Lang
7/6/24
The Hills Fire Department has released a statement explaining the absence of firefighting agencies from the city’s annual 4th of July parade earlier this week.
According to a statement posted to the Hills Fire Department Facebook page late Thursday night, parade organizers have been showing increasing disrespect to Hills and surrounding firefighting agencies by placing them further and further back in the parade, as well as general rude treatment from multiple parade volunteers.
The final straw came when members of a neighboring department were allegedly “verbally berated” at last year’s Hills parade, leading that agency to vow never to return unless something changed. Other firefighting agencies…including Hills…boycotted this year’s parade in solidarity.
Hills firefighters say they’ve addressed the parade organizers and the city council in the past about issues with the parade, but they have gone unanswered. They say it is commonplace to put firefighting agencies in the front of parades in case they need to leave quickly to respond to a call for service. They claim parade organizers told them their entries were not as important as those of local businesses or other floats that were placed in front of them.
The Hills 4th of July parade is organized by a community group called “Hills Town and Country”, which describes itself on its Facebook page as “A <sic> organization that gets together and does things for the town and country of Hills. School, town and surrounding communities.”