For City Council Meeting [August 13, 2019]
TO: Honorable Mayor and City Council
APPROVAL: Rod Foster, City Administrator
FROM: Brian Park, Acting Fire Chief
Title
Request the City Council to provide formal direction with regard to the inclusion of a fireworks review on the March 2020 ballot and any actions or other ballot measures.
(ACTION)
Body
BACKGROUND:
At the City Council Meeting on July 10, 2018, the Council directed staff to establish a new framework to cite, fine, and adjudicate the use of possession, sale, advertisement for sale, transportation, and/or manufacturing of illegal fireworks. The Council also directed staff to explore the use of administrative citations in addition to criminal charges as well as track city resource allocation. The City of Rialto has an expressed interest in stopping significant negative impact of all fireworks to our community, which includes our pets.
A Community Fireworks Task Force to address this problem was formed with the goals of producing a comprehensive community based fireworks risk reduction plan. This approach was intended to be proactive, integrate existing resources, involve community partners, was efficient and include measurement criteria for council and the community to assess the effectiveness of the plan.
This Task Force included; staff from Fire, Police, Community Services and Development, the City Clerk's Office and the Human Relation and Housing Preservation and Preservation and Beautification Commissions, along with input from the City Attorney's Office.
ANALYSIS/DISCUSSION:
The Community Fireworks Task Force meet held 6 joint commission meetings including two community, town hall meetings. The data that was reviewed by the task force indicates that enforcement alone does not change the culture of acceptance on the use of fireworks. Recommendations from the Joint Commission and Task Force included; improvements engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and equity.
Task Force Revi...
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