At the July 22 Cibolo City Council meeting, council unanimously approved combining the annual city Tree Lighting and Holiday Parade to take place on one day. The tree lighting typically took place at the end of November before the annual parade, City Secretary Peggy Cimics said.
What's happening
Cimics and Parks Superintendent David Howard asked for a council decision on combining the events so they could send out invitations to a parade grand marshal and take care of other logistics. Cimics said the move could save the city resources and prevent city employees from working multiple weekend days for the events.
"When we combine these two events, we really are saving some [money] to the city in the sense of the number of people that we have to have out there," Cimics said.
Cimics said the current plan is to have the parade begin around 11:30 a.m., then have the tree lighting on Main Street begin around 6 p.m. She said the parade typically takes two hours and brings in an annual attendance of 2,000 to 3,000 people.
What they're saying
Council member Norma Sanchez-Stephens asked how the Cibolo Police Department would handle both events on one day while also having to patrol the rest of the city.
"I just want to make sure that the overall safety of the city is not being impacted by an entire day of the resources participating in both events," Sanchez-Stephens said.
Police Chief Thedrick Andres said the department typically uses additional cars to shut down roadways for the parade, and that the extra event would not be an issue.
"It's not going to affect us; it's just holding a few officers over. We don't usually assign patrol officers [to] this because they're answering calls for service during the parade," Andres said.
What else?
A date for the combined holiday parade and tree lighting has yet to be determined.
