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To: City of Santa Ana City Council <br />Subject: Banning of Safe & Sane Fireworks <br />Good evening Mayor, City Council, City Staff and the public watching from home. My name is Rick <br />Niedermayer and I have lived in the city of Santa Ana for over 42 years. Growing up in our city as a child I <br />always look forward to the 411 of July, as a time to be with family and enjoy the freedoms that were <br />fought for over 200 years ago. As has been reported in the Santa Ana Register the public safety <br />commission held a special meeting on February 22n6 to address whether the city should continue to <br />allow non -profits in our city the opportunity to sell Safe and Sane fireworks in Santa Ana. I as one of <br />those non -profits found out about this meeting earlier on the same day of the meeting. <br />If believe that if a special meeting was necessary, then all of the non -profits that are effected should <br />have been notified of this meeting. The city has a record of the every non -profits that ran a stand in the <br />past, as they city requires a special license for each! I hear that each of you want to be transparent in <br />your decisions that affect our community. This meeting was not transparent, as only three non -profits <br />were in attendance, and only because there schedules were open they were available to attend. <br />Drive -byes, murders, and assaults are all at an all-time high in Santa Ana, and the Public Safety <br />committee is calling a special meeting to talk about banning safe & sane fireworks. I truly believe that <br />the priorities of our public safety committee are a little not correct! <br />As mentioned in the meeting the city saw an extremely large amount of illegal fireworks, on the 1st thru <br />the 4th of July. In this special meeting the police department noted that in their presentation that there <br />are 9 cities that allowed firework, in reality there were 10. There were other facts presented that were <br />not completely true. One of the police representatives made a statement that they do not have the <br />personnel to handle the call of illegal firework, and when they did go to a call as soon as they got out of <br />the car the people shooting off the illegal firework took off running, and they were not able to catch <br />them! I wanted to ask what they do when they arrive at a location and illegal drug are being distributed <br />or used, and the suspects take off running, I do not believe that the officers say that they are too fast <br />and we could not catch! In the same example the police representative ask how would the officer know <br />the safe n sane from the illegal fireworks, once again the public could not respond as public comment <br />had already happened. This is an easy answer the state fire marshal stamp is on all safe & sane <br />fireworks. <br />Our city fine or citation for illegal fireworks is only $100. How many of those were issued last July V July <br />4th. I would guess lees than 101 <br />Here are the State of California penalties' for "possession of illegal fireworks" <br />Penalties <br />• Should a person be in possession of no more than 25 pounds of illegal fireworks, that person is immediately <br />guitty of a misdemeanor. After conviction, the person will also receive a fine of at least $500 and no more <br />than $1,000 by the judge. A judge might also decide that the person should go to jail for up to it year or <br />upon a combination of fine and jail time. A conviction based on possession of up to 100 pounds of illegal <br />fireworks results in up to one year in jailor fines up to $5,000. Those possessing up to 5,000 pounds of <br />