From Deseret News archives:
Rocky again asks for new city flag
After the council rejected the winner of an earlier design competition, a council subcommittee proposed a finalist that features the city logo — a mountainous city skyline silhouette — superimposed over a pine green and royal blue background.
The current city flag features a pioneer family, a covered wagon, a reddish sunset and "Salt Lake City" over a white background.
After two years of hammering out what form the fabric that flies above City Hall will take, the council is ready to let Salt Lake residents decide. Council Chairman Dave Buhler envisions an input period that mimics what the state did for its three quarter designs earlier this year.
"Not to unduly delay it further, but I think it would be now appropriate to put this flag and the current flag on the city Web site," said Buhler, who suggested holding a public hearing about the designs.
Anderson started talking about a new city flag in 2004 because he said the old one was tied too closely to the LDS Church's pioneer heritage. Anderson urged the council to move quickly on the flag design, which has languished after the council rejected the administration's suggested design and sought its own version.
"This has gone on for so long that maybe you've forgotten that we did go to the public," Anderson told the council Tuesday night. "There has been a very long — distressingly long — public process on this. Now in the council's hands, I must say, it's taken an awfully long time. Get on with it.
"The present flag looks like a white sheet, a limp white sheet. It certainly doesn't evoke a notion of inclusiveness in any way. We need a new flag, and it ought to look like a flag."
Paul Swenson, owner of Colonial Flag in Sandy, helped craft a new flag design competition in 2004. He hadn't seen the proposed replacement, but was in favor of an update that didn't rely too heavily on difficult-to-render symbolism.
"There's no way that you're going to have everybody ever agree on a flag at the same time," Swenson said. "You just have to have a committee that picks it and puts it up."
Councilwoman Nancy Saxton said she would prefer to focus on other city business.
"I guess I admire all of you for putting so much time and energy into this, but it seems to me that we have a lot of other things to do, and a flag is just not something that turns my crank," Saxton said.
After Anderson pointed out the council had delayed the flag for several years, Buhler responded, "it is fair to say that we didn't put the budget off for this, we put this off for the budget."
"Which year?" Anderson replied, drawing laughter from the council.
E-mail: kswinyard@desnews.com
