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Mayor Ron Kitchen fears that if Crystal River lets a group erect a veterans memorial with more flags than an ordinance allows, the city will become a countywide laughingstock.
Here's a news flash, Mr. Mayor: It already is, largely because of incomprehensible decisions like this one.
In its infinite wisdom, City Council voted 3-2 last week against amending the city's sign ordinance to allow the group to set up seven flags at a memorial planned for a small park next to City Hall. The flags would have represented the United States, Florida, prisoners of war and the four branches of the U.S. armed services.
That would be four flags more than the ordinance allows, and that is where council members Kitty Ebert, Robert Holmes and John Kendall, spurred on by Kitchen, chose to draw the line. The sanctity of the ordinance is what matters, they insisted. We have a law and we must uphold it.
This stand on principle, however misguided, would be defensible were it not for the exceptions to the ordinance that the city has already granted.
The council, for example, decided in February to allow dive shops to fly "diver down" flags, an exemption that is not in effect six months later only because city staff has not yet worked out the details.
The city itself ignores the law by flying hundreds of American flags on utility poles along U.S. 19. Lest we forget that the city violated the ordinance in April 2001 while putting up a new sign at city hall (it was too close to the right of way). The city has also tussled, and compromised, with car dealers who wanted to fly pennants and later American flags at their lots, and with billboard owners.
Why, then, are these three council members being so hard-headed with veterans?
The officials indignantly state that their decision has nothing to do with patriotism or their respect for veterans, but an insult is in the eye of the beholder. Make no mistake about it, the veterans and their families are justifiably feeling very offended.
At a time when our nation is at war, in a county where one in four adults are veterans (the second highest percentage in the state), in a city that stood smugly by as Inverness wrestled with a controversy over flying American flags along its main artery, this city's leadership has chosen to play hardball with people who seek only to honor those who have served their country.
The mayor was so intent on this stance, in fact, that he told the council members that even if they approve the amendment, he would veto it. For someone who not long ago staunchly defended his perceived right to deliver a decidely Christian invocation at the beginning of council meetings, blurring the separation of church and state while inviting a legal challenge, this strict adherence to the letter of the law is incongruous.
The sign ordinance was enacted in 2000 to curtail the clutter of outdoor advertising at businesses, items that were distracting and potentially dangerous to drivers and eyesores for the community. Certainly, that should not apply to flags representing the American armed services.
It is a distinction that then-city attorney Clark Stillwell recognized in 2001 during a dispute the city had with a car dealer over using numerous American flags at his business. "One has to understand that the display of the American flag necessarily includes an expression of non-commercial speech," Stillwell wrote in a memo. "The problem is, politically it may not be a good policy to require a permit for displaying an American symbol."
The dispute now is not over which flag to allow but how many. It is a distinction that rightfully is lost on the veterans.
If these elected officials do not have the common sense to grasp the obvious differences between blindly upholding a law aimed at protecting the city's appearance and making an exception for a worthy venture that would honor veterans while enhancing the city's image, then they have no business holding such important decision-making positions. Certainly it raises questions about their ability to handle even more complex matters, such as the looming battles over a proposed annexation plan.
The City Council had an opportunity to shine, to show the city's gratitude for all of our nation's veterans, and instead chose to shoo them away like some pesky irritants. The rest of the county would be justified in laughing at Crystal River, but the public realizes there is nothing funny about this disgraceful decision.