Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — Following several comments and concerns from the public, Dripping Springs Mayor Bill Foulds addressed why the city decided to change the format of the Founders Day Festival parade to walkers only instead of floats.
The festival attracts thousands of people who gather in the downtown district during the last weekend of April each year to honor and celebrate the founding of the Dripping Springs community that occurred in 1850 by the Moss, Wallace and Pound families. Considered to be the city’s largest community event, the festival sees various attractions, including shopping opportunities, musical performances, culinary options and a parade.
The latter tradition will look a little different this year, as the Dripping Springs City Council and Founders Day Commission — with input from local first responders, emergency personnel and those overseeing the safety of the public in attendance — decided in the fall of 2025 to transition from float entries to a walking parade for the 2026 event.
However, conversations have been circulating amongst residents about the decision more recently.
Some residents, like Whitney Huey, have expressed their disappointment that the Founders Day parade this year will be on foot. She noted that one of the reasons that city officials made the decision was due to safety concerns, yet she believes that the walking parade could heighten that.
“There is no logical argument as to why this would be a safer option. No safety incidents have occurred in the past to warrant this change and concern,” Huey said. “It seems obvious that trying to wrangle kids on foot in large groups in a crowd would be much more unsafe than if they were safely together in a float.”
Residents have also shared that: limiting entries could have solved safety issues; the city should uphold the history and traditions of Founders Day; and this could impact the participation of people with disabilities or the older population.
On the other hand, community members, such as Shannon Fitzgerald, shared that she has felt the stress and fear that a child could get hurt by diving under the wheels of a car or trailer when she previously drove in the parade.
“Over the years, there have been measures added to try and keep the parade route clear, but they are not foolproof. The barricades stop some, but not all, and it is impossible to keep an eye on all the kids who decide to run out and reach under a moving car to grab a tiny football. I've even seen adults lift a child over the barricade, so he/she can, basically, run into traffic,” Fitzgerald said. “Granted, its slow-moving traffic, but low-speed crashes can still cause catastrophic injuries and, if something terrible were to occur, emergency services would have an extremely difficult task in getting to the accident through spectators and floats and down closed streets.”
She added that there should not be a tragic experience to realize that “unless the parade is moved to a bigger, wider area, a walking parade seems the safest option.”
Fitzgerald is not the only one to have expressed satisfaction in the city taking the community’s safety into consideration, with others sharing that whether walking or using floats, they can still be a “community with joy and pride.” One community member took to social media to state that the parades have had less of a small town feel over the years, with more business advertisements, political campaigns and motorized floats, so this is an opportunity to see how the walking parade goes and the city can reevaluate for the following year, if needed.
With several residents sharing their thoughts and concerns, the mayor addressed the decision in a city-hosted question-and-answer podcast that was released Thursday, Feb. 26.
Founders Day has been constantly changing, as the city has had to adjust and adapt, Foulds said, noting that the carnival has had to be moved from the other side of Ranch Road 12 to school district property because the location was no longer feasible, due to the growing event.
The change in the parade format comes on the heels of a culmination of factors, said Foulds. The transition to a walking parade can reduce hazards that have been seen over the years, he continued, such as limited driver visibility, mechanical failure, accidental acceleration and pedestrians, especially children, moving near or reaching outside of the vehicles when they are in the parade.
“When you view the parade in a holistic view from the beginning of where the staging takes place, all the way to the end, where it comes back around, it creates a lot of obstacles that present obstacles that could be potentially life-threatening,” he explained. “Not any one thing is part of that, but the parade route [and] our staging area was becoming an issue.”
The mayor shared that when the parade would go down Mercer Street, the city had to put barriers on the sides to ensure the children would stay out of the road, but last year, parents were disconnecting the barriers and letting them through anyway. Drivers also had to back up, so that they could make the turn onto Wallace Street — a smaller, narrower road than the others — while children were sitting on the larger floats and people walking in front of and behind.
“It's putting our drivers in a dangerous situation, so this was a big concern. Then, you're on Wallace Street, which is the narrowest street, there's not even room to put up the barricades, so the kids then are literally touching the floats and it's an accident waiting to happen,” Foulds said. “It's gotten worse over time and we are trying to figure out a way to help with that. Not to mention, when you get to the end of Wallace Street, we have to exit off on [US] 290, so we've blocked one lane of 290 off [and] the parade now takes almost two hours of street blockage at least on 290. [At] six o'clock in the evening on Friday nights, it's going to be a problem on 290; it always is. Those of us who live here, we understand it and we adapt and we drive safe. We can't put enough law enforcement to make sure it's safe. Those kids are still on the floats. We have angry drivers coming from that community just west of town and we've got to make sure those kids get back safely.”
The city also did not have a screening or background check process for the float drivers, Foulds said, and some were found to be drinking while driving in the parade last year: “When we're taking responsibility for other people's kids, that's unacceptable,” he said. “So, there's just a lot of things we need to modify to try to make it safer. That's all we're trying to do, is make things safe.”
However, the city could possibly be looking into some kind of screening process if the floats are brought back in the future, Foulds said in a separate interview with the News-Dispatch.
In response to questions of whether the walking parade format is going to be forever, Foulds said that he does not think it will be permanent, but there would need to be some changes before being able to include floats again.
“We need to find a route to have the parade go, so that it can end back where it starts, without driving out on the highways. We can certainly look if it might be better to go out to Ranch Road 12 and take one lane there,” he said. “I don't know, but those are the type things we're going to be looking at and seeing if we can find a better route to keep it running [smoothly]. There's a lot of changes coming next year. Old Fitzhugh Road is going to be redone. I don't know that it'll be finished by the next Founders Day, but we're looking at Old [Fitzhugh Road] to see if there's something there that could make it work. We're going to work together.”
This year, the parade will travel in a counterclockwise loop around the downtown block between Bluff Street and San Marcos Street, rather than clockwise, and proceed down Mercer Street from east to west, returning to its point of origin without ever accessing the highway, according to Johnna Krantz, community events coordinator.
Other changes that residents and visitors can expect to see at this year’s Founders Day Festival include moving the booths that were previously set up in the middle of Mercer Street to be on the sides and going down to the bridge for easier emergency management access, as well as to give a space to local restaurants and vendors in order for them to still attract business during the festival.
Foulds concluded that he acknowledges the major change the walking parade will bring to this year’s festival, but he invites everyone to attend, along with getting involved with local groups — such as the Dripping Springs Cook-Off Club, Knights of Columbus and St. Martin de Porres — that have a seat on the Founders Day Commission and showing up to city council meetings to share their feedback.
“This is a major change. I acknowledge it. I see it, I hear you. It is a major change, but we're looking at how we can make it safer. If we wait until an accident happens — a major accident — there's no going back. Once that has happened, the door closes and I didn't want the door to close on us. Let's take a breath. Let's plan this,” Foulds said. “I want everybody to come out to this year's Founders Day. Have a good time. Don't focus on the negative. The parade, I think it's going to turn out great, but it may not. It may not, but we're going to look for a way to make it better every year.”
To learn more about the Dripping Springs Founders Day Festival, which will be helf April 24-26, and listen to the mayor’s full Q&A podcast, visit www.cityofdrippingsprings.com/founders-day.
