Rohnert Park voters will decide if personal fireworks will be allowed in town

Only two cities in Sonoma County still allow personal fireworks, but that may change for Rohnert Park as residents of that city vote on the Measure D referendum this month.

All but the Friendly City and Cloverdale ban the use of state-approved, so-called “safe and sane” fireworks, as drought and worries over deadly fires that have wracked Sonoma County over the past several years have prompted cities to enact bans on the smaller pyrotechnics.

In fact, in April, the Rohnert Park City Council did vote to ban fireworks sales, but supporters of the pyrotechnics gathered enough signatures to force a citywide vote that could overturn the council’s 3-2 decision.

A “yes” vote on Measure D means the use or sale of “safe and sane” fireworks would be prohibited; a “no” vote means fireworks would continue to be allowed in the city.

Voters should already have received their ballots in the mail. Ballots can be dropped off at polling places on Sept. 14, mailed in before Election Day or dropped off at the Registrar of Voters office in Santa Rosa.

Opponents of Measure D include leaders of local sports and youth groups who raise funds for their organizations through a weeklong pre-July Fourth sales period. They argue that youth sports and nonprofits will suffer if the city cuts off one of their funding sources.

Supporters of the ban say that fireworks sales provide only 5% to 10% of total funding for the 11 Rohnert Park nonprofits that sell them — and that the City Council established a grant program with the Rohnert Park Foundation to replace nonprofits’ net fireworks sales in the first year if a fireworks ban is passed.

That plan gives nonprofits nearly two years to shift fundraising to other sources, said Chris Borr, one of the leaders of the Yes on Measure D campaign, which also includes former city mayors Gina Belforte and Greg Nordin.

The No on D campaign is led by the youth group leaders but has received funding from only one source: the fireworks industry.

Local residents argue that a ban won’t stop the use of illegal fireworks, only the ground fireworks approved by the state.

“We have an illegal fireworks problem in Sonoma County, not a safe and sane fireworks problem,” wrote Sean Sage and Tracey Poueu-Guerrero in an article opposing the measure.

TNT Fireworks, based in Alabama, is the sole financial contributor to the no campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the city.

As of Aug. 28, TNT had contributed $100,000 to the effort to defeat Measure D. The money, in two chunks of $49,000 and $51,000, has been spent on campaign literature, web advertising, phone banking and newspaper ads in Petaluma, Santa Rosa and Marin County.

No local residents have contributed money to the measure, according to the filings.

The Yes on D campaign has raised just over $18,000, including $3,000 from Sonoma Mountain Village in Rohnert Park, $2,500 from the IBEW electrical workers union and $1,000 from the North Bay Labor Council, and $1,750 each from a couple, Deborah and David Ballati, both lawyers who live in Rohnert Park.

Borr, the campaign leader, said he and his wife became involved in the effort to ban fireworks because of the increasing fire risk in Sonoma County.

“The fireworks situation in Rohnert Park seems to get worse every year. By worse, I mean the noise, the congestion in the streets, the smoke and the increasing use of ‘safe and sane’ fireworks to mask the use of illegal fireworks,” he said.

“All of these things have been contributing factors to a less and less pleasant Fourth of July,” he said. “With the drought, this desperate situation we’re in, we and many others are concerned about any additional fire risk in Rohnert Park.”

Opponents of the measure downplay the fire risk that the smaller, ground-level, personal fireworks play.

They quote a 2019 city report that said safe and sane fireworks have not caused any structure fires in the history of Rohnert Park.

But proponents of the ban counter that a safe and sane firework ignited a hedge between two M-Section homes that threatened both of them before being extinguished.

Belforte and Nordin said city documents show 59 fires on Fourth of July nights over the past four years were extinguished before homes were lost. Messages left with two other opponents of the ban weren’t returned Friday.

In 2011, illegal bottle rockets caused a fast-moving fire that torched the roofs of a Rohnert Park apartment complex and left 32 people homeless. Damage to the pair of two-story buildings and their contents was estimated at nearly $1 million at the time.

Last year, Petaluma enacted a fireworks ban in March.

Borr said that shows nonprofits can adjust to losing sales from their one-week Independence Day fundraisers.

“They had literally four months to pivot to other funding sources,” he said. “They all pivoted, they all survived. None of them went out of business and they continue to provide services for their community, with even much less time to plan than Rohnert Park nonprofits are being given.”

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 707-521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.