BLYTHEWOOD – Town Council’s Monday night agenda was light, but, right off, there were fireworks.
It was only minutes into the meeting when Councilman Rich McKenrick called for the addition of an agenda item to allow open discussion by council members concerning the disruptions that occurred during and after the July 3 Rockin’ Red, White, & Blue fireworks celebration in Doko Park.
Mayor Sloan Griffin initially pushed back on McKenrick’s request.
“Mr. McKenrick, I wish I had known that earlier. I don’t want to put staff on the line by not having that information this afternoon,” Griffin said.
“Mr. Mayor, I respect that, but I second the motion,” Councilman Brock said. Both Councilwomen Erica Page and Andrea Fripp joined McKenrick and Brock in voting for the public discussion.
Griffin voted against.
Griffin released a statement six days after the event, acknowledging a single disturbance that he said was caused by the sound and discharge from a splat gun – a water/paint ball-type gun. He did not acknowledge any injuries or other incidents in the park that night. He said that in response to the splat gun incident, “the Town of Blythewood is implementing several enhanced security measures“ for future events: perimeter fencing around the park, a clear bag policy, increased law enforcement, youth admission policy, and new rules for safety in the playground and park.
Three council members told The Voice prior to the meeting that they were unaware of these plans for implementation before seeing the press release.
“The only information I’ve had on what happened at this event,” McKenrick said Monday night, “is what I read in The Voice and in the Mayor’s press release about recommendations for next year, many of which are very costly,”
McKenrick and Brock both noted the lack of information available about reported incidents in the park before and after the official fireworks.
“I’ve had numerous calls from citizens asking: ‘is that timeline accurate?’ ‘Was someone injured?’ ‘They couldn’t get the injured person out with the on-site ambulance and had to call in another ambulance,’ McKenrick said.
“Facts would have been nice to have,” he said.
Interim Administrator Daniel Stines said he had been unable to source any other written incidents from the Sheriff or EMS other than the arrest of the gentleman who caused the disruption with the spat gun.
“I’m not saying that did or did not happen,” Stines said. “But that’s what we have record of. I was there the whole night and I didn’t see that. But that’s not saying anything. I was in a lot of places that night.”
“Rest assured that there were more incidents than were documented,” Brock said. He later noted that there was a lot of narrative on Facebook.
“We didn’t get out in front of it,” he said. Referencing McKenrick’s comments about a young woman injured and an ambulance having a hard time getting her out of the park, Brock said there were also reported instances of fireworks and Roman candles being shot into the park audience.
“I saw a Roman candle being shot from the area of the playground,” he said. “It concerns me, that if the only incident noted is an individual with a toy water gun, as you wrote in your press release,” he said, addressing Griffin, “then the list of improvements seems like a knee jerk reaction to one incident.
“I’m curious as to how we are going to pay for all that security,” Brock said. “If we encompass this entire park with nice fencing, we’re probably into millions of dollars. We need to educate the public on what our expectations are. I don’t think we need fences and drug sniffing dogs to keep our citizens safe.
“This council has some major policy decisions to make as a collective body,” Brock said.
The size of the crowd was also addressed by council members as well as Stines who said he learned several days after the event through a geofencing analysis of the crowd, that it exceeded 13,000 attendees within the park boundaries at around 9 p.m. on the night of the event.
Stines said that despite the disruptions, “we’re calling it a success.” He said he has conducted a post event meeting with the park committee, and that he is looking at ways to make improvements next year. Those improvements include perimeter fencing, recommendations from RCSD for show of force and other safety measures, moving to year-round planning for the larger events (including new policies, procedures and management plans), and plans for funding some of these measures.
“Maybe we’re a victim of our own success,” Brock suggested. “[The event] was just too well received, but I don’t know if the park can handle 13,000 people at an event.”
Without spending a lot of money, Brock said there might be only three solutions: find a larger space, scale the event down, or eliminate the event altogether.
Page said it was “awesome that we had so many people who wanted to be at the event.” She also said it was good that the Town has a year to plan for improvements, but that various opinions would need to be included in the planning.
“It could have been something completely different, in a negative way,” she said. “Thank goodness nothing happened. But we do have to do something different next year.”
“We can’t operate in a vacuum,” Brock said. “That ship has sailed. We’ve got to get decision makers involved.”
Waiting until the end of the discussion to speak, Griffin said that he is a duly certified emergency manager, and that council just needs to be patient and, “allow our staff to put together documentation and to work with the subject matter experts to give you information. Give us time for subject matter experts to put together the data.”
