ALBANY -- Albany chickens, meet dead duck.

As the clock ran out Friday, Mayor Jerry Jennings vetoed legislation that would have legalized the keeping up to five chickens in city backyards, calling the proposal a flawed and "piecemeal approach" to the broader issue of urban agriculture.

Jennings had until Friday to block the measure, which narrowly passed the Common Council by one vote on May 2, and did so arguing the issue would be better dealt with in the context of the city's ongoing comprehensive plan.

"There are enough issues here to raise questions for me," Jennings said. "The city right now is not ready to move forward with this."

But boosters of the chickens movement fumed that Jennings would co-opt one of their central arguments -- that small-scale bird keeping is one component of a more environmentally sustainable city -- and use it against the cause after, they said, he refused for months to meet with them.

"We were denied and ignored and now ultimately undermined," said Michael Guidice, who helped spark the movement with his wife, Jen Pursley, when the city shut down their eight-hen coop in November. "It's indicative of a very sad pattern of leadership in our city, and that has to change."

The mayor's veto -- just the third of his 17-year tenure in City Hall -- sends the ordinance back to the council, where Guidice and others will have to find two more votes to reach the 10-vote supermajority needed to override a mayoral veto.

The ordinance -- modeled after those already on the books elsewhere, including Buffalo and New York City -- would have allowed the city clerk to issue 50 permits for backyard coops, so long as residents first get neighbors' permission and heed a lengthy list of other requirements.

In his veto message, Jennings listed what he said were series of shortcomings in the proposal, including its failure to account for the costs of enforcing it, its failure to explain penalties for violations, its failure to explain the types of hens allowed, its failure to require an insect and rodent control plan and its lack of an anti-slaughtering provision.

But Councilman Dominick Calsolaro, who sponsored the legislation, was quick to ridicule Jennings' reasons as hollow.

"They've had seven months to raise these issues and nobody did," Calsalaro said. "Not one peep from anyone in the administration with any concerns."

Asked why, Jennings said the law's supporters should have sought to meet with him before introducing it and that it was the council's job to do the appropriate research, not his department heads.

"If you're serious about it, do it the right way," Jennings said, prompting a sharp retort from Calsolaro, who said the coalition had thoroughly vetted its proposal and that it was Jennings who was offering excuses, such as cost, without any evidence to back them up.

"To say that research hasn't been done," Calsolaro said. "I think the mayor is talking out of his backside, to be honest with you."

Reaction to Jennings' decision on Twitter, where the chickens campaign took flight over the last six months like no other city issue before it, was swift -- and largely angry.

Boosters vowed to channel their energy and organization to oust Jennings and other officials they view as obstructionist at the polls -- a tone Jennings said they also took with members of his staff, who fielded dozens of phone calls in recent days.

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Calsolaro said he will seek an override vote but may wait until next month in order to discuss strategy with the law's supporters. It's not clear which two of the seven dissenting lawmakers they may hope to win.

Guidice said the group's invitation to meet with Jennings -- hopefully in public -- still stands.

But no matter the outcome, he said, as a proving ground for community organization and mobilization using social media, the chicken movement has already been an unmitigated success and will serve as a blueprint for future campaigns.

"We didn't lose today at all," Guidice said. "The lessons that we learned in the chicken campaign, no matter what the mayor decided, are not lost at all. This is not the end by any stretch of the imagination. It's just the beginning."

Reach Jordan Carleo-Evangelist at 454-5445 or jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com .