By Nate Seltenrich

Is anything new planned for this year's show?

The newest piece this year is that we are adding some parking controls on the fairgrounds. Parking and traffic flow can be quite impacted here on the fairgrounds, and so we're actually partnering with the Sea Scouts this year, who do all of the parking for our fair, and they're going to run some parking controls on the fairgrounds lot. We're not necessarily trying to discourage people from coming to the fairgrounds, but we definitely want to have some more control. So there will be paid parking this year if folks want to view from the fairgrounds directly. I think people will see that it'll hopefully be easier to get in and out at the beginning and end of the show. 

It's a super fun, high-elevation show. We've got some larger shell sizes than maybe we’ve seen in the past, and that always puts a good display on. We want to encourage people to view from neighborhood parks, too. Lucchesi and Prince Park are definitely good places to view. 

Is the city working with the same fireworks operator as in past years?

Yeah, we are. We're working with Fireworks America. Their organization has been very easy to work with, very professional. They meet all the standards that need to be met, for, you know, such a risky event, if you will. So, yeah, they've been a great partner for us.

The planning really takes months. We actually started routing contracts and such in December, just to make sure. As you can imagine, Fourth of July fireworks, you know, they only have so many staff and things like that, so we want to secure the contract real early to make sure that we can run the show. So I reached out to Fireworks America in December, and we started the contracting process a good six, seven months ago.

What else – and who else – does it take to make Petaluma’s July 4 fireworks show happen?

My role was coordinating with everyone on the fairgrounds, so all of the different tenants, if you will, that have spaces here, then working with our Public Works Department, our fire inspector. Public Works, they do all the street closures and barricades and things like that. And then working with the fire inspector to make sure we have all the appropriate permits, and with our police department – they patrol in the local area. 

There’s another organization we contract with, just for security on the fairgrounds, because we need to keep it closed down and secure. There's a launch zone that we need to keep clear and safe, and so we do contract with some security to make sure that no one is sneaking through the fences and being unsafe.

We also have [dog day care center] Play Dog Play, which is another user of our fairgrounds. They actually load up all of their dogs into a van, because, as you can imagine, fireworks and dogs are not a good combo, especially in that close of proximity. So that's another thing we do is coordinate with them to make sure that we can get the dogs off and back onto the property in an appropriate manner.

Looking forward to the event, how are you feeling? It's the first one you’ve organized – are you excited, or a little bit nervous that everything will go smoothly? 

I'm excited. We're all excited about it. Not being a Petaluma resident myself, I'm excited to hear a little bit about the best places to view the show, so [in future years] we can do some more coordinated efforts and give people some good suggestions to kind of have less impacts here on the fairgrounds.

I have every intention to be here as close to the fairgrounds as possible. There's really no need for me to be physically on site, but yeah, I definitely want to be here to check it all out. This will be my first show I actually get to see in Petaluma, so being a part of the coordination efforts, I think it's really cool to see it all come together. So yeah, I intend to be a spectator as well.

What’s something that your new coworkers in Petaluma Parks and Rec might not know about you?

So it's funny, actually, I did look at the [June 24] pickleball 5Qs, and I noticed at the end, I think it was Jodi, she's on the motorcycle there. Mine is actually very similar to hers, I actually ride a motorcycle myself. So I would just say in general, riding motorcycles, being on two wheels, is my biggest hobby, and people are often surprised. 

My interest started from just looking for a weekend hobby, and I picked up riding dirt bikes. You load up in a truck, and you go to an off-road, off-highway vehicle park. I was commuting at the time, actually from the East Bay. I was the manager of events and operations at Stanford at an aquatic center there, and I was spending two hours a day in a car, and I was like, I want to learn how to ride on the road, I want to split lanes and get through some of this traffic. So that was my motivation to actually get into riding on the street.

I was the local task force leader for a nonprofit event called Ride for Kids. It’s an annual charity event that the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation puts on. The foundation has 10 to 15 events across the United States where local motorcyclists come together and raise money every year for children with brain tumors and brain cancer, and I would say most notably last year as the task force leader we were able to raise about $65,000 for the organization. That has been super rewarding. Motorcyclists, and, you know, cancer brain tumors, are not typically something that you would put together, but it's a longstanding organization that I have a lot of pride in being able to support.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.