Councilman Jeff Russell isn’t the only one concerned with Fourth of July fireworks shows in Jamestown’s neighborhoods this year.

During her report to the City Council on Monday, Mayor Kim Ecklund credited the Jamestown Police Department’s nuisance officer for responding to as many calls as he did during last week’s holiday. While fireworks complaints are nothing new for city police officers during the week of July 4, Ecklund said she saw new issues arise this year.

“First and foremost, most of you touched on it, and not that anyone department works harder than any other, but I do want to commend the police department and especially our nuisance officer,” Ecklund said. “It was an incredibly noisy Fourth of July, maybe not in all of your neighborhoods, but I saw things in my neighborhood that I have never seen in my tenure.”

Ecklund said she saw city residents lighting fireworks in the middle of busy streets with what she said was no regard for housing or neighbors. She said her neighborhood has many children with medical conditions, including autism, made worse by fireworks in neighborhoods.

“Councilman Andrew Faulkner was with me,” Ecklund said. “He and I both got very inundated with a lot of calls from about 8 p.m. on. It was honestly insane so I know you guys are very busy that night with many many things. I do appreciate your ability to respond and the work that you did do. I’d be interested to hear how many calls you actually received because I think we all might have gotten those calls, but you know it was the first time in my life I’d seen some of the things I’d seen. It was crazy to me. I am grateful there was no collateral damage. If you recall in the past we had fireworks light houses on fire from some of the things that we’re going off. People were lighting them in Bush School at the beginning of the week last week. It was kind of bizarre.”

Russell, R-At Large, said during Monday’s meeting that a number of tents that popped up on private property and sold fireworks that at least one city police officer thinks were illegal to possess in the city. Russell added that the city’s nuisance officer had written some tickets for using illegal fireworks and the individuals receiving the tickets claimed that they bought the fireworks in the city from these temporary businesses.

The former police officer also credited the police department’s response to fireworks complaints while asking city residents to be patient with the city’s police officers when they’re inundated with calls. Ecklund echoed Russell’s comments during her report. Both comments came after criticism in recent weeks from some residents that there is too little police presence and too few tickets written on their streets.

“These men and women are busy enough,” Ecklund said. “The calls are very important to our residents, but when they’re so busy answering really critical calls the residents tend to think that they’re being unheard and that’s not the case at all. They just could not get to everything that they will called for.”

Russell said the city needs to do more to crack down on those selling illegal fireworks in the city. Ecklund said the city can also take a harder look at special event permits centered around the Fourth of July holiday to make sure they don’t contribute to the fireworks problem.

“I think we need to be cognizant of that,” Ecklund said. “I think we need to take into consideration some of these people who had block parties and continue to turn them into firework parties when we approve those next year around the Fourth (of July) and ask a little more questions on that. I appreciate if anybody else has any other ideas.”