Watsonville council approves fireworks sales

Name (last, first) Bisbee, Mark**
Job title FIRE CHIEF
Regular pay $0.00
Overtime pay 0.00
Total pay $150,835

The real danger is with those who drive up to the City and bring back the real dangerous fireworks. That's going to happen regardless of which way this vote went.

Oh perhaps all you Watsonville Blues can get in your ladder truck and go shopping, Starbucks, etc or get out there and sell fire works to pay for another one that your fearless leader Bisbee so wants. Your a joke...you didn't fight much of these fires it was CalFire and other responding units.
Fireworks are family fun...it is gun control that you all need to worry about. Gangsters and guns are far more worrisome than the fireworks dangers.
As for Rob Cornett, of course the economy is a bigger issue than fire...you were not affected by the fire but your athlets are affected by no money, can't cheat your way outta that

"SANTA CRUZ -- A small blaze ignited in the woods above a quiet neighborhood Tuesday morning, stoking concerns that another dangerous fire season could be at hand.

The fire, which burned about a quarter-acre of trees and brush on a steep hillside near DeLaveaga Golf Course, was reported around 5:30 a.m. but it took firefighters from Santa Cruz and Central fire departments quite a while to find the flames. The blaze was burning in a remote area downslope from the city's disc golf course, not far from the Prospect Heights neighborhood."

Yet fireworks are approved for sale for our bleeding heart non profits....so much for public saefty, don't think for a minute that our hot dry summer won't be here soon enough.[sigh] Self serving zealots never seize to amaze.

Why does the City Clownsil ask the City Staff to do a report, they don't seem to listen to them.

The nonprofits had a whole year to figure out other, more safe, fundraisers. Pull your heads out, City Council, and do what makes sense for the entire community, for once.

If nonprofits wanted to sell firearms or small nuclear devices to terrorist groups to raise money, would that be okay, too? Let's show a little common sense here. We have rules governing when and where to burn up here in the mountains; it seems to me that fireworks should be strictly regulated as well for public safety.

If the non-profits were collectively required to pay the costs and damage of any fires in the county found to be started by fireworks, I bet most of them would be out of fireworks sales as "too risky."

"If nonprofits wanted to sell firearms or small nuclear devices to terrorist groups to raise money, would that be okay, too?"

A little exaggeration might well help make a point, but such hyperbole only serves to weaken your argument.

My family has been coming to Watsonville for years because it is the only place that allows for the legal use of "safe and sane" fireworks. They are essentially large sparklers and could really only start a fire if set off in directly in the brush, in fact I would bet you would actually have a harder time trying to start a fire with one than just taking a lighter to a dry bush.

We usually go to Ramsay Park and the entire city often looks like world war III because of all the illegal fireworks being fired over the city. It makes no difference if the legal ones are allowed or not if the city makes no attempt to stop the large illegal ones which are really the problem in potentially starting fires.
Also, the city nor the fundraisers need to be held responsible any more than a gun maker (using the quoted persons analogy). The responsibility would already be placed on anyone who uses legal or illegal fireworks incorrectly and causes a fire.

Having them legal allows people to use them in safe areas (like the parking lot of a park) instead of taking them into remote areas to avoid being a caught and therefore dramatically increasing the chance of fire in a rural area.

puzzled wrote:

The nonprofits had a whole year to figure out other, more safe, fundraisers. Pull your heads out, City Council, and do what makes sense for the entire community, for once.

Allow me to explain:

Politically favored "official" local nonprofits are transfixed by the glory of "leadership's" BCA Issue.

Since they have all been required to pretend that they "don't know about" BCA's ongoing local offer of EFFECTIVE LOCAL FUND-RAISING - by properly utilizing the Taxpayer's extremely expensive "mello center" - they all have to continue pretending to "not know" that there is a TRULY SAFE & SANE way to raise this paltry piddle of local "nonprofit funding".

Glad I could help. Enjoy your own terrifying local fire - "secretly officially" brought to you by "leadership's" BCA Issue.

Ken wrote:

"If nonprofits wanted to sell firearms or small nuclear devices to terrorist groups to raise money, would that be okay, too?"
A little exaggeration might well help make a point, but such hyperbole only serves to weaken your argument.
My family has been coming to Watsonville for years because it is the only place that allows for the legal use of "safe and sane" fireworks. They are essentially large sparklers and could really only start a fire if set off in directly in the brush, in fact I would bet you would actually have a harder time trying to start a fire with one than just taking a lighter to a dry bush.
We usually go to Ramsay Park and the entire city often looks like world war III because of all the illegal fireworks being fired over the city. It makes no difference if the legal ones are allowed or not if the city makes no attempt to stop the large illegal ones which are really the problem in potentially starting fires.
Also, the city nor the fundraisers need to be held responsible any more than a gun maker (using the quoted persons analogy). The responsibility would already be placed on anyone who uses legal or illegal fireworks incorrectly and causes a fire.
Having them legal allows people to use them in safe areas (like the parking lot of a park) instead of taking them into remote areas to avoid being a caught and therefore dramatically increasing the chance of fire in a rural area.

I respectfully disagree. I live in Seaside, which also sells safe and sane fireworks, yet year after year our police are forced to try and "spot the looney" with the friggin' illegal "BOMB" that just went off over there--no, wait...it was this way; huh, there goes another one way off over in that direcion.

I don't have a problem with the people who sell safe and sane or the people who buy them...IT'S THE OTHER PEOPLE!!! Making fireworks legal just gives the jerks safe harbor. They start up weeks beforehand, terrifying my cats and scaring me half to death! For a month our quiet sleepy little town sounds like a war zone. Then on the Fourth they go on until the wee hours of the morning.

I hate having to deny rights to others because of a bunch of A-h**** but sometimes that's what has to happen. You want fireworks? Take the kids to Great America.

Tee cee mollie stupid Bilicich! Are you out of your mind, or is it the result of an occupational hazard!?! You are going to fit right in.

Fireworks are sold in Mexico. Banning them here will confuse the illegal Mexicans that the sanctuary city council has invited here.

insanity rules wrote:

I hold the Watsonville City Council personally responsible for any loss of life or limb. Just wait until the lawsuits come, you know there will be fires ignited, but are allowing it? Let's hope that this year it's YOUR home and family that suffer, azzholes.

By your logic we should old the DMV responsible for all traffic accidents and ban sky diving, swimming in the ocean, crossing the street, and lighting candles.

Most things that are fun carry a certain level of danger. Accidents happen, but most fireworks related fires are caused by illegal fireworks. Stopping fireworks sales doesn't stop illegal fireworks. This is like going after your local gun store because some gang bangers bought machine guns over the black market and shot up the town. It just doesn't make sense.

puzzled wrote:

The nonprofits had a whole year to figure out other, more safe, fundraisers. Pull your heads out, City Council, and do what makes sense for the entire community, for once.

Ever consider that it's the "entire community" that is buying fireworks in the first place?

Sue Tarjan wrote:

it seems to me that fireworks should be strictly regulated as well for public safety.

You didn't get the memo? Fireworks are already highly regulated! All of the "good stuff" is already banned, and the safe and sane stuff is only for sale for a few days a year and only legal to light off for a few days per year.

How much more "regulation" do you want? Banning is not a regulation, it's a ban.