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(Seguin) — The city’s Biggest Small Town Fourth of July in Texas is still cancelled, but one local resident wants to make sure that America’s freedoms are still being celebrated
Although Joel Smith’s initial application was denied by the city of Seguin, the in-car only parade, was given the green light after much compromise from both parties. The motor-vehicle procession is set for Saturday evening, with the parade route beginning at Seguin’s HEB and ending at the Seguin Coliseum.
Smith submitted the application on behalf of Toe Dropping! Media, which he describes as a non-profit organization. Smith says the parade is not looking for spectators, instead it’s giving folks the opportunity to show their patriotic spirit this Fourth of July holiday.
“There’s one basic restriction and that is everybody must remain in their vehicles. So, this parade is about being a part of the parade. Not so much about going to line up on the route and watch and observe. But for really the first time, anybody in the first hundred line — once you get 100 people, I have to get special permission outside of that — but the first 100 people to line up, are your parade. Those are your patriots. Those are your business owners. Those are your proud business owners. Those are your proud people in town that are going to come show and make face and fly their flags and play their music and be as loud as they possibly can with as many people in their vehicle as possible. The idea is to create the parade as loud as possible and if social distancing is the guideline, then keep everybody in your vehicles because (then) you are guaranteed (to be) six feet apart,” said Smith.
Seguin City Manager Steve Parker says while the initial plan submitted was more for a rally or some sort of a combination of vehicles and people walking, he knew that the city, with the locally increasing COVID-19 cases, could not afford such a risk, and did not want to send the wrong message to the local health community and to health professionals. He says had it been any other time, the city would have fully supported the effort, but initially he had to say no. However, after sitting down together, the two sides came to the compromise that would allow the in-car parade to proceed.
“I go, if ya’ll could stay in your vehicles, we would be glad to provide a police escort to get you through the lights and we’d drive you from HEB down to the Coliseum in a parade fashion. Ya’ll could line your cars up — three or four people in the cars as long as they are in the cars because most of them are going to be family members and so forth that are associated with this. Our goal was just not to have this big group gathering in downtown and try to do some of those things and so we just asked him for that and he kind of said, ‘oh, man, I get it with the numbers and the risk. It’s not what we want and he obliged,” said Parker.
Parker says the Seguin City Council last week unanimously approved the cancellation of all of the city’s Fourth of July weekend activities, including the fireworks show and the parade. He says that was a difficult decision, but one that the council felt like it had to make based on the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the community. Parker says it was not an attempt to deny anyone their freedoms on Independence Day. He says the same thing was true of his initial decision to deny the request made by Smith.
“From my experience here, this is not a community by any means that it wants to ever infringe on anybody’s personal freedoms, but it is a community that will step up and do the right thing when it is a serious issue and people’s lives could be in jeopardy. It’s a sad situation all the way around, but the hospital is experiencing a surge and we are trying to mitigate that,” said Parker.
Smith again stresses that this is not an event for spectators, and that those participating in the parade need to stay in their vehicles as they ride in the event. The event, which has been dubbed the Guadalupe County Independence Day Parade, gets underway at 6 p.m. Saturday. Those wishing to enter a vehicle in the parade, are asked to text Smith at 210-409-7990.