KaBoom Fireworks with a Community Focus

After a year in which more than 100,000 people descended on tiny Red Bank for its annual fireworks show and pushed the borough and its police force to its limits with incidents of public intoxication, fighting, and vandalism, the KaBoom Fireworks Committee has pledged a renewed focus on family and community for the show this time around.

At its ninth annual cocktail party Thursday night, the kick-off to its fundraising campaign, officials talked about how important the fireworks show is to Red Bank and how important it is to make sure the July 3^rd event is one that can be enjoyed by all people.

Tim Hogan, chairman of the KaBoom executive committee, spoke to an estimated crowd of more than 150 under a tent on the Navesink River-facing lawn of the K. Hovnanian headquarters. As the committee’s new chairman, he said he wanted the fireworks to return to its roots as an event where local families could come and enjoy the show.

“This event is about more than fireworks,” he said. “This is about our community. It’s about what makes this community great. If we lose the fireworks, we lose a little bit of what makes this a great place to live.”

Concerns were raised about this year’s show after the borough presented KaBoom with a bill for tens of thousands of dollars related to post-event cleanup and police overtime. In all, it cost the borough nearly $40,000 just for its police, a sum that was eventually paid back by the committee.

Facing rising costs and rising problems due to the event’s popularity, even Daniel Murphy, a committee member who organized the cocktail party and has been the event’s cheerleader for more than a decade, questioned whether or not it made sense to continue the event.

When the first fireworks show was put on in Red Bank in 1959, Murphy told the crowd, it cost $1,700. This year, the show, which he says is tied for second in the country based on the number of fireworks shot off, just behind New York City’s show the following day, will cost an estimated $300,000.

It’s the same show, he said, but the ancillary costs, like funding police and cleanup keep adding up. Still, Murphy, who attended the cocktail party in a blue blazer and shorts, said fireworks show must go on, but with some changes.

“It’s not about how many people we can get, but what kind of show we can put on for the people living here, in the community,” he said. “We need to keep it going without getting too crowded.”

Murphy believes thinning the crowd, or at least thinning it of the troublemakers who tried to spoil last year’s event, is an attainable goal. The borough is instituting a zero-tolerance policy for alcohol-related incidents and, though the borough council still has yet to make it official, despite numerous reports and despite KaBoom officials mentioning it in every conversation, the committee is charging a fee for riverside viewing at locations like Riverside Gardens and Marine Park.

Though the problems have been well documented, support has also been tremendous. And, there’s hope that support helps ease the financial burden. Council President Arthur Murphy said the addition of Hogan to the committee has helped introduce a brand new crowd and contacts, and hopefully their money and sponsorships, to KaBoom.

“He’s brought a whole new feeling of life to it,” he said. “There’s a new group of people coming together with the ones that have been here forever and they’re trying to put on a great event for Red Bank, a great event that comes at no cost to the taxpayer.”

The $100 a head tab afforded those who attended the event not only a great view for the five-minute fireworks show over the river, a teaser for the big time July fireworks display, but also a silent auction, an open bar, live music, and a wide variety of food from more than a dozen local eateries, all of which was donated.

With its borough debts settled and new policies in place to help ease the financial burden, people like Daniel Murphy have renewed faith that the event should and will go on, even in the face of rising costs.

“There’s never a maximum, never,” he said. “You never stop. The moment you stop working, the moment you stop moving.”