also there are some ordinances that may seem a little tedious or annoying but could be helpful. When you think of code enforcement and ordinances that can help make sure that your neighborhood is safe and things are kept up, I'm a landlord, and it's one of my side gigs, I have a lot of rental properties, so I don't want ordinances that make it hard to be a landlord, but I do think that there are things that we can put in place to keep your area safe and to keep people being good neighbors that get along well, so that's a line to kind of walk.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but was it Shelbyville or Shelby County that prohibited backyard chickens? Was that...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; That has come up, and I believe that there is an ordinance that tells you how many chickens you can have, but I need to fact check on that, I just got a new binder.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Oh, you just got your binder, okay.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Oh mercy, it's big.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; I will ask for follow-up on that because in these trying economic times, people like me, every chicken egg is... They are $35 now at a store each. &lt;strong&gt;[&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;Editor’s note: This is a joke. We know eggs aren’t really that expensive.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt;]&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Exactly, right.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; And now is the time to legalize backyard chickens.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm 100% serious about this.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; And I appreciate you coming down here. I didn't mean to put you on the spot on this particular issue, but there's a lot of people in my neighborhood who would love to have eggs from one of my backyard chickens that I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to have.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[laughter]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; That would be good. And you know, I'm not sure the answer to that, but I would need to know. Another ordinance that I think would be helpful, that would be attractive to residents and small businesses, I would like to revisit that idea of developing an entertainment district right around the heart of downtown, we could start small with Sixth Street, and that area would allow for you to be outside and be responsible with an open container or a beverage. So I don't see this as being, you know, party zone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; New Orleans?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yeah. [laughter] We don't really need to make it like New Orleans. No, thanks. Not Bourbon Street, but maybe Sixth Street. There're some businesses that have been interested in coming to those areas and they wanna have an outdoor patio, so now restaurants like La Cocina downtown can have an outdoor patio out back and their argument is, "Hey, what if we had an outdoor patio out front?" Well, the way our ordinance is written now, they wouldn't be allowed to do that, but if they were within an entertainment district, you could have a beverage outside of your restaurant or your establishment right there, and that would take some extra planning and thinking through, like we would need... Right now, our ABC officer is Chief Gentry, our police chief, but perhaps we need to find someone outside of him to make that their specific focus and job, that could help.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Well, I mean, couldn't you just get rid of the ordinance that prevents people from having outdoor seating at their restaurant?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; I think... I just finished this training last week, I think we could amend it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Okay, okay, all right.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Right? Yeah, I think, based on my nerdy notes, I think that could be the route.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Alright. If you don't wanna answer any question, you can just say, it is my first day and then...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yeah. [laughter] It's my first month. Okay.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Fair enough. Fair enough. We will revisit this and the backyard chickens, but...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; I would love to eat outside in front of a restaurant.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yeah. Right.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; It sounds great. And one question I had that's... Maybe you haven't gotten into this, but Washington Street and Main Street in Shelbyville, they are state roads.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; They are.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; So to what extent do you have to then interact with Frankfort in order to do things to Main street or Washington street?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Yes. So they are federal highways as well.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Interesting.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; And so that's part of the difficulty because you can't take an alcoholic beverage across a federal highway.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[laughter]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; So you could have an event at the Stargazer and have that regulated and a safe and secure area, if there was a concert and the barrel room could sell refreshments, adult beverages, and if we had an entertainment ordinance or a district there through an ordinance, perhaps people could come from the barrel room, walk up to the concert and go back, they could not cross over to McKinley's and get a great cookie.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; And there's nothing the city can do about that one way or another.