Letter: County should enforce fireworks ban in parks

Published 1:30 am Saturday, June 10, 2023

Editor,

The Island County commissioners and the fire marshal/sheriff are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring Island County citizens’ public safety. In addition, the county commissioners are mandated lawmakers and the sheriff is a mandated enforcement officer. As citizens of Island County, it is our right and responsibility to influence elected officials, both the commissioners and the sheriff/fire marshal, to write new laws/codes and to enforce existing county codes.

Something is currently very wrong with how our county government functions. We have an existing code IC 9-40-420; this code prohibits the use of fireworks in all 54 Island County parks. This code is not enforced and thus we have a robust fireworks tourism problem.

Off-island folks flock to Whidbey Island for the 4th of July holiday (one of the last remaining counties in the area that have not banned fireworks) to shoot off both legal and illegal fireworks on our beaches.

If the detrimental impact of fireworks to our island environment and the psychological and physiological well-being of humans and animals is not enough, we, as Island county citizens, are left with the task of cleaning up their debris; well at least the debris that has not been washed away by the tide.

This has to stop. Please email your county commissioners at CommentBOCC@islandcountywa.gov. and demand that they enforce Island County Code IC 9-40-420

Jackie Lasater

Freeland