Councilman McLaughlin Opposes Fireworks Contract

City Councilman John McLaughlin on Tuesday voted against renewing a contract that would allow the city to holds its fireworks show in July, contending that he would rather have the money go toward re-employing city workers that were recently laid off.  

Under the contract, the Farmingdale-based Pyro Engineering would supply and display fireworks for the city’s annual post-Independence Day show on July 13 at a cost of $25,000. This is to be paid entirely through sponsorship monies and fees paid by vendors at the arts & crafts show on the boardwalk that month.

This year, City Manager Jack Schnirman said, the city “will be able to to do its fireworks show this year essentially at no cost due to covering it through sponsorship.”

Schnirman said that total cost to the city for the event is $42,000, including overtime for city employees who would work to help stage the event.

“All of the costs will be covered for the event, including all [CSEA and police] overtime,” said Schnirman about the projected $14,226 in overtime costs.

Colleen Silvia, a civil service employee, was tasked with renewing sponsors for the fireworks show. This year, Silvia got various local and national businesses — Skudin Surf, Power Solar, Verizon, among others — to help sponsor the event, and has raised $77,800 to date. About $18,000 of that money will be put aside to sponsor the event, she said.

Vendor fees are still being collected, Silvia noted, and she expects the money from those fees will be higher this year, after collecting about $123,000 in 2011.

In order to raise more money, an extra day was added to the arts and crafts fair, to be held from July 13-15, allowing some food vendors and sponsors to set up shop the Friday before the fair officially starts.

Before voting on the resolution, which passed 3-1 (Councilman Len Torres was absent), McLaughlin noted that in years past, the vendor fees collected went into the general fund, and he wanted to know if this year’s fees would go into the newly adopted 2012-13 budget.

“How much of this money is vendor money, because, let’s say it’s $25,000 of vendor money, I’d rather see that go to hiring somebody back,” McLaughlin said, referring to a number of city employees who were laid off last month as part of Schnriman’s efforts to close the city’s $10.2 million deficit.  

“I love the fireworks, but I just think that in this year … I’d feel terrible watching the fireworks go up while someone’s sitting at home that could have been working,” McLaughlin added.

Resident Karen Adamo challenged McLaughlin on his ‘no’ vote, noting that the in previous years the fireworks contract was about $10,000 higher and that there has been a recession.

“I’m just saying we declared a fiscal crisis, and we have this money coming in that we know is coming in from vendor contracts, and I just think we can spend putting, whether it’s one person or two people, back to work,” McLaughlin said.

The councilman said he would have voted 'yes' if the entire fireworks show could have been staged at the $18,000 the city would raise from the sponsors. “But if we have vendor fees coming in, I think we can use it for something else,” McLaughlin said.

Some other residents questioned why the money from the vendors’ fees should simply go to rehire former city employees.  

“What about the taxpayers?” Richard Boodman told Patch after Tuesday’s meeting. “I didn't hear one word about generating income to reduce taxes. ... We cannot continue to be a cash cow [for city employees.]”