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; No, no. Maybe you could teleport yourself, but that wouldn't be safe. So I think that there are several of us on the council that are curious and just wanna look into what we could do to help have those experiences, and I'm a pretty old-fashioned girl in a lot of ways, so I get the argument that we want downtown to be safe and we want downtown to be family-friendly, and I think that there are other cities that have done this, that have maintained that safe feeling and have made it a good experience for even people with young children, so we just need to learn. We need to learn.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Yeah, I have heard, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, in the city of Shelbyville, the limits on how large of a lot you can buy or the minimum lot sizes for home construction, that's one thing, but if you're buying outside the city limits, the minimum is... Is it true, five acres to build a home?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; I believe so. I believe... There are areas zoned that way, that when you break up a farm... But I do feel like you have to change the zoning in that area if you are, let's say, breaking up a farm and you are gonna build different size lots, that's a zoning change.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Right. Questions related to that, because I'm definitely... I'm pro-housing in a very significant way, and zoning is one of those infringements on our liberty that we accept in order to have all manner of good things we assume.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Right.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; The argument that has been presented that I've heard, and again, this is... You're the first guest so you're getting a lot of my pent up questions right now, but I'll be asking them to some of your compadres soon enough, but it struck me that the argument is, we're trying to preserve farmland, and I thought anybody who's buying five acres to plop a house down in the middle of it, they're not farmers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Right.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; And it seems to me if you're trying to preserve farmland, somebody who would be just as happy with a quarter-acre lot shouldn't be compelled to buy five acres.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Right. I feel the same way. It's really tricky because I have a family of farmers, my husband, they've had seven generations on the same farm office, Mayfield Road, and that's what my son wants to do when he grows up. He wants to farm. So I feel that because I think that Shelby County is so special and unique because we have a beautiful blend of agriculture and small businesses and some larger businesses, but they have complemented each other in the years, our horse industry and now our bourbon industry, we need farmland for these distilleries to move in, so there are... And we need the corn that they need for their bourbon as well, so that's a mix and that's a blend, and I think that a lot of five-acre lots, will put 20 people on...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Absolutely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; A 100 acre farm, which you could put... Yeah, you could put multifamily housing there to change it. So I kind of... My thought, and this is... Maybe my view is jaded because I think about the next generation of farmers that wanna farm. I have that lens with somebody in my house that wants to grow up and do it, but I think it's helpful to build from within to keep our housing kind of tight to our city and then as we annex or if we stretch out a little bit or if we don't annex and that new neighborhood comes out in the county close within the city lines, I think that is helpful for farmers because I think when you put a neighborhood next to a 200-acre farm, how is a young farmer gonna be able to afford that land? Right now we have land out in the county that is reasonable enough for a farmer, but if you put a neighborhood around it, the price of land around it skyrockets and small farmers don't have a chance.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Well, I wonder about that because if you... Let's say you have a bunch of people who wanna move to Shelby County and their only option for the kind of housing they want to build, new housing, is to buy a five-acre lot, I wonder what that does to your tax base in like 20 years.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“I think that Shelby County is so special and unique because we have a beautiful blend of agriculture and small businesses and some larger businesses, but they have complemented each other in the years, our horse industry and now our bourbon industry …”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;- Sally Pollett Zaring&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Right, right. And we already have worries with just the age, I think after you reach the age of 65, you become a homesteader and you don't pay the property taxes that you did before, and that's income that city and county government need. So there's a lot of pencil to paper that needs to be done to think about what this is gonna look like as our demographics change, and as we age, I don't age, but I think other people might. I don't know.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; I do. I do. I'll cop to it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[laughter]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm just kidding.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Sally Pollett Zaring, thank you very much. And once again...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Thank you for being so brave and being the first guest here, I expect...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; I'm honored that you asked.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; I will soon have interviews with all of your fellow city council members because city council interviews are like Pokemon, you got to catch them all.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ:&lt;/strong&gt; That's right. They're good people. They're worth catching.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;COB:&lt;/strong&gt; Thank you.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;SPZ: &lt;/strong&gt;Thank you.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit &lt;a href="https://shelbyvilleidea.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&amp;#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1"&gt;shelbyvilleidea.substack.com&lt;/a&gt;</description>

