Editorial: Brentwood Drone Show Unfairly Criticized

Since July 4, the Downtown Brentwood Coalition has taken many hits on social media from armchair warriors regarding its drone show. This is highly uncalled for and utterly ridiculous.

First off, what exactly were people’s expectations? Clearly drones are nowhere in the same league as the giant “booms” from explosions and bright colors in the sky—it’s nostalgic and you can’t beat it. Drones are new and for many it was likely their first drone show.

Expectations by many may have been unreasonable including length of show given drone battery life—it was always anticipated the show would be around 10 minutes or so. Plus, if you were not in the football stadium  you did not get the full show.

Look at the Alameda County Fair, they brought in drones last year, it was popular, and now its expanded. Who is to say Brentwood can’t do the same?

Do I wish for fireworks? Yes! Do I wish the drone show was longer? Yes! Do I wish it didn’t have a giant rocket that looked like a “dong”. Yes!

But this was an admirable first try by a non-profit as a one-off event for Brentwood’s 75th Anniversary.

In return, some in the community are overly nitpicking at one thing versus looking at an otherwise fantastic all day July 4 celebration in Brentwood which started with a jammed packed parade, a concert, to an old fashioned Carnique—and let’s not forget, restaurants and bars were packed all day versus people leaving after a parade and it becomes a ghost town for businesses.

So the drone show wasn’t exactly perfect due to length, you learn from imperfection and you move on.  I don’t believe folks should be so dramatic or attempt to divide a community over drones of all things because the overall event achieved its goal by providing a safe and welcoming environment where we could all celebrate our nations independence.

I give the Brentwood Downtown Coalition props for bringing an out of the box idea to reality and trying something new while putting in countless hours of planning and coordination.

It also brought positive news to the city of Brentwood with Bay Area News stories. Whereas in the City of Antioch, no one is talking about its fireworks show, they had two shootings and a sideshow where they had no police officers to respond to. And this is not to bring up the fact based on negativity, the Celebrate Antioch Foundation walked away from the parade and fireworks. Antioch also led the county in number of fires with 22 followed by the City of Concord 10 and the City of Pittsburg 9.

In the City of Oakley, they outgrew its hometown fireworks event because it became too big for the city to hanlde. Its last few years was full of issues from a shooting to multiple fights to multiple traffic crashes. Oakley opted for a daytime event instead—which was great by the way.

People also forget East Contra Costa County is a different animal for fireworks because of the fire danger.  Contra Costa County Fire reported a 60% increase in fires on July 4 from last year—Brentwood, had just 2 of those with one being a 1-acre fire at Adams Middle School all the way across town. Even with the merger, we still don’t have adequate fire service because multiple stations are still scheduled to be built. If Brentwood opted for fireworks, you would have had fire service on standby thus tying up more resources–plus additional costs outside of the fireworks show for more pubic safety services.

For some reason, people are fixated on the $50k cost. Why? $10k came from a city grant and the $40k was raised through donations through the non-profit. Drone shows start at $25k and increase based on size of the show—but batteries do limit the length. The $50k was an industry rate.

Finally, I want to address this “bring back the Cornfest” nonsense. The Downtown Brentwood Coalition has nothing to do with that event or the prevention of it. It’s a Brentwood Chamber of Commerce event and nothing is stopping them from pulling a permit and hosting it—its apples to oranges. If people want it, take it up with the Chamber of Commerce.

Or, if you don’t like something. Get off social media, volunteer your time and work on upcoming events by putting some skin in the game. Perhaps even go create ones own special event, but good luck to you because its easy to nitpick, not put in any work or effort. If you do remain critical, at least put your name on it versus remaining anonymous.

The definition of success is when you get knocked down, you stand back up, learn from the experience and move forward. I have no doubt the Aug 6 Rock N’ Rides and the Oct. 14 Oktoberfest events will be spectacular.

At some point, we all need to show some class and even some grace. Thank the organizers and volunteers for a nice event rather than tear them down by being highly critical because that is how you loose future events. Just look at how many in the past have gone away.

I say thank you Downtown Brentwood Coalition and the City of Brentwood for a fabulous Independence Day and keep up the good work. Remember, support local business.

Mike Burkholder
Publisher of ContraCosta.news
[email protected]