For most communities, eliminating or scaling back July 4 celebrations would be among the farthest things from their mind. After all, for this country, July 4 isn’t just another date on the calendar; the date marks the anniversary of this country’s declaration of independence from England in 1776.

It’s not a date that under any circumstances should become ho-hum. Unfortunately, here in Butler County there are two points of concern regarding this year’s holiday observance that should not be allowed to be repeated next year.

It can be stated without reservation that cancellation of Butler’s Freedom Celebration and Mars’ Independence Day daylong family celebration have occurred for one reason: People with the ability to keep the events alive didn’t work hard enough and soon enough to overcome roadblocks.

As reported in an article in Wednesday’s Butler Eagle, Mars Councilwoman Patti Marburger said Tuesday that, while she had collected $10,000 in donations last year to fund the fireworks, waterline and catch basin projects on Garfield and Lincoln avenues kept her too busy to work on this year’s Independence Day activities.

Some Eagle readers might be wondering whether Marburger had been designated by the borough council as its hands-on representative in the project’s trenches.

At the same time, some Mars residents, having read Mayor Dick Settlemire’s comments about the celebration cancellation, might have wondered why he didn’t step forward to assume some of the Independence Day celebration workload that Marburger had shouldered in the past — or at least take the lead in organizing a corps of new volunteers to assume the tasks.

“It breaks my heart,” Settlemire said. ”Our kids deserve it. It’s the Fourth of July, for Pete’s sake.”

Too bad those feelings, from his perspective, weren’t powerful enough to evoke determined action on behalf of the community event.

A similar critique is apropos regarding this year’s demise of Butler’s Freedom event.

It was clear last year that a major reorganization of the celebration’s planning group was going to be necessary as a result of health and personal issues being encountered by those who had arranged the Freedom Celebration in previous years.

However, it’s a year later but a new corps of leaders for the event has not been assembled.

“The (Freedom Celebration) committee needs to reorganize,” said Mayor Maggie Stock. A relevant question is why she or some other member of the city council didn’t step forward early on to bring about that result.

Apparently, after last year’s difficulties, city officials merely put the issue on the proverbial shelf, hoping that the celebration would somehow take care of itself when Summer 2011 arrived.

It didn’t and it won’t in the future.

Butler and Mars should be ashamed over their failure to keep their celebrations vibrant and, in fact, growing. Work should begin now to revive — indeed, improve upon — their events for next year.