Fireworks Talks With Tewksbury Fizzle, Wilmington's Celebration Up in the Air

Tewksbury and Wilmington town officials met recently to discuss the possibility of holding a joint Fourth of July celebration this summer, but discussions fizzled out before any substantial progress was made.

Wilmington Town Manager Jeff Hull said that he was contacted by Tewksbury officials, and the two towns went over some general ideas for a celebration that would have taken place at Tewksbury’s Livingston Park.

Events would have included the fireworks, activities in each town and perhaps some friendly competition between Wilmington and Tewksbury residents.

But instead, Hull said Wilmington officials will focus on attempting to salvage at least some portion of a celebration in their own town, even if it doesn’t include the normal fireworks displays.

Hull has asked a group to get together and think about possible alternative programming possibilities. The Town Manager said this group is in no way intended to upstage the Fourth of July Committee, which was unable to organize the normal festivities this year because of the high school construction.

“Given the fact that they decided it doesn’t appear to be viable for the program they’ve done in the past, I decided it would be good to try to do something different,” said Hull. “My expectation is that whatever program we put together won’t be to the same scale. I wouldn’t anticipate a five or six day event, but more likely in the range of three days with some family activities designed to get people together.”

In addition, Hull has scheduled a meeting on February 26 with the Fourth of July Committee and the town’s non-profits. Hull said the meeting is to discuss the group’s rationale to not hold fireworks, and also to answer any questions they may have.

When issuing his Fiscal Year 2015 budget, Hull included $15,000 that could be used for a Fourth of July celebration. He said that after the town determines what this year’s celebration will look like, another discussion needs to be held about the future of Fun on the Fourth.

“We need to take a hard look at what can happen for 2015 and beyond,” said Hull.