2021/07/06 - Mayor's Column: Fireworks and Revenue

“An Open Door to O’Fallon”
A Weekly Note from Mayor Herb Roach
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This year’s Independence Day was quite incredible. The holiday was on a weekend and the weather was terrific.  I hope that you enjoyed your celebrations and got to spend time with friends and family.

This year’s Independence Day was highlighted further given the previous year with COVID-19 and where we were at during this time, last year.

I want to thank everyone who attended the Third Annual Fireworks Over O’Fallon at the Family Sports Park. It was well attended, and the show was great. I also want to personally thank everyone who helped make the event possible, including our first responders, park’s staff, and volunteers.

On a less happy note, I want to remind everyone that non-professional fireworks are illegal in the State of Illinois and the City of O’Fallon. Over the weekend, we had a large amount of 911 calls related to illegal fireworks. In fact, there were more this year than I can remember. When we are able to pull the information together, I’ll share some of the statistics about number of calls, warnings, and citations.

I kindly ask everyone to be considerate of your neighbors throughout the holidays. While fireworks can be fun for some, they are disruptive and scary for others.

On a separate note, I wanted to update everyone on current City finances. Last year, COVID-19 devastated the hospitality industry, closing restaurants and bars. I am happy to see that many of our businesses have opened back up to full capacity, and city revenues reflect that.

The amount of tax revenue that the City collects from food & beverage and hotel/motel have rebounded from COVID-19. We are close to the same levels we saw pre-COVID, and hotel/motel revenue is up over 260% compared to this same time last year. This means that people are once again visiting O’Fallon and staying the night in our hotels, eating at our restaurants, and shopping at our businesses.

I am so happy to see that most of O’Fallon’s businesses were able to weather the storm and are now able to see their business return.

As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open!