- May 1, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
Palm Coast will keep its Independence Day fireworks celebration on July 3 this year while Flagler Beach will hold its traditional fireworks show on July 4, despite the Palm Coast City Council's discussion about switching Palm Coast's event to July 4.
"I think it’s a wonderful way to utilize the airport in other ways as we grow into the Executive Airport."
— JOE MULLINS, Flagler County commissioner
What will occur with Independence Day fireworks scheduling in future years has not yet been settled, and Palm Coast City Council members are expected to discuss it in the future.
The Flagler Beach City Commission is at this point not scheduled to discuss the issue again.
Palm Coast will work with Flagler Beach, the county government and others "to formulate a long-term approach for future events," according to a city of Palm Coast news release.
"We understand that simultaneous fireworks displays in our county is just not feasible, so we put our heads together and came up with a plan that will work in everyone’s best interest," Whitson said, according the news release.
This will be the first time Flagler Beach has held its July 4 fireworks event since the beginning of the pandemic: The July 4 celebration was canceled in 2020 and 2021, and Flagler Beach had considered not holding fireworks in 2022. It convened an "Ad Hoc Fourth of July Findings Committee" to study whether the city should hold a fireworks show this year, and, if so, how it could do so while mitigating some of the problems — underage drinking, littering — that have tended to accompany the flood of revelers.
But a few weeks after the committee delivered its findings, recommending that the Flagler Beach Independence Day event move forward with July 4 fireworks, several City Council members from Palm Coast — which has traditionally held its Independence Day fireworks event on July 3 to avoid conflicting with Flagler Beach's July 4 event — proposed switching Palm Coast's event to July 4.
When the Palm Coast City Council discussed fireworks again at a meeting on Jan. 18, the Flagler County Sheriff's Office's Community Policing Division Chief told the council that simultaneous events in Palm Coast and Flagler Beach on July 4 would strain local law enforcement.
Council members then discussed the possibility of Palm Coast swapping dates with Flagler Beach every year, so that Palm Coast would have a July 4 event one year while Flagler Beach would take July 3, and the two would switch dates the next year.
Flagler Beach, which traditionally launches its fireworks from the end of the Flagler Beach pier, won't have a pier next year: The pier is scheduled for reconstruction, Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin noted.
But Scott Spradley, the chairman of Flagler Beach's Ad Hoc Fourth of July Findings Committee, had noted a potential complication with holding a Palm Coast event on July 4 that could remain even if Flagler Beach doesn't hold July 4 fireworks: People flock to the beach on July 4.
Holding a fireworks event in Palm Coast on July 4 and moving or canceling Flagler Beach's July 4 fireworks event wouldn't necessarily mean that there wouldn't still be a large gathering of beachgoers in Flagler Beach the same night, requiring heightened policing there as well as at the Palm Coast event.
Since the Jan. 18 Palm Coast City Council meeting, Whitson and Palm Coast Interim City Manager Denise Bevan coordinated for a Palm Coast event on July 3 and Flagler Beach event on July 4 this summer.
Palm Coast's event will be different this year: Instead of its usual site at Palm Coast's Town Center, the Independence Day celebration will be held at the Flagler Executive Airport.
The shift to the airport will allow for a greater clearance area around the launch location, so the city will be able to use larger fireworks shells, Airport Director Roy Sieger told Flagler County commissioners during a Jan. 24 County Commission meeting.
The Independence Day celebration would be a joint event between Flagler County and the city of Palm Coast, starting at 4 p.m. and ending after a 9 p.m. fireworks show, he said.
Flagler County Commissioner David Sullivan noted that the county's Tourist Development Council money would fund the fireworks show, and, with the shift the airport, would now be held at a county venue.
"I suppose it's still Palm Coast's fireworks, but to a certain degree it's really the county's fireworks," Sullivan said.
County commissioners supported the plan to hold the July 3 fireworks event at the airport.
"I think it’s a wonderful way to utilize the airport in other ways as we grow into the Executive Airport," Commissioner Joe Mullins said.
