Not my intent to rehash negative remarks about the late start to the fireworks show or the issues that prevented our contractor from producing a well timed, contiguous performance but I’d like to bring up a couple different items for community awareness.
Let’s start with the negative so we can get that out of the way. Each year the Shore Club Board receives a fair portion of email on the subject over residents and members who disregard the law and continue to set off their own personal fireworks throughout the day and into the evening. I may be mistaken but from my viewpoint this seemed to have been one of the quietest Independence Day’s I’ve witnessed on the lake. Perhaps it is because of a down economy, or that people are relying more on the public display than setting off their own, or perhaps it is because of the presence of law enforcement patrolling the shoreline by boat and gaining a reputation now on issuing citations and/or confiscating illegal fireworks – or perhaps it’s a combination of all of this that has caused the change but regardless, the email still expresses concern over the activity of personal fireworks being discharged. To that we can only say that the Shore Club is a social club not a governing authority. We do encourage our members to contribute to the public display instead of spending their money on private fireworks… but ultimately we leave the responsibility of policing to city law enforcement and officials.
This year we had also received new complaints about the use of ‘Sky Lanterns’ and the concern for the fire hazard they present when getting caught in the tall trees ringing Angle Lake, with especially heightened concern since it has been so dry lately. Although not considered a firework a recent internet search reveals that the City of Des Moines voted to ban sky lanterns just this year. We have to agree, while beautiful to look at, the risk of fire is just too great and we encourage everyone to discontinue any further use of these devices.
And now for the positive news – again a special shout out to all of our volunteers who make celebrating the 4th of July on Angle Lake one of the best rewards that life can offer, and to think it happens year after year to boot! We’ll reserve name recognition for the fall newsletter but I did want to reinforce that we couldn’t have hosted the Bud Jones Memorial Run or the Swimming/Boating Races, or the Kiddies Parade, or the Home/Dock Decoration Contests or even the fireworks show without the tremendous hours and effort each of our volunteers put into these events. Also giving recognition to those who traveled door to door to homes in the area collecting fireworks donations – to all we say “THANK YOU” your efforts are truly appreciated.
And finally, we’d like to recognize and express appreciation to the owners and managers of the Angle Lake Mobile Home Park for providing the Shore Club Fireworks Contractors use their property at no charge as a staging area to prepare for the big show. With the Coluccio property no longer available for our use, available land that is accessible yet isolated is nearly non-existent so we really appreciate their offer for us to use their land to help ensure that our show is assemble in a safe environment.
We hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July – and hope you’ll join us in our next upcoming ALSC events:
- Saturday, July 27th - Angle Lake Clean Sweep
- Saturday, August 17th - Floating Tapas
Continue visiting the Blog for further details.
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