The Shelbyville Idea Podcast

Caleb O. Brown

Backyard Chickens, Partying Downtown, and Zoning with Sally Pollett Zaring (Episode 1)

MAY 1, 202326 MIN
The Shelbyville Idea Podcast

Backyard Chickens, Partying Downtown, and Zoning with Sally Pollett Zaring (Episode 1)

MAY 1, 202326 MIN

Description

<p><em>This interview was conducted on January 23, 2023. If you’d like to comment, feel free to add yourself as a </em><a target="_blank" href="https://shelbyvilleidea.substack.com/subscribe"><em>paid subscriber</em></a><em>, join our </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/shelbyvilleidea"><em>Facebook group</em></a><em>, or respond on </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.twitter.com/ShelbyIdea"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>.</em></p><p><em>The transcript below was generated electronically. Some errors may remain. Please send any corrections to ShelbyvilleIdea - at - iCloud - dot - com.</em></p><p><strong>Caleb O. Brown</strong>: Sally Pollett Zaring.</p><p><strong>Sally Pollett Zaring:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Tell me about yourself. I am relatively new to Shelbyville, Kentucky and I am just now learning about the people to know. You come highly recommended by several people who as far as I know do not know each other, and you're a new member of the City Council, so I can't ask you about terrible votes that you've made in the past because you haven't made...</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Those are coming maybe</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Maybe they're coming but, so tell us about your background and what... Just, what do I need to know about Shelbyville?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Well, I'm a small town girl, so I grew up here and actually just a little bit down the road, but I went away to college and I was gonna be a geologist and decided that I couldn't talk to rocks all day. People are my jam. So I changed my major to education, and both of my parents are teachers, my... They still are teaching in some way or another, but teaching was a calling for me because I'm all about building relationships, so I studied in Charleston in College of Charleston and at Vanderbilt and got some degrees there, but I wanted to come back to my hometown to serve as an educator into the town that I love, met my husband on a blind date, who grew up a little bit down the road from me, I didn't know him 'cause he's a little bit older, but... You know, we won't disclose ages.</p><p>[laughter]</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Good. That's much appreciated.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yeah, yeah. But... So I've been at Painted Stone teaching for the last 21 years. I was there the first day the school opened and never wanna leave, so I think through COVID, a lot of us had time to sit and reflect and think about how we wanna change the world and what we want to do to make our little world better and teaching is not something that I want to change or leave, but I thought about how I could serve the public in other ways, so city council and local government is what I thought I could do to help make an impact. It's real important to me that I build relationships with the people that I work with, and so I've had several years of getting really close to families that I work with through school, and I noticed that there were some people new to town that didn't know everything Shelbyville had to offer, you know, the coolest tailor in town or the local coffee shop, the story behind those things, and so I found myself sharing my love for the town with the new families that moved in, but also I've been able to kind of get older families that have been here connected to resources that they need or get their kids involved with the library and the parks and things, so I thought this would be a good balance for me to serve outside of school and still serve the two things I'm passionate about, people and my town.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Well, I have yet to adequately prepare the list of questions that I want to ask everyone in government, and you're new to government, so I will write those questions and reserve those for other people.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> [laughter] Great.</p><p><p>“… we want to have a healthy community where people are active and involved and connected, and also I feel like our downtown is a really ... That's the heartbeat of our town …”</p><p>Sally Pollett Zaring</p></p><p><strong>COB:</strong> But, why City Council? Why not fiscal court? Why not something else? Is this a stepping stone or is this just like, this seems like a logical next step for you?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Well, I think City Council is a little bit smaller than fiscal court. My dad served on fiscal court for 16 years, and so that's kind of his arena, and I wanted to do something a little different, but I feel like the last few months have been so inspiring and have sparked new passions within me that I didn't know. I mean, who thinks you're gonna get excited learning about code enforcement and cost of living adjustments. We don't talk about this in my kindergarten classroom, but... So there has been this fire that is burning inside of me, so I feel really blessed that I have this opportunity to serve in this manner, and I'll see where it goes, I would love to serve again in two years, we'll see, but it's just really been exciting.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> For those who are unfamiliar or don't live in Kentucky, don't understand how the city government works in Kentucky, what is the purview of the City Council and what is the relationship that the City Council has with the mayor?