City taking over fireworks display
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— The organization that has produced Keystone’s annual fireworks display over the last 37 years at Lake Geneva is dissolving and will transfer its remaining assets to the city’s community redevelopment agency.
Our Country Day Inc. also produced a street dance during the weekend before July 4th at the Keystone Airport and across Sunrise Boulevard from Hitchcock’s grocery store in connection with the holiday. The future of that event remains uncertain.
Fred Goetzman, a member of the Our Country Day board of directors, said the Keystone Heights Volunteer Fire Department originally produced the Independence Day fireworks display. Over the years, the Keystone Heights Jaycees has also taken responsibility for the show.
Goetzman said city officials approached the Our Country Day board last year about taking over the fireworks show, but the nonprofit corporation’s leadership opted at that time to carry on.
He said the decision to turn the show over to the city hinged on a lack of volunteers, the increasing cost and decreasing availability of fireworks, and a disagreement among the Our Country Day board about the nonprofit’s future direction.
Goetzman, who said he has been involved with the fireworks show for 20 years, said that the COVID-19 Pandemic forced many fireworks suppliers out of business and cut supplies from the world’s leading exporter of the explosives: China.
“After COVID,” he said, “the costs went up dramatically, and the supply plummeted.”
Goetzman said the board found a new supplier in 2021, but a controller malfunction during the 2022 show caused the display to be cut short, and the supplier refunded its $15,000 to $20,000 fee to OCD.
Goetzman said the lack of volunteers reflects a nationwide trend, noting that the volunteer fire department and the Jaycees have disbanded. The Lions Club in Keystone Heights dissolved in 2015 but was reconstituted two years later.
The city’s CRA also took over Keystone’s Halloween event this year: Boo on the Boulevard, after the Lions Club and the business association previously sponsored it.
Clay County Government is also increasing its participation in activities traditionally carried out by nonprofits.
Earlier this year, county commissioners passed an ordinance that authorized the county to solicit contributions and volunteers and to sell sponsorships.
In November, the county completed its first project authorized by the new ordinance: a cleanup at a College Drive retention pond that converted the area into a park. The project, in cooperation with the College Drive Initiative, utilized more than 40 volunteers and $6,000 worth of plants and supplies donated from Orange Park’s Lowe’s.
During a Dec. 12 meeting of the city council, acting as the community redevelopment agency, City Manager Lynn Rutkowski told council members she expects Our Country Day Inc. to hand over its remaining $30,000 in cash to the agency.
She also confirmed Goetzman’s assertions about the fireworks market.
“We reached out to nine fireworks vendors and received quotes back from two,” she said. “In the conversations with our vendors, and I had lots of them, supplies were an issue, liability is an issue. Costs of (fireworks) are becoming a large issue, and those suppliers who are still in business are being booked for a long period and far in advance.”
During the CRA meeting, council members approved a three-year contract with a fireworks supplier for $15,000 yearly. Each show will last between 17 and 20 minutes.
