The Salt Lake City Council is right. Those who are designing a new-look flag for the city need to go back to the drawing board. Like watered down soup, the three designs presented last week disappoint everybody by trying to leave no one out.

Not that they weren't handsome designs. They simply lacked "pop." One looked like it had been designed on a computer, by another computer. Another would have made great posters, but bad flags. All three lacked the human touch. Like the Edsel, they seemed to have been fashioned by a committee — or an artist aiming to please. They lacked vision. They were all art and no heart.

Where's Betsy Ross when you need her?

One city flag featured an eagle, one a rising sun and the third amber waves of red and white. None seemed to say "Salt Lake City."

Part of the charm of a flag comes from being fresh, yet recognizable. The best organize existing symbols into a fresh design. The British "Union Jack," for example, combines the crosses associated with Scotland, Ireland and England into a startling new pattern. The designer took symbols that already existed and recast them. People enjoy seeing their beloved icons presented in new and startling ways.

True, featuring a lone seagull on the city flag would distort the nature of the city, but a seagull as part of a larger, fuller design might not hurt. As for colors, why not a bevy: Kelly green for the Irish, Mexican pink, Olympic gold, Buddhist white, U.red, Navajo turquoise?

We're confident, given another run at it, artists will catch the spirit.

For now, one critic has complained that the city is spending too much money and time on a flag when other matters are more pressing. And the notion that a "flag controversy" is not what the city needs right now on top of everything else strikes a chord.

Still, anything worth doing is worth doing right. And if a flag doesn't pass muster, it doesn't.

Now that the idea has come this far, the city needs to bring the whole project home. More than one explorer has said if he knew what the journey entailed, he never would have begun. The city flag committee probably knows the feeling.

If the city needs a flag, let's make it a good one. In other words, artists, once more — with feeling.