Score: +5 (5/10/0)

Monterey County Grand Jury • 2022-2023

City of Seaside: The Real Cost of Fireworks*

Published: October 31, 2023 9 pages

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⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.

⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.

Findings and Recommendations 7 findings

The City’s website is not updated or easy to navigate, creating a lack of governmental transparency resulting in a disservice to residents and visitors.

Related Recommendations (1)

The City of Seaside update the website to reflect current available services and government information and to provide historical continuity of City documents

Minimal Spanish language content on the City’s website results in limited site utility to a significant number of residents.

Related Recommendations (1)

The City of Seaside update the website regularly to reflect any changes in governmental information and available services.

Lack of documentation and reporting of illegal fireworks Calls for Service and complaints throughout the year does not provide the City Council with adequate information to make decisions regarding the health and safety of residents and visitors.

Related Recommendations (1)

The City of Seaside modify the website to enhance the search functions

The Flock Safety gunshot detection system’s inability to distinguish gunshots from illegal fireworks renders the system useless in combating the use of illegal fireworks in the City of Seaside.

Related Recommendations (1)

The City of Seaside provide updated information in easily understood terms regarding illegal and “Safe and Sane” fireworks, and when and where legal fireworks may be used

The City’s planning efforts and focus on illegal fireworks enforcement exclusively during the Fourth of July holiday period does not adequately serve the health and safety needs of residents and visitors throughout the year.

Related Recommendations (1)

The City of Seaside establish a system to identify and document year-round illegal fireworks Calls for Service

Current efforts by the City to convene a regional illegal fireworks task force are not sufficiently organized to develop meaningful strategies to combat the sale, possession, and use of illegal fireworks and renders it ineffective.

Related Recommendations (1)

The City of Seaside prepare quarterly reports documenting illegal fireworks Calls for Service received throughout the year and present the findings to the City Council.

The limited data collected and compiled by the City does not provide adequate information for the City Council to fully understand, prioritize and address the scope of the illegal fireworks problem. 7

Related Recommendations (1)

The City of Seaside make the operations plans and after-action reports for illegal fireworks available on the website

Agency Responses 2

Government agencies' official responses to this report's findings and recommendations. Click on a response to see the structured breakdown.

City of The City of Seaside Response to City of Seaside, The Real Cost of Fireworks

August 14, 2023 • 5 pages • 15 responses • Score: +5 (+5, 10, 0) View Details ▾

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15 responses to findings and recommendations

The City of Seaside update the website to reflect current available services and government information and to provide historical continuity of City documents

Response: Will Implement

Score: +1

R1: The recommendation will be implemented.

Minimal Spanish language content on the City’s website results in limited site utility to a significant number of residents.

Response: Disagree Partially Score: 0

. "Minimal Spanish language content on the City's website results in limited site utility to a significant number of residents." Response F2: The respondent disagrees partially with the finding. The City's website has Google translation embedded on its site and while Google translation is a good tool for providing basic translation services, it is not perfect. Google translation can sometimes produce inaccurate or misleading translations, which could lead to confusion and frustration for users. Additionally, Google translation does not always translate the tone or intent of the original text, ...

The City of Seaside update the website regularly to reflect any changes in governmental information and available services.

Response: Will Implement

Score: +1

R2: The recommendation will be implemented.

Response: Disagree Partially Score: 0

. "Lack of documentation and reporting of illegal fireworks Calls for Service and complaints throughout the year does not provide the City Council with adequate information to make decisions regarding the health and safety of residents and visitors." Response F3: The respondent disagrees wholly with the finding. All fireworks calls are documented in the Dispatched logs held by the Monterey County Communications Center. We do have sporadic calls related to fireworks, but we have determined decades ago, the issue is prevalent during New Year's & the 4th of July. We have reported this to Seaside ...

The City of Seaside modify the website to enhance the search functions

Response: Will Implement

Score: +1

R3: The recommendation will be implemented.

The Flock Safety gunshot detection system’s inability to distinguish gunshots from illegal fireworks renders the system useless in combating the use of illegal fireworks in the City of Seaside.

Response: Disagree Partially Score: 0

. "The Flock Safety gunshot detection system's inability to distinguish gunshots from illegal fireworks renders the system useless in combating the use of illegal fireworks in the City of Seaside." Response F4: The respondent disagrees wholly with the finding. This system, which has not been deployed, captures explosions consistent with gunfire. Flock cannot yet commit to distinguishing what object is the root cause for an explosion, but they are in the works for enhancing their technology to distinguish such explosions. Again, if the system can capture an explosion already, we do not consider...

The City of Seaside provide updated information in easily understood terms regarding illegal and “Safe and Sane” fireworks, and when and where legal fireworks may be used

Response: Requires Analysis

Score: 0

. The City of Seaside provide updated information in easily understood terms regarding illegal and "Safe and Sane" fireworks, and when and where legal fireworks may be used by October 31, 2023. Response R4: The recommendation requires further analysis and will be conducted by December 31, 2023. R5. The City of Seaside establish a system to identify and document year-round illegal fireworks Calls for Service by October 31, 2023. Response R5: The recommendation has been implemented. This is already done through our Computer Automated Database managed by Monterey County. RS. The City of Seaside p...

Response: Disagree Partially Score: 0

. "The City's planning efforts and focus on illegal fireworks enforcement exclusively during the Fourth of July holiday period does not adequately serve the health and safety needs of residents and visitors throughout the year." Response F5: The respondent disagrees wholly with the finding. Our planning efforts are robust and more involved than any other Monterey County agency facing the same issue. We a/so evaluate collisions, violence and fires, and all of those severe public safety concerns are extremely low considering all the activity we have during both holidays. We do not catch every pe...

The City of Seaside establish a system to identify and document year-round illegal fireworks Calls for Service

Response: Implemented

Score: 0

R5: The recommendation has been implemented.

Response: Disagree Partially Score: 0

. "The limited data collected and compiled by the City does not provide adequate information for the City Council to fully understand, prioritize and address the scope of the illegal fireworks problem." Response Fl: The respondent disagrees partially with the finding. The information shared is detailed and complete. This past year, we even provided information on a hostile crowd that attempted to surround our staff and threatened violence. The priority of illegal fireworks has been on the forefront our community for many years. It has been a serious challenge to curb it, due to the culture tha...

The City of Seaside conduct comprehensive year-round community education on illegal fireworks in multiple languages.

Response: Will Implement

Score: +1

R9: The recommendation will be implemented.

R10

The City of Seaside enhance public outreach and availability of all information and of city services in multiple languages

Response: Will Implement

Score: +1

R10: The recommendation will be implemented.

R11

The City of Seaside expand illegal fireworks operations planning and enforcement to address the use of year-round illegal fireworks

Response: Implemented

Score: 0

R11: The recommendation has been implemented.

R12

The City of Seaside evaluate the effectiveness of a regional task force to resolve the issue of year-round illegal fireworks

Response: Implemented

Score: 0

R12: The recommendation has been implemented.

R13

The City of Seaside dedicate the necessary resources to minimize the problem of illegal year-round fireworks. 8

Response: Implemented

Score: 0

R13: The recommendation has been implemented.

(Spanish) - Ciudad de Seaside: El Costo Real de Los Fuegos Artificiales

May 22, 2023 • 10 pages View Details ▾

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* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.