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> So in Kentucky, we have... Our county government consists of our judge executive and our magistrates, and so they make... They are divided into regions, and each magistrate represents a small region of the county, the city is represented in fiscal court through... Each magistrate has a little piece of the city that they represent, however, the smaller government is our city government and that's our city council, so we have our six council members and our mayor, and people typically explain it as... Or they usually will say, "Oh, you work for the mayor." No, we work together. And so with that...</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> And I suspect at times you also work against the mayor.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Well, you know, I haven't had that experience, but I'm sure that has happened in the past perhaps. So with the council, our six members are the ones that do make the ordinances and the orders, the mayor will bring suggestions and topics and has put us on committees and divided the council into different groups, you know, made us a part of different committees to be involved within the city, so that way we have a little pulse on what's going on in the city and we can respond and share information with the mayor to help make decisions collectively. So we could come up with a suggestion for an ordinance and the council members along with the city attorney would help write the language for the ordinance, and we would vote on it together. Now, since we're a six member team, there's occasion we could be split, and that's when we need the mayor to help break that tie.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> So the mayor is Vice President of the United States in the sense that he only gets to vote on special occasions.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yes, yes.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Okay, great, and then... So when you run for office, as I understand it, you're a quite popular person, of the people that I've talked to who know you, they say, "Oh, I love her," and... So that's...</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Well, I just surround myself with good people, that's the...</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Okay. Well, there you go. But when you come in office, I can imagine someone like you could run for office and it would be, "I, Sally, I'm running for office," and they're like, "Oh well, great, I'll support you," but other people would have to run on something, which is to say they'd have to run on, "I wanna do X, Y and Z in Shelbyville." To the extent that that was the case, what did you run on?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> So my lens, I have tried to keep. So I wanna make this a town that I'm proud to have my family in and I want other people to feel that way, so there's a lot of pieces of that, public safety, we wanna have a town that has police and fire and all of our services are fully funded to the best of our capability, but also we wanna have a great park system, we want to have a healthy community where people are active and involved and connected, and also I feel like our downtown is a really... That's the heartbeat of our town, and downtown Shelbyville is what gives us that unique look and that's our special stamp on Kentucky, there's no other town like Shelbyville in downtown. So I really want to preserve the things that make us unique and make us special, but also just enhance some things and think about some tweaks that we can make to make these things better for everybody, a town you're proud to call home.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> So one of the questions I've been kicking around to ask essentially everyone in government, one of those questions really boils down to, what can Shelbyville do as a matter of policy to make itself more welcoming to new Shelbyvillians?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> That's a great question. I think one thing that we have done that I would like to continue is we have a committee called the Downtown Reinvestment Fund, and that is part of City Council's budget in which we are putting money aside to invest in our buildings, historic vacant buildings downtown to attract businesses, so that's a matching grant, if there's a new business that wants to come in town, they can apply for this grant, and we as a city can help get them... You know, they buy the building, they put their business there and after the project is complete, we are able to provide them with a matching grant up to a certain amount of money, of course, but...</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Who owns those buildings?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Those are private owners. So any of the buildings that are vacant downtown around our Main Street and Washington and all of the cool areas around Sixth Street too... Yeah, there are a lot of vacant buildings that don't have businesses in them, so I would like to continue to see money go towards those things, helping small business owners, but also helping keep that vibe and enhance that vibe of our downtown. I think that's one thing that would be important to keep within our budget, but also ordinances that are attractive to small businesses.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Okay, what about new residents?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Ordinances for new residents?</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> No, I mean making Shelbyville more attractive to be more welcoming. How can Shelbyville be more welcoming to new Shelbyvillians?