Long Beach fireworks will go on

Annual fireworks display to be funded by sponsors and vendors’ fees

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Despite Long Beach’s financial woes, the city’s annual fireworks show will take place this year. City officials said that the cost of the event — everything from the pyrotechnics to police overtime — will be covered by sponsorship money and fees paid by vendors during the Arts and Crafts Festival.

The City Council voted 3-1 on Tuesday to approve a $25,000 contract with Farmingdale-based Pyro Engineering Inc. to stage the July 13 show. City Manager Jack Schnirman said that local sponsors would cover the evening’s total cost, $42,000.

At a time when the city is contending with a $10.25 million deficit, and following the layoffs of 67 employees — officials are currently negotiating with the Civil Service Employees Association to avoid laying off another 38 workers — Schnirman said that the fireworks would not cost the city anything.

City employee Colleen Silvia headed the initiative to secure funding for the event, and to date has received commitments from Skudin Surf, Empower Solar, The New York Times, Verizon, Nassau Financial and other businesses. The city has raised $77,800 in sponsorship money and vendor fees, $18,000 of which comes from sponsors. Silvia said that the city took in $123,000 in vendor fees last year, and those fees are expected to increase during this year’s Arts and Crafts Festival July 13-15 because an extra day was added to the event.

“… The city will be able to do its fireworks show this year at essentially no cost,” Schnirman said.

He and others lauded Silvia for her efforts, but City Councilman John McLaughlin, who cast the opposing vote on Tuesday, said that while he loves the fireworks show, it would be smarter, given the city’s fiscal crisis, to use the vendor fees to save one or two jobs.

McLaughlin asked whether the fees would go into the city’s general fund as revenue, as they have in previous years. McLaughlin — who last year voted in favor of the fireworks show, a contract that cost roughly $10,000 more — said he would have voted “yes” this year if the event was funded solely by sponsorship money, saying that any additional revenue should be used to save jobs.

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