Highland Park announces Independence Day schedule as planning for parade memorial continues

As Highland Park announced its Independence Day plans — including the return of a fireworks show — the city continues to wrestle with how best to establish a permanent place of remembrance for the 2022 July 4 parade mass shooting after the discovery that the current home of a temporary memorial is locally landmarked.

In a release, Highland Park laid out its plans for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Celebrations are planned to start on July 3, with the return of the Park District’s Independence Fest at the Preserve of Highland Park from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., a “relaxed and festive evening” for families to enjoy dinner, music, games and other attractions, including a live ABBA tribute band. The fireworks display will follow, timed with a DJ performance.

The weekend will feature “inclusive, patriotic-themed activities” across the city reflecting “both national history and local community pride,” the release said. The Independence Day Parade will start at 10:30 a.m. downtown, featuring floats created by city residents that “celebrate our history and illustrate what America means to them.”

A “Star-Spangled Pool Party” is planned post-parade at Hidden Creek AquaPark, featuring a DJ and patriotic poolside games. Parade participants will be given free admission to the water park.

The return of the fireworks show is notable — the city hasn’t held its own fireworks display since the shooting, citing “community trauma, sustainability concerns and pet needs.”

According to Mayor Nancy Rotering, the decision was made based on community feedback from last year.

A public remembrance for the victims of the 2022 shooting is not planned this year, “in consideration of feedback from victims and best practice recommendations from the Department of Justice Office of Victims of Crime,” the release said.

The temporary memorial, created in the months following the shooting, remains at the Rose Garden adjacent to City Hall, with seven plaques for the seven killed during the July 4 shooting. Two additional plaques remembering those killed are located at the southwest corner of St. Johns and Central avenues.

During the 2022 Highland Park July 4 parade, then 21-year-old Robert Crimo III climbed the stairs to a downtown store rooftop overlooking the parade, and used an AR-15 assault-style rifle to fire 83 shots at bystanders, killing seven and injuring dozens of others.

Last April, he was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, as well as 50 years for each of 48 attempted murder counts.

Historic preservation

During Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, City Council members, staff and memorial designers discussed the planned permanent place of remembrance, part of which will also be located at the Rose Garden, discussing broader questions about objectives for the site related to representation and atmosphere.

According to the latest plans, there will be two memorials. The first, at Port Clinton, will be to commemorate the actual site of the shooting. During the initial planning process, city leaders had grappled with how to address differing views on where to place a memorial to the shooting.

Some residents wanted the recognition at the actual site of the shooting, while others wanted a quiet space, something difficult at Port Clinton, which is an active business area in the city’s downtown.

After gathering feedback from residents and shooting victims, the city ultimately decided that two locations, with a more subdued site at Port Clinton and a much more immersive site at the current location of the temporary memorial, were the best path forward.

But one issue that recently came up was the realization that the Rose Garden is actually locally landmarked by the city, a designation that’s meant to place some protections against any changes.

City staffers warned that historic-element restrictions could impact the place of remembrance’s design and limit its ability to achieve the objectives for the site.

According to the Park District of Highland Park, the area, known as Laurel Park, was acquired in 1930, and was designed by Marshall Johnson for the Men’s Garden Club of Highland Park in honor of William C. Egan, Jesse Lowe Smith and Jens Jensen, three highly regarded local naturalists. It was dedicated in 1942.

The park design has three main elements — the Rose Garden, in honor of Egan, a wildflower garden, for Smith, and Players Hill, honoring Jensen.

According to a staff presentation during Monday’s meeting, the city designated it a local landmark in 1992, in part because of its honoring of three local historical figures, and ownership was transferred to the city in 2025.

Staff shared the original 1940s plans for the park, a hand-drawn overview featuring blooming roses, wildflowers, tree cover and several stone features. However, staff said the garden’s full vision was never fully built out.

The satellite view of the site is far less romantic, and today the remaining historic features are the rose and wildflower gardens, as well as a stone sundial bench and stone retaining wall.

According to the Park District, the original rose plantings did not adapt well to the climate and were replaced, and the wildflower garden and Players Hill are “more difficult to discern in today’s landscape.”

Rotering said deer have also menaced the roses, and the planned council ring in the northeast area of the site was never built. Staff said that planned pools, if ever built, were likely filled in years ago. Other than the oval center that today is known as the Rose Garden, Rotering argued there’s little left of the original park.

City Council members debated how to balance respecting the landmarking with the planned place of remembrance to honor the victims of the 2022 mass shooting, from finding areas nearby to pay homage to the three men, integrating the existing elements into future plans, or having the Historic Preservation Commission de-designate the site, given the somewhat dilapidated nature of the historical aspects.

Council member Andres Tapia argued for the council to “look at the big picture,” warning that if the situation became a point of division for the community, it would “have failed” as a council. Residents had chosen the Rose Garden as the site, he said.

There are also concerns that attempting to integrate the two would overly complicate the memorial’s design.

Council member Annette Lidawer voiced some concerns about stepping too much on preservation, encouraging looking into ways to retain the historic designation while moving forward with the new memorial.

Ultimately, the council decided to loop in the Historic Preservation Commission at a meeting in the near future to get its input.

The place of remembrance is still in the early stages of its development, and during the meeting, Rotering assured residents there would be opportunities in the coming months to provide input and feedback about potential designs.

Last fall, when the city selected SWA as the place of remembrance designers. Council members urged them to have the site ready for the fifth anniversary of the shooting, which is next year. City staff previously estimated the completion of the design process to be December 2026