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> I think... I would say probably one of the most important things I feel is the safety... I think a lot of us feel safe here, and as we are a growing community, I would like to see that continue, so I think safety and funding things for safety is important, but also there are some ordinances that may seem a little tedious or annoying but could be helpful. When you think of code enforcement and ordinances that can help make sure that your neighborhood is safe and things are kept up, I'm a landlord, and it's one of my side gigs, I have a lot of rental properties, so I don't want ordinances that make it hard to be a landlord, but I do think that there are things that we can put in place to keep your area safe and to keep people being good neighbors that get along well, so that's a line to kind of walk.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but was it Shelbyville or Shelby County that prohibited backyard chickens? Was that...</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> That has come up, and I believe that there is an ordinance that tells you how many chickens you can have, but I need to fact check on that, I just got a new binder.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Oh, you just got your binder, okay.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Oh mercy, it's big.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> I will ask for follow-up on that because in these trying economic times, people like me, every chicken egg is... They are $35 now at a store each. <strong>[</strong><strong><em>Editor’s note: This is a joke. We know eggs aren’t really that expensive.</em></strong><strong>]</strong></p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Exactly, right.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> And now is the time to legalize backyard chickens.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> I'm 100% serious about this.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> And I appreciate you coming down here. I didn't mean to put you on the spot on this particular issue, but there's a lot of people in my neighborhood who would love to have eggs from one of my backyard chickens that I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to have.</p><p>[laughter]</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> That would be good. And you know, I'm not sure the answer to that, but I would need to know. Another ordinance that I think would be helpful, that would be attractive to residents and small businesses, I would like to revisit that idea of developing an entertainment district right around the heart of downtown, we could start small with Sixth Street, and that area would allow for you to be outside and be responsible with an open container or a beverage. So I don't see this as being, you know, party zone.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> New Orleans?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yeah. [laughter] We don't really need to make it like New Orleans. No, thanks. Not Bourbon Street, but maybe Sixth Street. There're some businesses that have been interested in coming to those areas and they wanna have an outdoor patio, so now restaurants like La Cocina downtown can have an outdoor patio out back and their argument is, "Hey, what if we had an outdoor patio out front?" Well, the way our ordinance is written now, they wouldn't be allowed to do that, but if they were within an entertainment district, you could have a beverage outside of your restaurant or your establishment right there, and that would take some extra planning and thinking through, like we would need... Right now, our ABC officer is Chief Gentry, our police chief, but perhaps we need to find someone outside of him to make that their specific focus and job, that could help.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Well, I mean, couldn't you just get rid of the ordinance that prevents people from having outdoor seating at their restaurant?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> I think... I just finished this training last week, I think we could amend it.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Okay, okay, all right.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Right? Yeah, I think, based on my nerdy notes, I think that could be the route.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Alright. If you don't wanna answer any question, you can just say, it is my first day and then...</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yeah. [laughter] It's my first month. Okay.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Fair enough. Fair enough. We will revisit this and the backyard chickens, but...</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> I would love to eat outside in front of a restaurant.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yeah. Right.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> It sounds great. And one question I had that's... Maybe you haven't gotten into this, but Washington Street and Main Street in Shelbyville, they are state roads.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> They are.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> So to what extent do you have to then interact with Frankfort in order to do things to Main street or Washington street?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Yes. So they are federal highways as well.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Interesting.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> And so that's part of the difficulty because you can't take an alcoholic beverage across a federal highway.</p><p>[laughter]</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> So you could have an event at the Stargazer and have that regulated and a safe and secure area, if there was a concert and the barrel room could sell refreshments, adult beverages, and if we had an entertainment ordinance or a district there through an ordinance, perhaps people could come from the barrel room, walk up to the concert and go back, they could not cross over to McKinley's and get a great cookie.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> And there's nothing the city can do about that one way or another.