HELLERTOWN, Pa. – Keeping politics out of parades is a topic of discussion in Northampton County.<\/p>\n
At Halloween parades, you expect costumes, candy, and floats, and the Hellertown Halloween Parade will have all of that. One thing it won’t have is politics.<\/p>\n
A post on social media with the rule resulted in dozens of comments. Today, we got some of your questions answered.<\/p>\n
Hellertown Interim Mayor, Lynley Solt, provided us with a statement:<\/p>\n
“The purpose of the Hellertown Spirit Parade is to bring the community together in a spirit of celebration and unity. Elected officials and dignitaries are welcome to participate in the parade in their official capacities. Candidates participating in the parade are asked to refrain from campaigning or soliciting votes as part of their participation. This guideline is intended to keep the parade focused on community celebration and ensure an enjoyable experience for all. The Borough\u2019s intent is to maintain the celebratory nature of the event for all spectators while respecting the rights of all members of the community.”<\/p>\n
Solt also spoke with us on the phone and provided some clarification. She said it is not a new policy, and that this is not intended for spectators; it’s about parade participants.<\/p>\n
Because the Facebook post resulted in so much community response, we spent the afternoon at Water Street Park asking people their thoughts.<\/p>\n
“I don’t see a problem with saying go out and vote. If they are pushing specific planks and party platforms during the parade that can rub people the wrong way, so I can see how that could be something to avoid,” said Michael Kastelnik, who was enjoying the afternoon outside.<\/p>\n
He says the term politics is broad and an inevitable part of our society.<\/p>\n
“Just handing out a piece of paper, you don’t need to take it. Or just vote, okay, thanks, that’s part of our system through democratic voting,” said Kastelnik.<\/p>\n
We also spoke to more than a dozen people, many of whom didn’t wish to speak on the issue, but some shared their opinions off camera.<\/p>\n
Multiple people explained that they support keeping politics out of children’s celebrations, but others were not as bothered by the idea.<\/p>\n
Politics aside, many tell us they are just looking forward to the Halloween celebration.<\/p>\n
The Hellertown Halloween Parade will march through town on Sunday at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HELLERTOWN, Pa. – Keeping politics out of parades is a topic of discussion in Northampton County. At Halloween…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,5410,734,72928,6824,122541,7232,204,125560,434],"class_list":["post-306072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-candy","tag-children","tag-community-celebration","tag-costumes","tag-floats","tag-halloween-parade","tag-hellertown","tag-no-politics","tag-northampton-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}