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Last week, Sandy Mayor Stan Pulliam took to Facebook to decry state restrictions on large gatherings. Pulliam claimed that the Oregon Health Authority threatened the city of Sandy with legal action June 30 if it did not cancel its annual fireworks display. "Our Governor and her power-hungry bureaucracy have bullied our citizens out of being able to celebrate Independence Day," Pulliam wrote in the four-paragraph Facebook post. "Come together as communities in the way our founding fathers did and have the discussions about whether we will allow this tyrannical Governor to stop our personal freedoms." OHA denied directing the city to cancel its fireworks display. WW reported the spat on wweek.com. Here's what our readers had to say:
Riffless via wweek.com: "I'd say it's childish behavior to cry about not getting to see a fireworks display, but that would be insulting to children. Grow up, Stan, there's a pandemic going on."
Ariel Gummer via Facebook: "Wish I could blame the governor for the fireworks in Hermiston being canceled, but we're going ahead with our city fireworks display. Umatilla County has an infection rate of 1 in 150 people. What could possibly go wrong?"
Evan Tait via Facebook: "Oh no, how dare she try to do her best to protect her citizens. How inconvenient that you have to cancel a firework show because a global goddamn pandemic is happening. The injustice of it all."
Shannon Deems via Facebook: "It's astonishing how many are confused by the constitutional right to assemble and where fireworks (don't) fit into that."
Scrappymutt via wweek.com: "If it wasn't for all the grandstanding about liberty and tyranny, I would support the mayor of Sandy. You can see fireworks from a mile away. This is something we should be able to pull off while being socially distant. Just make people stay with their cars or whatever."
Jim Andersen via Facebook: "I'm not a fan of Governor Brown, but she gets blamed for way too many things that are really just common sense given today's virus environment."
Brenda Brown via Facebook: "Lol…Drive-in-type fireworks are happening all over. Guy doesn't think outside the box."
@PdxDanean via Twitter: "Thoughts and prayers to the Sandy snowflake. But mah fireworks!"
TK via wweek.com: "Judging by the unprecedented amount of mortars going off last night, doesn't seem like people missed out. All the stimulus checks and unemployment bennies just went up in smoke…'merica!"