BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The Westchester Fourth of July parade has been canceled, according to organizers.
After 37 years of marching bands and fire trucks, colorfully decorated bicycles and little red wagons, the organizers of the Norman Rockwell-flavored neighborhood celebration have quietly decided to call the whole thing off.
Parade chairwoman Robin Paggi and her predecessor Natalie Green confirmed Friday they’ve decided to cancel the roughly six-block event permanently because of newly imposed city requirements including mandatory road closures.
Paggi said city officials were requiring parade organizers to submit a 10-page special events application with a nonrefundable permit fee.
“I was contacted by the police department,” Paggi told 17 News. “They let me know when we have an event this size that there needs to be a permit and there needs to be safety precautions put in place, understandably so. People are in the street.”
“So when we’re looking at all the requirements — there’s quite a bit — and there’s also costs that go along with it. So when we examined all of the requirements and the cost and put it out to our neighborhood, and said this is what it would take to continue our parade as-is, there wasn’t much of a response and so it just made sense that it’s time for the parade as we know it to be done.”
Parade organizers would need to file a waste diversion plan for trash, a detailed drawing of the event site, including the location of fences and other objects along the route; a traffic management plan that included road closure details; a medical services plan; a stand-by ambulance; and more.
Parade organizers estimated the free, all-volunteer event would need to come up with $5,000 or more to manage all that.
We reached out to the city on the parade’s cancellation, and they shared a statement, which reads in part:
“For more than a year, Bakersfield Police and Fire Department staff worked with organizers to find a solution that would be safe and work for the community. That includes suggesting alternate routes that would affect traffic less. We’ve offered the use of Beach Park.
“The organizers said they understood the City’s position that we would not compromise public safety for any event. They are still welcome to submit a permit application for this or any other event.”
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The Westchester Parade was started in 1989 by Herb Benham, the longtime newspaper columnist, and Sue Benham, the former city councilwoman, and their now-grown kids.
It was a small, quaint neighborhood tradition. Neighbors say they’ll likely scale way, way down to private, much smaller, residents-only celebrations.
In other words, a lot more like it used to be.
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