The Syracuse City Council held a special business meeting on June 29, 2026, to discuss the governor's executive order regarding fireworks and to decide whether to allow personal fireworks discharge within the city for the July 4th holiday. The meeting included an invocation, pledge of allegiance, factual clarifications from the mayor, public comments from residents and interested parties, and a council discussion. The council ultimately decided to lift the ban in lower-risk areas, subject to restrictions based on a map prepared by the fire chief and staff.
It's on the future. You can that is your that is your uh ancillary roles. That is my ancillary role. I mean, I played one of the TV. See Alex's so he's gonna have two officers. Uh we may be not five minutes early or late. It's my dad's attitude. Okay, it is six o'clock, so I'm gonna call this meeting to order. This is a special business meeting of the Syracuse City Council. In a special business meeting, we will begin with an invocation, which I will deliver and then Abe, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance after that? I would our Father in Heaven. We are grateful to come together as a city council to uh debate the issues of the city and find a process forward that uh we hope will serve all of our citizens well. We're grateful for the many blessings and bounty that we have in this city. We're grateful for the prosperity of the community. We're grateful for the blessings of moisture when we can get it, and we're grateful for the blessings of uh a great city to live in and um the prosperity that we enjoy. At this time, we pray for thy spirit to be with us that we will be able to debate respectfully and discuss the issue at hand and come to a conclusion that we can all accept. And I say these things humbly in the name of thy son Jesus to Christ, amen. I pledge ladies to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which one nation under God in this law with team and justice for all, ladies and gentlemen. The special meeting has been called to deal with the governor's announcement that it has changed the fireworks situation for the year. I want to be clear about what we're going to do here tonight for starters. We will have public comment. Public comment, it's not an opportunity to filibuster, so it will be limited to three minutes, and hopefully you can collect your thoughts within those three minutes. Public comment is not a debate, meaning we're not here to answer questions back and forth. You can share your thoughts freely and they will be considered in this meeting. You may or may not hear an answer when we debate the issue here at the table, but it is the boundaries of the state law that we don't turn public comment into some kind of forum or debate. So I just want to be sure that everybody understands that. Um, before we begin public comment, I'm gonna read off a couple of carefully researched factual points because there's been a lot of misinformation out there about what is actual part of the governor's order, what's not, what's within our purview, what's not. You may or may not agree with what I read off, but since Thursday's announcement, we've spent a lot of time, including the city attorney trying to get down to what is correct and factual. So what I read off will be the points that we will be uh working from. Uh, there's certainly going to be strong opinions on both sides. I've heard from a lot of people who have called me directly and told me they have very passionate points on one side or the other. It is very important in this room that we are respectful in the way that we approach each other. The only way that we can allow everyone to freely speak is if we are direct and not uh we can't show big emotion, there will be no applause. If you decide that this is gonna be some kind of pep rally, you'll be asked to leave. Because we want people on the other side of the issue to also feel like they can share their opinion. You don't have to agree with it. We just have to give equal opportunity for people to share their thoughts. The decision that will be made later, we want everyone to feel like they had an opportunity to be considered. So it the respect issue is very important. Um so I'm just gonna go through a couple of things that have been some misconceptions. You may already agree with these points, but I wrote them down so that we at least begin from a common uh perspective. The first one is fireworks are currently legal, illegally sold throughout the state. That hasn't changed. Uh the purchase of fireworks has not been affected by the governor's order or the current state law, and we have a city as a city have not been given the authority to change the sale of fireworks. So that is not in our purview. Uh the discharge of public fireworks throughout or without a professional permit, would not be legal until July 2nd. So no action, and the fact that we have not yet taken an action has not affected anybody's ability to do fireworks or not. So that's not been affected because I've had some people concerned. Uh three professionally licensed fireworks are not affected by the governor's order. So those who have permits and those who have set up professional shows, that's not affected, and the city does not have the power to change that.