PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, JUNE 25, 2021
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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.