City: No Public Fireworks Display This Year

No Public Fireworks this year

There’s really no one to hand the torch to and to take that responsibility over. So, we will not have a public fireworks display this year.”

Terry Maas, Ulysses City Councilman

news1@ulyssesnews.com

Ulysses City Council announced at its May 29 meeting there will be no public fireworks display this year. Part of the issue is licensing.

“Both my and Tim (McCauley’s) license has expired,” said council member Terry Maas. “And we had a good run with J&M, but we ran into some issues with equipment, and whatnot, malfunctioning, and kind of left us in a lurch.

“There’s really no one to hand the torch to and to take that responsibility over. So, we will not have a public fireworks display this year.”

Maas added it may disappoint some people, but said it takes a lot of work, adding there needs to be three licensed individuals to shoot off fireworks.

Maas said he received calls after the council passed an ordinance last year allowing the public to shoot off fireworks over an eight-day span.

“Some of us received some calls, and not in favor of doing the eight days of shooting,” Maas said. “And I understand that trying to find a happy medium is not always a popular deal, but it’s probably going to come up at one our future meetings here pretty close before the Fourth.”

He said the state allows fireworks sales year-round, which is something to take into consideration.

“There are some people out there that weren’t real happy with the eight days,” Maas said.

“Why put it on for a vote unless there’s really reasons to?” said Caleb Woods. “You’re never going to make everyone happy.”

The city allowed personal fireworks for three days around the 4th of July for many years before expanding it last year.

Councilman Ken Warner said he made an effort to observe last year and there was not a lot of early firing of fireworks.

“I realize this year you might catch a couple weekends, but we did not have a lot of late early fireworks,” Warner said. “I realize the dog issue for the dog owners, I think if we’re going to make a change, we need to do it after July, in August, and talk about it in August and make a change because the people who sell fireworks bought fireworks based on eight days and they also have their order in already, and I think we’ve got to consider those kinds of issues.”

Warner said to leave it alone, then see what happens this year and revisit it in August.

“You make (a change) now, you really do put the fireworks people with stands, who have bought based on an eight-day sale (in a bind),” Warner said.

The item was not on the agenda, Maas just brought it up during council comments at the end of the meeting, so no action was taken.