HomeMy WebLinkAbout042726 email Re_ Proposed Fireworks BanALERT: BE CAUTIOUS This email originated outside the organization. Do not open attachments or click on links if you are not expecting them.
Dear County Commissioners, and Greg Bretherton in particular.
As a resident of Brinnon I am writing to very strongly support a permanent, county-wide fireworks ban.
Our perspective from Brinnon is especially important to this discussion. For a period of many, many years, certain residents in Brinnon have sponsored a massive yearly illegal fireworks
display that rivals that of small to medium sized municipalities, drawing out of town residents from throughout the region.
This display, located on the banks of the Dosewallips River, results in toxic pollution of the river, terrorizing local veteran(s) suffering from PTSD after-effects of the Iraq war,
other local neighbors, and domestic and wild animals and birds.
The risk of fire is real, indeed in a recent year, this massive illegal fireworks display triggered a brush fire, ironically next door to the Brinnon Fire Station.
We are all aware that we are not talking about legal ‘safe-and-sane’ fireworks; we are instead talking about illegal fireworks (legally obtained from local first-nations vendors (e.g.
Potlach) but entirely illegal off-reservation.
One person’s freedom ends at another person’s eardrums. Those of us who choose to leave town on the fourth of July, or to ‘crank’ our stereos in attempts to mask the vast noise of these
displays, should not be forced to do so in order to support the illegal activities of certain of our neighbors.
As climate change and drought increase the risk of wildland fires year after year, it is inevitable that somebody’s illegal fireworks display is going to spark a catastrophic fire.
The only way to prevent, or at least to mitigate this very real risk, is a total fireworks ban.
Greg, you are wrong on this issue. Leadership sometimes means weighing competing interests and curtailing certain ‘freedoms’ of some of your constituents when necessary to protect the
‘freedoms’ of other constituents and the community as a whole. Our freedom to enjoy the peace and quiet and safety of our community should vastly outweigh the freedom of others to
carry out illegal activities in our neighborhood. To me, this seems self-evident.
Please support a full, permanent ban on fireworks in Jefferson County.
Steve Walker
331 Dosewallips Road
Brinnon.