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> No, no. Maybe you could teleport yourself, but that wouldn't be safe. So I think that there are several of us on the council that are curious and just wanna look into what we could do to help have those experiences, and I'm a pretty old-fashioned girl in a lot of ways, so I get the argument that we want downtown to be safe and we want downtown to be family-friendly, and I think that there are other cities that have done this, that have maintained that safe feeling and have made it a good experience for even people with young children, so we just need to learn. We need to learn.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Yeah, I have heard, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, in the city of Shelbyville, the limits on how large of a lot you can buy or the minimum lot sizes for home construction, that's one thing, but if you're buying outside the city limits, the minimum is... Is it true, five acres to build a home?</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> I believe so. I believe... There are areas zoned that way, that when you break up a farm... But I do feel like you have to change the zoning in that area if you are, let's say, breaking up a farm and you are gonna build different size lots, that's a zoning change.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Right. Questions related to that, because I'm definitely... I'm pro-housing in a very significant way, and zoning is one of those infringements on our liberty that we accept in order to have all manner of good things we assume.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Right.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> The argument that has been presented that I've heard, and again, this is... You're the first guest so you're getting a lot of my pent up questions right now, but I'll be asking them to some of your compadres soon enough, but it struck me that the argument is, we're trying to preserve farmland, and I thought anybody who's buying five acres to plop a house down in the middle of it, they're not farmers.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Right.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> And it seems to me if you're trying to preserve farmland, somebody who would be just as happy with a quarter-acre lot shouldn't be compelled to buy five acres.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Right. I feel the same way. It's really tricky because I have a family of farmers, my husband, they've had seven generations on the same farm office, Mayfield Road, and that's what my son wants to do when he grows up. He wants to farm. So I feel that because I think that Shelby County is so special and unique because we have a beautiful blend of agriculture and small businesses and some larger businesses, but they have complemented each other in the years, our horse industry and now our bourbon industry, we need farmland for these distilleries to move in, so there are... And we need the corn that they need for their bourbon as well, so that's a mix and that's a blend, and I think that a lot of five-acre lots, will put 20 people on...</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Absolutely.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> A 100 acre farm, which you could put... Yeah, you could put multifamily housing there to change it. So I kind of... My thought, and this is... Maybe my view is jaded because I think about the next generation of farmers that wanna farm. I have that lens with somebody in my house that wants to grow up and do it, but I think it's helpful to build from within to keep our housing kind of tight to our city and then as we annex or if we stretch out a little bit or if we don't annex and that new neighborhood comes out in the county close within the city lines, I think that is helpful for farmers because I think when you put a neighborhood next to a 200-acre farm, how is a young farmer gonna be able to afford that land? Right now we have land out in the county that is reasonable enough for a farmer, but if you put a neighborhood around it, the price of land around it skyrockets and small farmers don't have a chance.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Well, I wonder about that because if you... Let's say you have a bunch of people who wanna move to Shelby County and their only option for the kind of housing they want to build, new housing, is to buy a five-acre lot, I wonder what that does to your tax base in like 20 years.</p><p><p>“I think that Shelby County is so special and unique because we have a beautiful blend of agriculture and small businesses and some larger businesses, but they have complemented each other in the years, our horse industry and now our bourbon industry …”</p><p>- Sally Pollett Zaring</p></p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Right, right. And we already have worries with just the age, I think after you reach the age of 65, you become a homesteader and you don't pay the property taxes that you did before, and that's income that city and county government need. So there's a lot of pencil to paper that needs to be done to think about what this is gonna look like as our demographics change, and as we age, I don't age, but I think other people might. I don't know.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> I do. I do. I'll cop to it.</p><p>[laughter]</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> I'm just kidding.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Sally Pollett Zaring, thank you very much. And once again...</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> Thank you.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Thank you for being so brave and being the first guest here, I expect...</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> I'm honored that you asked.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> I will soon have interviews with all of your fellow city council members because city council interviews are like Pokemon, you got to catch them all.</p><p><strong>SPZ:</strong> That's right. They're good people. They're worth catching.</p><p><strong>COB:</strong> Thank you.</p><p><strong>SPZ: </strong>Thank you.</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://shelbyvilleidea.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">shelbyvilleidea.substack.com</a>