After two-year absence they’re back! Yachats will have fireworks and La de da Parade over Fourth of July weekend

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

YACHATS – After a two-year absence, there will be fireworks and the La de da parade in Yachats over the three-day Fourth of July holiday.

The Yachats Chamber of Commerce and the city of Yachats have rescued the fireworks show — but it will occur Saturday, July 2.

The quirky, homemade La de da Parade will kick off at noon Monday, July 4. The parade had run 24 years until it was cancelled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Thanks to a $25,000 infusion from the city’s visitors amenity fund, the fireworks is a go.

“I’m really excited. It should make most people happy,” chamber president Linda Hetzler told YachatsNews. “It should be really cool.”

The chamber is working out a contract with Western Display of Canby, which had been handling fireworks in Yachats and elsewhere around the Northwest for decades. But it has fewer licensed pyro-technicians now, so Yachats had to select a different date than its traditional July 4.

Waldport’s fireworks are July 3 and Newport and Lincoln City’s are July 4 – all financed by those cities and all put on by Western Display.

For years, fireworks in Yachats have been organized by Katherine Guenther and volunteers with her Yachats Fireworks Committee. But the pandemic forced their cancellation in 2020 and 2021.

When Western Display contacted Guenther late last year to see if she wanted a contract for this year, she passed along that information to Hetzler and the chamber.

Hetzler contacted Western Display president Heather Gobet, who said the company no longer had the capacity to handle as many shows July 4. So Hetzler grabbed the Saturday night slot.

Now all she needed was money.

On Wednesday the Yachats city council voted 3-2 to allocate $25,000 to pay for the show. In the past the city has contributed $2,000 to $3,000 and Guenther’s group sought donations from the community for the rest.

The chamber will still needs to organize volunteers to help close streets around Yachats State Park, where the fireworks are shot from, and deal with other logistical issues.

Councilor Anthony Muirhead, who made the motion to allocate the money, argued it was the best use of visitor amenity funds – which come from lodging taxes and has restrictions on their use. But the city is flush with cash because lodging taxes came in higher than budgeted during the pandemic and because the city has not spent much to promote tourism or on other tourism-related projects the past three years.

“This will draw visitors and create memories while we are sitting on funds we can’t spend (on other projects),” he said. “There’s still going to be a lot of money in reserves.”

Mayor Leslie Vaaler and Councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey voted no. Vaaler didn’t explain her vote. O’Shaughnessey said she had concerns on the fireworks’ effects on the environment and pets. “Yet, I understand it’s a great way to celebrate,” she said.

Muirhead and councilors Ann Stott and Greg Scott voted to allocate the money.

“I think the community is in dire need of a celebration,” Scott said.

Gobet told YachatsNews this week that it lost some of its licensed pyro-technicians the past two years as communities cancelled events and wasn’t sure who would be signing up this year. But the family-owned company  from Canby will still put on 150 shows the July 4 weekend in Oregon, Washington and Idaho — and happy to be  returning to Yachats.

“Yachats has a bigger budget this year and that means a bigger show,” Gobet said. “It’s going to be a great show.”