Lake Cunningham Park, July 4, 2025, Event

-Prepared by Dave Burckhard, Event CERT Post Chief

Overview

Event Description:

• The annual event celebrates Independence Day at Lake Cunningham Park.
  • Event Description:
    • The annual event celebrates Independence Day at Lake Cunningham Park.
  • Objectives and Expected Outcomes:
    • The event intends to bring together neighbors and engage them with multicultural events, activities, and music, culminating in an aerial drone show.
  • Context and Background:
    • The event was organized by the San Jose District 8 councilmember and staff with the cooperation of the city, police, fire, park rangers, a security vendor, and San Jose Community Emergency Response Team, CERT.
• CERT Volunteer hours:
  • The 24 CERT members logged a total of 177.5 hours on station
  • CERT hours do not include planning, meetings, the walkthrough, travel, and internal communications prior to the event.
  • The total value of the volunteers time on station, according to the 2024 Independent Sector rate is $7,120

• What Happened:
  • Detailed Account:
    • District 8 Staff arranged with the involved organizations by providing a variety of maps, parking passes, layout of road closures and times, planned staffing at vehicle and pedestrian entries and exits.
    • The event began on time. Vendors, including CERT, were well-informed of their parking spaces, setup location, and directions to get there. CERT had plenty of time to set up its booth and signage and cooperated with other vendors to help them set up their booths.
    • CERT was informed that the actual number of contract security vendor workers were severely reduced. CERT also discovered there would be no expected EMS presence. Essentially, CERT would serve as the primary immediate medical assistance.
    • CERT member Paolo Subida became the radio net controller not only for CERT members but for all event-related radio traffic.
    • From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., crowds were light.
    • After 2 p.m. the crowd was visibly growing but not overly so.
    • At 6 p.m. The closure along Tully Road resulted in motorist confusion and attempts to defeat the closure signage and rude comments directed at CERT members staffing intersections. 
    • At 8 p.m., the crowds overwhelmed entry personnel, resulting in both security and CERT personnel losing control of crowd management. However, no injuries, either to visitors or staff, were reported.
    • The drone show began around 9:45 p.m. and lasted about half an hour. Afterward, the expected rush for the exits and backed up traffic resulted in angry visitors and dangerous conditions on the adjacent roadways.
    • The CERT presence was the last remaining at the park. Two MURS handheld radios, checked out by the security vendor, were not returned.
    • CERT members were called to clear the off-limits area on the park knoll, address a visitor with a bloody nose, and attempt to assist an inebriated teen.

• CERT Perspectives:
  • San Jose CERT gained further experience working in a major event environment and in overall incident management. 
• Strengths and Weaknesses:
  • Strengths
    • District Staff managed to save the full day’s celebration by substituting the fireworks show for a drone show after the fireworks vendor could not conduct its show. 
    • District 8 staff held several coordination meetings prior to the event. The staff offered a walkthrough of the grounds two days before the event. The District 8 Coordinator, David Burckhard, could not attend, but radio net controller, Paolo Subida, and District 8 CERT radio operator, Gary Marzano, attended. The staff published and emailed finalized parking passes, maps, and other information to major stakeholders. 
    • Staff directed all correspondence to the District 8 Coordinator.
    • District 8 staff provided day-of information to attending CERT members. They provided lunch and dinner and plenty of water and snacks. They offered rides to and from stations throughout and just outside the park.
    • Mobile generator lights were brought in to help guide visitors in and around the park after the drone show.
  • Weaknesses
    • Security was significantly short-staffed.
    • No EMS. 
    • Police / rangers presence was less-than-desirable
    • Traffic and crowd management suffered from lack of staff and lack of anticipation of trouble spots at entrances and exits. Traffic signage and control along Tully could have been better thought out.
    • Neighbors were surprised at the road closures. Some became abusive to staff because of the inconvenience.
    • Illumination in certain areas in and just outside the park was weak. Exiting visitors found it difficult to find pedestrian gates.

• Root Causes:
  • Of Strengths
    • District 8 staff seemed to have learned much from the previous year’s celebration as far as signage, volunteer support during the event, and organization.
    • Staff took initiative to find a replacement aerial show vendor in an amazingly short time.
    • Staff held information meetings and a walkthrough to orient CERT to the grounds to provide context to Zoom calls and emails.
  • Of Weakness
    • Event organizers may have been diverted from planning for the rest of the event by arranging a drone operator and kept them from fully arranging an EMS and law enforcement presence, and focusing on crowd and traffic control. 
    • There seems to be no real way to communicate to specific neighborhoods about events that protect them.
    • Event organizers under-estimated the total need for illumination

Key Takeaways:

• Actionable Insights:
  • From the CERT perspective, we think planning timing, a better-defined scope of responsibility for all parties, and CERT inputs at the first part of planning would benefit everyone.

• Recommendations:
  • Ensure that CERT is involved at the first moments of planning. CERT recommends that the district CERT lead be the representative at meetings pertaining to activities in each particular district.
  • Agree on the scope of all parties involved (i.e., traffic and crowd control, observe and report boundaries and timing, security, emergency medicine, etc.)
  • CERT recommends that each district acquire and manage a set of at least 10 MURS handheld radios to distribute to security personnel, EMS personnel, event coordinators, and staff. CERT will recommend specific radio models to acquire and provide training on radio use. Doing so will better familiarize district staff members with their use and allow them to distribute and brief other parties on their use. 
  • Provide more illumination to all outdoor events occurring after sundown.
    
• Overall Assessment:
  • Overall, San Jose CERT declares the July 4 event at Cunningham Park a success. CERT recognizes that any event attended by a large crowd and in the dark has its challenges, and not all of them can be anticipated. CERT knows that with each iteration of the July 4 celebration, more experience and information will be gained from previous years. CERT appreciates the challenges of planning for the event and the way District 8 council staff stepped up to zig and zag around the last-minute aerial show change. The San Jose CERT is always ready to work with all of the council’s staff and especially thanks the District 8 Councilmember, Domingo Candelas, and his staff for their support.
  • The CERT member attendees stepped up to new processes during the July 4. A new check-in and check-out process involving a QR code met with nearly full compliance and accuracy. We also incorporated a radio scribe and Planning Chief for the first time. These new processes prepare us for deployment practices when things go sideways. Special thanks go to Wyman Pang, Danny Chavez, and Gary Marzano for providing the radio gear. Ernie Manfredini and Herb Bowen collected and transported all the gear to and from the event. Our radio network controller, Paolo Subida, was a super dispatcher/coordinator/problem solver all day. Thanks to those who worked as the radio scribe, planning chief, and those who worked the booth and patrolled the grounds. Thanks to the initiative of CERT members, we were able to solve small issues before they grew into big ones. I was glad to work with you all. All in all, we lost track of one radio, which we believe we’ll retrieve. That’s not too bad given that we issued nearly 30 handhelds. 

Reviewers, send updates to me:
Dave Burckhard, sjcertd8@gmail.com

The final report will go to:

• District CERT leaders 
• District 8 Council staff
• District 8 Blue Sky Team
• Ellice Ogle
• Herb Bowen
• Ernie Manfredini