Cotati City Council
Agenda Staff Report
Item type: REGULAR AGENDA (ACTION)
To: City Council
Subject: Interim Process for Ceremonial Flags
Date: May 23, 2023
Written by: Damien O'Bid, City Manager
Recommendation
It is recommended that the City Council discuss, and if desired, adopt a motion providing direction to staff on the interim process for managing ceremonial flags.
Background
Following direction from the City Council, staff currently is working on a recognition policy, including proclamations and flags. However, this draft policy is still being finalized by staff and is not yet ready for a City Council discussion.
In parallel, the City Council has requested that staff bring forward a pride month proclamation for June, including flying a progressive pride flag at City Hall. Although not requested yet, staff expect that there will be requests for Juneteenth or other proclamations, including flags, that are also in June.
Analysis/Discussion
The City routinely issues proclamations to draw attention to a variety of issues throughout the year. Requests for proclamations are typically initiated by requests from advocates looking to draw attention to or raise awareness on a particular issue. Current practice is for draft proclamation to be reviewed by the Mayor and the City Manager prior to placement on a City Council agenda.
In the past 5 years, the City has only flown the Children’s Memorial Day flag in April 2018 and 2019 and the Pride Flag in June 2021 in front of City Hall. Staff is unaware of any instances where there was temporal overlap with ceremonial flags.
If properly managed, the display of commemorative flags constitutes official governmental. speech This avoids the creation of a forum for public expression under the First Amendment, which might allow citizens to request the flying flags that the City and its constituents might otherwise object. In order to avoid any suggestion that members of the public play a role in deciding what flags are flown on the City’s flag poles, staff suggests that the flying of flags other than the California or United States flags require the express approval of the City Council, after receiving a request from one or more members of the City Council.
If the City Council requests flags for both Pride Month and Juneteenth (or others), the staff will need direction on when to display the flags. In this example, one flag would be displayed for a month, while the other would presumably only be displayed for one day. Therefore, if both flags are requested, staff recommends that the City displays the Pride Flag for all days in June, except for June 19. On that day, if the City issues a proclamation and directs staff to display the flag, the City will display the Juneteenth flag. For the reasons noted above, this direction should be clearly stated in a motion. Therefore, each proclamation with an associated flag will also need to be on the regular or consent calendar, as there are no votes associated with proclamations.
Financial Considerations
The current flagpole only accommodates two flags at a time. The United States flag must remain the top flag, so the ceremonial flag replaces the California State flag for the duration that the ceremonial flag is displayed. While this is not a significant issue with the current infrequent use of ceremonial flags, if the City Council anticipates more frequent use of ceremonial flags for extended periods of time, the flagpole will need to be modified. The costs are expected to be relatively minor, but will include adding additional clips to the flag lanyard and adding a locking mechanism to prevent unauthorized persons from operating the flag pole. Ceremonial flags are more likely to be stolen or vandalized than the United States or California flags.
Environmental Issues
This action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) because it is not a project which has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15378.