There will be more bang for the buck this Fourth of July

$26,000 of fireworks fun for this Fourth

There will be two fireworks shows at the north end of the valley this Fourth of July. The Crested Butte Town Council threw in an additional $1,000 over its $3,000 fireworks budget at a special meeting June 14, and in a week’s time was able to gather enough from private donations to spend a total of $12,450 for a show. The downtown show will follow the scheduled 9 p.m. show being launched from the Nevada Ridge property in Mt. Crested Butte.

The council had decided at its June 7 meeting to try to gather enough money to put on a respectable fireworks show. The council members were miffed that Mt. Crested Butte insisted on launching the fireworks on the mountain this year. Downtown council members had only a week to gather funds and commit to Oklahoma-based fireworks company, Western Enterprises, so they put out the call.
Local residents, vacationers and businesses all made contributions that totaled $5,250 by the June 14 meeting. Town manager Susan Parker urged the council to try to reach a goal of $10,000 to fund a good show.
“The ideal thing is to be able to put on a good show with a good finale,” Parker said, “and that will probably cost about $10,000 with good-sized shells.”
That left the town about $1,750 short.
Councilperson John Wirsing suggested the council match the funds raised through private donations. “I’m impressed with what’s been raised and if it is possible to do without hurting our budget, I think we should match what the public has donated. We’re all in this together. The question is, do we have the money?”
Parker said money could be found in the budget but reminded the council the Chamber of Commerce was expected to make a donation request to supplement the Butte Bucks program in the fall. She said the “venture” fund had about $2,000 left in it.
“If the town commits to put in $1,000 tonight, Trailsource.com will contribute the other $750 right now to get to $10,000,” said Trailsource.com owner and town resident Jamie Walton.
The council wasted no time in approving a motion to add $1,000 for fireworks. They also planned to see if they could wrangle up more money to make the fireworks show even better. So as of Wednesday, the council committed more than $12,000 for fireworks.
“This shows that the community does support this idea of having fireworks downtown,” commented Crested Butte mayor Leah Williams.
The Western Enterprises technician should be able to leave the Mt. Crested Butte show about half way into the display to come down and prepare the Crested Butte launch. That should be about 9:30 p.m. or approximately 15 minutes before the average Crested Butte launch time of 9:45 p.m.
The Crested Butte Town Council also expressed a desire to meet with the Mt. Crested Butte council before July 1 and iron out details of where fireworks will be held in the future.

Meeting on the mountain
Mayor Leah Williams and Crested Butte Town Council member Jim Schmidt attended the June 15 Mt. Crested Butte Town Council meeting to discuss… the future of fireworks. That led to a larger discussion about the two towns’ ability to work together, versus competing against each other.
Mt. Crested Butte mayor William Buck opened the discussion by saying, “There’s been a lot more discussion going on here than what we’re reading in the newspapers.” He also wanted to expand the framework of the discussion up front to include not only fireworks but the 4th of July events calendar as a whole.
“Leah and I have discussed the option of forming a committee for both councils to discuss this further, and organize this as a community-wide event,” said Buck. “In my mind, I would like to expand the discussion to include 4th of July as a schedule of events, a complete community-wide package.”
Mayor Williams explained the road that led to fireworks coming to Crested Butte, despite the display scheduled for the mountain.
“I was thinking it would probably just be dropped, but the council didn’t agree,” she said. “So we decided to see if there was interest in the community for fireworks. We’ve received more than $7,000 for fireworks for the 4th of July.
“Logistically, it works to have a show following the show up here,” she said. “Our council would like to do that, and tomorrow we will be signing a contract with Western [Enterprises] to provide fireworks for that night.”
 “Part of our problem here is that we’re trying to compete against each other,” said Schmidt. “I wanted to come up here and talk to you guys face to face because that’s part of the problem. Our council would really like to figure out fireworks before the 4th of July.”
“I absolutely understand why you want to have fireworks up here every year,” Schmidt said, “but it sure makes sense to alternate.”
Councilperson Andrew Gitin said, “I agree with the alternating idea, but looking at the 4th of July as a package—we kind of lose all of the 4th of July. That makes the fireworks fair, but that doesn’t solve us not having anything going on for the 4th of July.”
“It’s a valid discussion to have,” conceded Williams. “I see the fireworks being a symptom of a bigger problem—our inability to sit down and discuss these issues. We need to sit down and come up with a plan. We are so interdependent, it’s critical we work on our strengths and become a bigger, stronger entity to compete with those around us.”
Mayor Buck doesn’t see the two towns really competing against each other. “When we get down to it, we really only disagree on two items: Snodgrass and fireworks. I don’t sense that competitiveness that you guys are presenting. I personally don’t see it that way.”
It was agreed that the councils need to work more closely together, and so they’ll take another stab at collaborating on 4th of July for the future. The Mt. Crested Butte council passed a motion to establish a two-person 4th of July committee that would work in congress with a committee of the same size from Crested Butte.
However, no decisions were made about the July 4 festivities for next year and beyond.
“All options are on the table, but I’m not willing to commit to one until we have time to evaluate all the options,” Buck said. “It’s a lot to consider, and too much to agree to before the 4th of July.”
And so it appears the discussion over fireworks in the upper valley is not yet over.