The Durham City Council has agreed to take under consideration a resolution supporting gay marriage.

Resident Joshua Weaver presented the resolution this afternoon at the council's work session, identifying himself as a gay man and saying homosexuals "are not recognized as equal citizens in this city."

The resolution states support for "same-sex couples to share fully and equally in the rights, responsibilities and commitments of civil marriage" as heterosexuals. It would, though, have no effect on state law.

City attorney Patrick Baker said he would review the resolution and present the council a recommendation April 9.

"'From time to time we resolve to have the legislature change the laws. ... so that's what this would be," Baker said.

Weaver said the resolution has already been endorsed by the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The Durham city council has set April 6 for a public hearing on the way it is elected.

"Let the public discourse begin," said elections director Mike Ashe.

By voting Monday night to hold the public hearing, the council began the process that could change Durham's council elections from a non-partisan primary and general election system to a non-partisan pluraity system.

That means holding one election instead of two — or three, when a runoff primary is needed.

Durham County Board of Elections chairman Ronald Gregory requested the change in a February letter to council members and Mayor Bill Bell.

According to Ashe, the switch would save taxpayers between $170,000 and $180,000 per municipal election year.

"This is purely a way to save money we don't have right now," Ashe told council members Monday.

"We don't believe this helps or hurts anyone, any group, any candidate," he said.

Read more about it in Wednesday's News & Observer.

The Durham city council presented a nine-point agenda to Durham’s legislative delegation Monday, including a resolution supporting restrictions on buying handgun ammunition and an increase in vehicle-registration fees.

Council members also heard a gloomy assessment of the state’s financial condition.

A presentation on the city's budget cuts this morning was — no surprise — dire again. The city needs to whack another $1.7 miilion out of the current year's spending, and next year is stiil presenting a gap of $24 million to $40 million between projected income and outgo.

But one item got councilman Howard Clement's dander up.

$35,889.

City councilman Eugene Brown, known as "Sound-Bite Brown" by some of his colleagues, took his stand on Durham's long-running chicken question just before the council voted last night:

"There is the old expression — philosophical, biological — Which came first, the chicken or the egg?' And that has been debated for centuries. And at times it seems like we have deated this ordinance for centuries.

"But tonight, the question is not Why did the chicken cross the road? but, Will we allow chickens to cross the city line and reside in the city of durham?

"This very long debate that we’ve had, since I guess last summer and beyond, certainly it’s been tiresome at times. I’ve stated obviously there are more important issues. But tonight it’s going to be decided.

"And when you look back, this ordinance we’re talking about, this ordinance is much like an egg: It’s been scrambled, it’s been fried, and tonight it will be hopefully served on a platter sunny side up."

Durham's City Council members really aren't against the environment. They want to see Jordan Lake's water quality improved and protected. It's just some proposed rules they have problems with.

"We have to be careful," said councilman Eugene Brown, that the council's position doesn't come across to the public as "anti-environmental."

After more than an hour of discussion and citizen testimony Monday, the Durham City Council voted to put off deciding the chicken question for another two weeks.

City Council member Eugene Brown, in a Sunday memo to his colleagues, urged bringing the long-running chicken question to resolution when it meets tonight.

Whether to allow city residents to raise hens in their yards has absorbed hours of council meeting time over the past two months, and Brown wrote that that may have given the council an unfavorable image among the taxpaying and voting public.

In part, Brown wrote: "Apparently, [Monday night] our attorney's office will present a compromise to us on some of these issues which have been discussed. This is good for although this is an important item,it may only affect a very small number of our citizens, and we also have more important items to deal with, especially in this economy. If at all possible, I believe we should reach a decision on the hen issue tomorrow night. After a while the public may ascertain that we are only engaged in trivia pursuits, the "fiddling while Rome burned" syndrome. So, regardless if we fry it, scramble it, or poach it, tomorrow night we need to pass it,or close the door on the chicken coop debate."

The council meets at 7 p.m.

City Council member Farad Ali on this afternoon's work session:

"We have an economy that's going to hell and we're talking about chickens."

The so-called "Bullet Ownership Bill" will have to wait.

A Thursday meeting of the city council's legislative committee, at which the bill was due for discussion, was cancelled early Wednesday afternoon.