Supporters of adopting the People's Flag of Milwaukee as the city's official flag came to the Common Council hoping to clear a hurdle on Thursday afternoon. Instead they now have an additional hurdle to clear. A skeptical committee voted to delay sending a vote on adopting the flag to the full Common Council, saying the proposal must be reviewed by the council's Arts Board first.
The official flag of Milwaukee was designed by Alderman Fred Steffan and adopted in 1954.
It was not the result supporters of the People's Flag were expecting. Steve Kodis, founder of the People’s Flag campaign, made his case to the committee for adopting the flag with a long slideshow featuring photos of the flag on T-shirts, bikes, beer bottles, tattoos, hats and headphones, stressing that the heavily marketed flag has already been widely adopted across the city. “Now we have begun to change the narrative visually,” Kodis said. “The brand of Milwaukee has begun to change for the better.”
But several alders pushed back against the notion that the flag had support from the entire city, especially Ald. Robert Bauman, who fumed that the People’s Flag campaign had excluded key neighborhoods and demographics.
“This has not been an inclusive process in my opinion,” he said. “I have significant portions of my district, African-Americans, that were not included and were offended by the design.”
He intimated that support for the People's Flag was not as grassroots or widespread as the campaign suggested, saying that every email he's received in support of the flag “is a canned communication,” and that any new flag would need “a heckuva lot more buy-in.” He also questioned the cost of replacing the flag on city property and vehicles.
Ald. Chantia Lewis echoed Bauman, saying “I have not heard of anybody outside the group reaching out to me” about replacing the flag. “I asked [about the flag] at a few community meetings, and when I asked the question nobody knew what I was talking about. So it wasn’t as notable or reachable in my area. I think it’s important we give the opportunity for more people to have their say.”
Of the campaign, Lewis said that it was unfair to let “15 people change the entire flag for 600,000 people.”
Ald. Russell Stamper also questioned whether the campaign had reached out to the entire city, and took issue with the design of the People's Flag and its purported symbolism. “Explain to me how a white sun represents unity,” he pressed Kodis and the flag's designer Robert Lenz. They responded by taking offense to his question and citing vexillological theology.
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Ald. Milele Coggs was concerned about the flag's similarity to another recently adopted city flag. “When I looked at the city flag from Reno, it was strikingly similar,” she said.
Kodis got defensive. “[Reno] copied us, which is very flattering,” he said. “They mimicked our process and that design is clearly copying the Milwaukee flag.” The designer of the Reno flag, however, says he had never seen the Milwaukee People's Flag.
Coggs was unpersuaded by his defense. “Regardless of whether Reno followed us or not, the fact is they are strikingly similar,” she said. “It will look like we copied them. For me that’s an issue.”
Of the flag's resemblance to Reno's, Bauman said “To me, it makes this flag a non-starter.”
Ald. Khalif Rainey and Bob Donovan had kinder words for the flag. Both voiced their intentions to support the flag, though, Donovan admitted, "I will be honest with you, I only received one email from a constituent regarding this and it was opposed to changing the flag."
On a 6-2 vote, the committee determined to ask the Arts Board to weigh in on the flag by the end of the year.
What this afternoon's sometimes testy meeting means for the People's Flag's chances of being officially adopted is unclear, but it was a reminder that despite its popularity Downtown excitement over the flag isn't shared equally throughout the rest of city. If the committee supports adopting the flag, the measure would still have to pass a vote from the full Common Council.
