In the course of their responsibilities, the town council regularly receives requests from individuals and groups to enact or rescind town ordinances, and as highlighted in a recent Phoenix editorial, the council will soon be ruling on a request from a group of citizens to codify into law a proposal to keep the Fourth of July concerts at Independence Park and also maintain the current parade route that has been utilized for decades. And while these two requests will most likely be denied by the council, that will hardly be the end of the story.

If the council rejects their request, the group will then have 30 days to collect signatures from 1,000 registered voters in order to force a ballot initiative, and judging by their success in obtaining close to 2,000 signatures in an online petition and $20,000 in donations to pay for police details at the concerts in a very short period of time, their chances of success in obtaining the 1,000 signatures needed to force a special election are very good.

Many residents will remember a past attempt by a former town police chief to drastically shorten the length of the parade route, and the large public outcry which forced the town to quickly dismiss that idea, and the efforts by today’s group in their mission to preserve the long time location of the concerts and parade route are not much different than that past issue.

The bottom line here is that the group leading the effort to enact these ordinances is well organized, well funded, and extremely dedicated to their cause, and town leaders would be wise to take their concerns very seriously, and if the group is not successful in their attempts to sway the feelings of the town council on these requests, I fully expect them to effect change utilizing the ballot box in next year’s elections — something that should greatly concern our current town council members regarding their political futures.

Mike Proto 
Bristol