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After hearing comments from the public about the proposed changes to the policy on what flags and signage can be displayed from the city’s light poles, the Lexington City Council voted 4-2 last Thursday to table the issue indefinitely.
Council member Nicholas Betts made the motion to table the discussion of the policy, saying that he didn’t think that adding more flags to potentially be hung from the light poles was “a good use of taxpayer resources.”
“We heard from numerous citizens who are opposed to this,” he said. “I don’t want to use taxpayer dollars to be putting up these flags and [for] potential legal battles. This is not a good use of city resources in my view.”
Council member Leslie Straughan said that, while she would like to see the city’s public schools represented on the flag poles, she would be willing to leave the flag policy unchanged, but that the issue of wayfinding signage should be discussed and clarified. She said that Main Street Lexington and the Regional Tourism Board had approached the city about putting some signs on the light posts to with QR codes to help point visitors to various attractions in town, such the carriage ride tours.
Vice Mayor Marilyn Alexander, who provided the second for the motion, expressed concern about any amendments to the policy regarding what can be displayed from the light posts since they could potentially reopen litigation of the ordinance that was settled in 2011. She said that she would prefer that the Tourism Board and Main Street Lexington come up with other ways to display the signage.
“I would like to go back and look at other creative ways to have wayfinding signs, because we need to have them,” she said. “I just don’t think putting that QR code on the flag pole is the solution. I think it’s going to open up more issues than what the city wants to go through again.
“I just think we need to start thinking outside the box rather than just [doing] the obvious,” she continued. “What that solution looks like, I don’t know, but it will take conversation. ... I think if we go back to the drawing board, and look at other solutions to wayfinding other than that ordinance being brought to the surface again, I think we can make something else happen.”
The motion to table the discussion passed in a 4-2 vote. Council members Charles Aligood and David Sigler joined Alexander and Betts in voting in favor, while Straughan and Council member Chuck Smith opposed the motion.
Prior to the discussion, members of the public addressed Council on the policy, expressing their opposition to changing the existing policy. The majority of the comments focused on the flags that could be displayed from the light posts.
“These flag poles are on city property and they’re paid for and supported by local taxes,” said Debbie Pollard, who lives on Jordan Street. “I don’t believe it is appropriate for our city to be advertising or promoting organizations that the city does not fund or who do not pay taxes to the city.
“Once we start hanging flags for schools or other governments, then we should just open the floodgates for many more requests,” she added. “As soon as someone has their foot in the door, it just becomes a continuous battle, and I’m kind of certain that the City Council doesn’t want to spend its time pouring over every request that comes forward.”
Lisa Tracy, a former resident of Lexington who currently lives on Jacktown Road outside of the city, also expressed support for not changing the policy from only allowing the national, state and city flags to be flown from the flag poles.
“When I come into town on a special holiday and I see our national and our state flags hanging on those flag poles on Main Street and across the bridge, I feel pride and admiration. They are grand, they are elegant, and there’s a certain simplicity to having them there together. We are citizens of the United States of America, we are citizens of the state of Virginia, so those flags are appropriate to be on our municipal flag poles.
“I think that’s the appropriate decision,” she concluded. “I don’t see any reason to change it, and I would ask you all to consider the old adage, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’”
