Following last week’s meeting when they had expressed their concerns about there not being a Fourth of July celebration in Williamsport, Commissioner Scott Metzger shared this week that he had reached out to Mayor Derek Slaughter in order to discuss the city’s decision to cancel the fireworks display.

He explained that he, along with Commissioner Marc Sortman and County Sheriff Eric Spiegel, met with city officials.

“They basically said they didn’t feel they had the manpower, which we had a discussion quite in depth about that,” Metzger said.

“Their decision’s pretty much that they can’t do it…they’ve made their final decision,” Metzger said.

The issue of lack of manpower to ensure safety at the event was cited as a reason by the city to cancel the event, especially following an incident after last year’s celebration.

“I know the district attorney had a conversation with the mayor also, and the chief of police, and he feels that he could provide manpower from his department, and the Sheriff can provide some, adult probation and juvenile probation cultivation was going to provide some too,” he said.

Metzger said that they then reached out to the Chamber of Commerce and Van Michael, of Backyard Broadcasting, which has hosted the event in the past, in order to try to find a solution.

“So yesterday, at the Chamber meeting Backyard Broadcasting had said, basically, they lost some sponsors as a result of moving out of the city. He felt that if they could get the sponsors back in place, there may have been a venue somewhere in the county (that) they could at least set off the fireworks,” Metzger said.

One of the sponsors, Metzger said, was in the audience and they have given the “go ahead to say yes.”

“So Backyard Broadcasting felt they were there at the threshold where they can move forward, and so they’re looking at a venue right now to at least shoot the fireworks off,” he said.

“So there’s more coming from Backyard Broadcasting when they’re able to provide us information…so once we have more information, we’ll provide it to you,” Metzger said.

Several businesses in the area also help pay for the fireworks, he noted.

“We told the city, we’ve told everybody, we’re willing to host meetings to get the manpower there to try to make sure that everything’s properly secured and law enforcement’s there to assist, and the county can help assist with that, because we want to see something happen. We need something to happen, especially the 250th anniversary of our nation.,” Metzger said.

“You see State College, Wilkes-Barre, Hershey, they’re all having events. There’s no reason why we can’t have an event. And so we want to thank Backyard Broadcasting for continuing to pursue this, and the chamber for their assistance, and for the DAs office, the means they had. We’ll get something done,” he said.

Commissioner Mark Mussina also weighed in on the issue.

He described the “general tenor” of the meeting with the chamber and Backyard Broadcasting as “very positive.”

“There’s just so many logistical aspects of how much radius you need, away from roads, away from housing. So you just can’t shoot them off everywhere,” he said.

“They mentioned multiple venues and each venue has its own kind of hurdles that they have to clear. Maybe questions they have to ask because they’ve never had to ask them before. But the whole general tenor was positive that they’re going to figure it out,” Mussina said.