City may put fireworks on November ballot
The hot topic of fireworks is in front of the Seaside City Council again, this time as it considers placing a measure on the November ballot regarding the use of safe and sane fireworks, at its Thursday meeting.
The Seaside City Council is being asked to consider directing staff to prepare the wording for the ballot questions and fulfill additional requirements for a ballot initiative, or provide alternative directions.
At the Oct. 5 City Council meeting, councilman Alex Miller proposed the council consider a measure relating to fireworks on the November 2024 ballot. At the Oct. 19 meeting, the council agreed an item should be placed on a future agenda to discuss and consider a city-sponsored ballot measure regarding the future use, sale and possession of safe and sane fireworks in the city.
During the earlier meeting in October, Miller said since he came onto the council “the biggest issue I get is over the fireworks, and I get it all the time.”
He said that this is a community issue and that it is time to get “our hands on the pulse and figure out where the community” stands.
Fireworks discussions have been put on the agenda more than 40 times in the past and this issue goes beyond illegal fireworks.
As far as the sale and use of safe and sane fireworks, residents have lodged complaints for many years concerning the practice. The city's response has been to have its public works, police and fire departments engage in public outreach campaigns, such as, placing signs at the city limits warning that illegal fireworks are prohibited within its boundaries, partnering with other agencies including the Fire Works Task Force, detailing police and fire departments operational plans for fireworks suppression, communicating across various city media platforms, and increasing police patrol, fire department drones and additional engine companies, zero-tolerance enforcement, and criminal and administrative citations.
But these efforts have been time, labor and cost intensive and have had some impacts on the reduction of illegal fireworks activities and complaints.
The council has considered banning all fireworks before. A town hall meeting was held a few years ago and found some community members were in favor of banning all fireworks but others wanted the sale of “safe and sane” fireworks to continue because it is the largest funding mechanism for local nonprofit organizations.
The Seaside City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting all fireworks in August 2020, but by mid-September, the city received a referendum petition with 2,446 signatures in an attempt to prevent the ordinance from going into effect, which was accomplished within the 30day time period accorded by law. At the Oct. 15, 2020, city council meeting, a “certificate of sufficiency” was adopted by the governing body, officially suspending the ordinance.
Still, the problems posed by both legal and illegal fireworks continue.
In 2022, the city took the lead in establishing an illegal fireworks task force to deal more effectively with the use of unlawful pyrotechnics, and last year was the first Fourth of July the task force was in operation.
A report by the County of Monterey Civil Grand Jury in May, 2023, issued before the illegal fireworks task force was up and running, said that though the city's officials were aware of illegal fireworks use causing significant and persistent problems within the city, limited resources have been allocated to address the issue and the city's efforts to reduce illegal fireworks use “appear to have minimal effect.”
Should the Seaside City Council desire to consider placing a ballot measure on the Nov. 5, 2024, general election ballot, the City Council must approve the wording for the ballot question, and adopt a resolution placing the fireworks measure on the ballot and requesting the County of Monterey Board of Supervisors consent to the consolidation of this election with a statewide general election by May 17, 2024, according to a city staff report.