"The last food bank line I saw had more than 1,000 people in it," said Mayor Rosemarie Vasquez. "We figured that, instead of burning the money in the air, why not give it to people who need it."
In Lowell, Mass., Mayor Edward Caulfield canceled the city's annual show to help save one city job. He had already cut 48.
Big cities, such as Chicago and New York, have been able to keep their shows thanks to corporate sponsors, according to the American Pyrotechnics Assn.
But Julie Heckman, executive director of the association, said that smaller communities tended to rely on a combination of city funds and local donations to pay for their displays of patriotism.
When budgets grow tight, she said, towns are forced to be creative with less.
That was the case for Punta Gorda, Fla., a community of 17,000 on the Gulf Coast. The city, devastated in 2004 by Hurricane Charley, is still rebuilding itself. The recession hasn't helped.
When the city pulled its backing for the show over Charlotte Harbor last year, the town's Main Street association took over.
Fundraising has been slow. The group has raised only two-thirds of what it needs. The pyrotechnic company stepped in to help: It offered a discount, a shorter show and fewer explosions.
So a much smaller show will go on, but the city came up with extra activities to make up for the abbreviated fireworks: three-legged races, water balloon tosses, hula-hooping and key lime pie-making contests.
"What do those cost?" asked Linda Dobson, executive director of Main Street Punta Gorda. "Nothing."
In a few places, such as New Providence, N.J., a last-minute benefactor has stepped in to save the show.
After local newspapers wrote about how the town of 12,000 was canceling its holiday fireworks because of economic troubles, the local Investors Savings Bank stepped in and offered to cover the $15,000 bill.
Elsewhere, towns have just given up.
This will be the second year Carrollton, Texas, has canceled its $20,000 fireworks order and won't have street vendors hawking plates of barbecue and buttery corn on a stick.
Residents were furious last year, said Mayor Ronald Branson. City leaders promised to try to bring the fireworks back in 2009.
But as the economy grew worse in the north Texas town of 121,000, those hopes fizzled.
Faced with a $2.3-million budget shortfall, the city is weighing whether to close City Hall and its libraries one day a week and make City Council members -- who get paid $200 a month -- take a pay cut.
Voters are still calling, but not to complain.
Branson said they were pleading with him to use the fireworks money to put people to work fixing city sprinklers or planting trees.
Branson, though, is still hoping next year will be different.
"We all would like to get the fireworks going again," he said, "because it would mean the economy had turned around."
--
p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com
