Freedom Festival and City Council set to take on fireworks issue

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Freedom Festival and the City Council likely will decide at the Wednesday evening council meeting if the Fourth of July fireworks will be coming back downtown this summer.

The cost that the city has proposed to charge the festival for event security is the biggest impediment for the non-profit festival to stage the fireworks downtown, where the event traditionally had been held until the flood of 2008.

The festival's Russ Oviatt, operations and marketing director, on Tuesday said the “overwhelming” number of calls coming to the festival office have been in support of returning fireworks to the downtown.

“It's tradition. It's Americana. It's Cedar Rapids,” Oviatt said in a letter Tuesday to the City Council.

A week ago, Oviatt said the city had proposed charging the festival $30,000 to provide police and firefighters for the event.

Three years ago, the festival paid the city $1,300 for security, Oviatt has pointed out.

In his letter to the council, he suggested ways for the city to cut its security charges, including lessening the number of hours officers need to work the event. The city also apparently is poised on July 1 to institute a new $5-an-hour surcharge for officers used for “special duty,” a new fee that Oviatt asks to be waived for the Fourth of July event.

Mayor Ron Corbett has said repeatedly that he wants the fireworks back downtown.