Camden will sue a local homeowner who feeds wild birds at his home despite several warnings from the town that he’s allegedly violating local rules and has contributed to a rat infestation in his neighborhood.
While Camden allows residents to feed “songbirds using well-maintained bird feeders,” local rules prohibit scattering birdseed and other food that could attract wild animals.
On Tuesday night, the Select Board voted 3-0 to file legal action against Gian-Angelo Gallace of 11 Chestnut Hill, after he allegedly continued to feed wild birds despite entering a consent agreement with the town last fall meant to address the rat infestation at his home.
While other Maine communities have also dealt with rat infestations in recent years — with a warming climate and an increase in backyard chickens possibly helping the vermin to spread — the fact that Camden is going to court shows how serious the alleged problem has become at one particular property.
Since the most recent agreement with Gallace was approved in September, the town has received additional complaints about him feeding birds this winter, and it issued him a notice of violation in February that required him to stop doing so by March 8, according to local records.
Since March, he has allegedly not responded to repeated communications from Fire Chief and Public Health Officer Chris Farley. Officials and neighbors have repeatedly argued that Gallace is creating a public health risk because of the diseases that rodents can carry.
Town Manager Audra Caler said residents usually comply with such notices.
“This is a very unfortunate circumstance, where truly, all we want is voluntary compliance,” she said. “We’ve received it, intermittently, but not consistently. We haven’t been able to contact the property owner and get them to sign a consent agreement, so really, our only option is to go to court and impose fines.”
Legal fees can range from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, town attorney Bill Kelly said.
Kelly referred to Gallace as a “repeat offender who complies when pressured, but doesn’t communicate, and then does it again.”
“We’re going to get an injunction so that he can’t keep doing it,” Kelly said, “since it keeps happening and he isn’t terribly cooperative.”
Town Select Board member Alison McKellar expressed her hesitancy to vote yes on the measure, declaring herself “compassionate to the person and cause,” but ultimately went along with the vote, as it could not be passed without a unanimous agreement due to the absence of one member of the board.
“This is not contained on his property in terms of the consequence. This is not your typical situation where you got the property owner who’s the king of their castle,” Kelly said in response to McKellar’s comment. “This is bleeding over into the neighboring properties. This is a different situation.”
Gallace did not speak at Tuesday night’s meeting. According to the Midcoast Villager, he has pushed back against the claims that his birdfeeding is attracting rats to his neighborhood, which is roughly three-quarters of a mile south of downtown.
“Until the town of Camden can legitimately demonstrate that rats are present, I will continue to responsibly feed birds at 11 Chestnut Hill Street at least through the cold winter month,” Gallace said in a letter to Farley in February.
It was not made immediately clear when the lawsuit would be finalized and filed.
This is not the first intervention that Camden has made to try to control vermin in Gallace’s neighborhood. The town also had to work with him to remediate infestations in 2018 and between 2020 and 2021, officials have said.
After the rat problem got to what officials say was its worst point last summer, they reached the consent agreement in September that required him to remove bird feed, clear fallen brush from his yard, close all spaces where they could burrow, set traps and exterminate them.
