The brainstorm of a hedge-fund multi-millionaire to have goats roaming through Detroit's Brightmoor neighborhood, munching on the tall grass, lasted all of one day.
City officials told Mark Spitznagel, left, president of Miami-based Universa Investments, to butt out, Louis Aguilar reports in the Detroit News.
Spitznagel was not on the scene, but Leonard Pollara, a consultant to the project, told Aguilar: “We have been working on this idea for more than a year, and we’ve gotten much neighborhood support. It’s a philanthropic effort.”
But even the guy who runs a $6 billion hedge fund apparently forgot to check with the city. Ordinance 6-1-3 bans farm and wild animals. Officials showed up Friday afternoon and ordered Pollara to remove the animals. The goats’ owner also may be fined.
Katrease Stafford reports in the Free Press that Pollara said the goat promoters want to sit down with the mayor and city council and discuss the need to change the ordinance.
On Thursday 20 billy goats were brought to graze among abandoned homes and general detritus in Detroit's Brightmoor neighborhood, wrote Alexandra Stevenson in the New York Times, who has the first report of the goats.
“It’s an urban farming experiment,” Spitznagel told The Times. “Goats are an effective way to do landscaping.”
Spitznagel is known as a “doomsday investor” who bets on market calamity. His brother Eric Spitznagel wrote in the Times last week that Mark and his family had been living in a California French villa that is surrounded by a moat. It was once owned by Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony.
The Spitznagels grew up in Northport, where Mark today owns a goat herd.
