PEORIA, Ill. – The Peoria Park District Board of Trustees has canceled this year’s July 3rd fireworks show at Glen Oak Park, and will, in the words of some members of the board, “re-imagine” what a July 3rd event looks like in future years.
This, following claims by one park board member of the media spreading a false narrative relating to violence following last year’s event and potentially in previous years, along with a suggestion by Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria to cancel the event this year.
“I’ve never asked to cancel all events,” said Echevarria to the Park Board Wednesday night. “I never even said cancel this whole event. Cancel what’s in the evening – the fireworks portion of it – and let’s plan on something else.”
That “something else” this year will be what park board members called a “family-friendly” and “engaging” event, while working on a plan to – again, in their words – “reimagine” the event next year and beyond.
Peoria Park District Board Vice President Alex Sierra says the media lied about the annual July 3rd fireworks at Glen Oak Park.
“The message has been misconstrued, between all the media that’s gone on, and has created a false narrative that our parks are not safe,” said Sierra.
No media reports painted the city’s parks in such a broad brush, but some residents say they stopped going to the Glen Oak Park show years ago because of crime and what one board member called “knuckle-headed” activity.
“I don’t think anything is a better predictor of the future than the recent past,” said Tim Bertschy, Trustee, Northern District. “The recent past shows us that, in these events, children are getting hurt.”
Peoria Public Schools Director of School Safety Demario Boone says his officers patrol nearby school parking lots on July 3rd, so that people can watch the Glen Oak Park fireworks safely. But Boone says what he saw last year – including two shootings and a stabbing – were too much, even for him.
“When I tell you I’ve never worked an event where, the whole time, my heart and everything was on edge, this was the only time I’ve ever worked an event like that,” said Boone.
Boone says there were fights, people running with guns, and other things the entire time he was on patrol, both during the fireworks, and after.
But, there are people who don’t think the fireworks should be canceled, like resident and activist Lawrence Maushard, who says police should be able to handle it.
“Yes, everybody is worried about the safety issues,” said Maushard. “We supposedly have a big-city police department who’s able to handle these kinds of situations. We’re just hoping for them to do their jobs and not, for some reason, single this event out.”
The comments came during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Resident Mary Clark, who lives across the street from Glen Oak Park, told the board why even have a show when they can’t even keep the park up?
“All I have seen is deterioration of the park,” said Clark. “There used to be beautiful trails back down behind the zoo…there were concrete. There were bridges, stone bridges. We used to have flowers out front across the park.”
Other residents said they just can’t go to the fireworks show anymore because of the violence and other problems. But Dillon Boyce says there’s no reason to take the event away.
“It’s threaded in the fabric of our East Bluff community,” said Boyce. “It’s part of Peoria, to me, just as much as the Heart of Illinois Fair or any other event that we have annually.”
The final vote was four to two. Sierra and board president Robert Johnson, Sr. voted no. Member Regan Leslie Hill abstained.
Sierra also says the process of thinking about this year’s event should have happened sooner, even though when he voted against canceling this year’s fireworks Wednesday and replacing it with a daytime event, he said he hadn’t done enough due diligence.
A community survey also is believed to have had a large majority of residents in favor of canceling that day’s fireworks.
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