By KALIN KROHE
Panhandle Post
At its July 19 meeting, the Alliance City Council approved an amendment of a fireworks ordinance on first reading.
This ordinance would amend the dates and times fireworks can be legally discharged in the city.
"I'm the one that asked to have this put on the agenda," Councilwoman Annora Bentley said. "Because of the amount of people that have been asking me since I've been on council, why we have fireworks in June, why we cannot reduce the number of days to just July, which I think is a nice compromise. They're tired of the noise. They are tired of what it does to their children, their pets; it's a myriad of things. And they're tired of cleaning up the debris in their yard for ten days. And so I would like council to discuss maybe taking it down to July 1 through the fourth as a compromise for the both sides. I did out of due diligence, I have been asking several people that have approached me in the past, new people that have not said anything to me about what their thoughts are on it. I have not come up with one person that has asked me to leave it as it is. They were in favor of being one through four. And I did ask them one thing that I thought maybe would concern you...if they would spend more money if they had more days. And every one of them told me that they only had a certain amount of money allotted. Whether, they spent it in four days, or whether they spent it in ten, they would spend the exact same amount that they had budgeted for it."
Councilman John McGhehey said he has heard some of the public comments about noise as well.
"I think cutting it from ten days to four days is a pretty drastic change considering how many people look forward to it," McGhehey said. "And obviously, a lot of people look forward to the fireworks based on the amount of fireworks that we hear every year. And so I think getting it down to four days is just too much. I'd be open to maybe a change from 10 days, which is what the Nebraska statute allows. But looking around the area, you know, we would certainly be an outlier if we cut that down as far as four days compared to communities in our area."
Alliance Mayor Mike Dafney said he's asked around the community too.
"I haven't had one person tell me not to cut it because that was too long. I told them that it was on the agenda, it was four days and everybody I talked to thought is was great. I agree with I think four days in July."
Councilman Earl Jones also agreed with the ordinance being changed to four days. McGheyhey doesn't agree.
"There's groups that use it as fundraisers, and I don't agree that people are going to spend the same amount of money, because I think some people go back and forth...and over and over again, and maybe kind of forget how much they spend," McGheyhey said. "I think that argument doesn't work too much with me that they're going to spend the same amount of money in four days that they would over ten. I think starting as early as June 24, might be too early. I would be open to a compromise of maybe seven days."
Mayor Dafney has heard that there has been firework debris on houses, tops of cars, in backyards, etc. He said some damage has been done.
"I did have several requests of just having them on July 4," Bentley said. " And it was my idea of saying there are people that do enjoy fireworks; you don't, but some people do. So that's why I thought July 1 to the fourth was a reasonable compromise and they were accepting of that. My neighbor did have two small fires in her backyard from fireworks. You know, we're in the middle of a drought as well. I mean, I think we have to be very cognizant of all of those things."
The Alliance City Council will revisit amending the fireworks ordinance two additional times during future meetings.
All Alliance City Council meetings are open to the public. The next meeting is Aug. 2 at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at the Alliance Public Library meeting room.