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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (June 25, 2021)
PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, JUNE 25, 2021 We didn’t set the bar WE ARE THE BAR! Pulling on threads “ This community is beautiful and the whole staff is so attentive and caring! The atmosphere is engaging and respectful and it is so good to know that Mom is in such good hands. I would highly recommend this community to anyone! ” — HEIDI r ached t h e age of si i x t y -two. t ose w h o ha v e re v i n g f o r th Qual l i t y senior lil vi Come See the Finest in Senior Living! CALL (503) 390 -1300 1165 McGee Ct NE, Keizer, OR • www.VillageAtKeizerRidge.com Flags and the city By ERIC A. HOWALD Of the Keizertimes Understanding the legal reasons why the Keizer City Council is reluctant to hang a Pride Flag is such a point of contention is no easy chore, and com- plicated by the knowledge that there is a non-standard fl ag hanging from the poles outside the Keizer Civic Center. At its most fundamental, the city can- not regulate content. “There are rules about regulating content,” said Mayor Cathy Clark at a city council meeting Monday, June 21. “And it’s not the things you agree with, but how [a venue] can be used by people with diff erent views.” It’s not the fi rst time the city has had to tackle content regulation. During dis- cussions that took place more than a decade ago, city offi cials were wrestling with whether to allow city residents to broadcast their own shows on Keizer 23, the city’s local broadcast station. The issue that scuttled the conversa- tion was essentially the same. If Keizer let anyone broadcast on the channel other than city-sponsored events, they had to let everyone broadcast and could not censor specifi c shows or points of view. At the time, the joking-not-joking fear was that someone would approach the city with a show featuring naked bowling and the city would have no choice but to air it. “The city would have more discretion over a display in the civic center,” said City Attorney Shannon Johnson at the meeting Monday. The same rules that apply to the fl ags also mean that the city cannot control the content of most signs that appear throughout the city. There are rules about size, placement and even timeframes, but content regulations are far more rare. One exception in Keizer applies to marijuana shops, owners can- not use mascots or cartoon-like charac- ters in their signage as one way to avoid attracting young people. By the same token, city councils all over the country have made exceptions for Pride fl ags with simple votes while numerous others have rejected eff orts to hang Pride fl ags. Keizer councilors could adopt a policy that allows fl ags to be hung in association with proclamations by state and federal governments as one way to circumvent the decisions about allowing fl ags with more detrimental meanings and symbols. If hanging fl ags other than those is such a thorny issue, it leads to another question: Why is there a POW/MIA fl ag fl own on the poles outside the Keizer Civic Center? The answer there is the Oregon Legislature. In 2015, legislators adopted a new statute requiring a public building with the existing infrastructure to fl y the POW/MIA fl ag along with the national and state fl ags. The fl ag honors U.S. Armed Forces members taken as prison- ers of war or listed as missing in action.
