The city of Toledo has a fine flag. It does not need a new one.
The old cliche cites running an idea up the flagpole. The new proposed flag for the city should never get near a flagpole.
The city wasn’t looking for a new flag.
Then Jacob Parr, a designer for a marketing firm, decided the city needed a new flag. A flag he designed. Voila! It’s on the City Council agenda.
Council members and the administration can’t resist a bad idea. It’s in their genetic structure. Our pliant leaders also decide the city needs a new flag. This is pure silliness.
What a marketing ploy by Mr. Parr, with a measure of arrogance thrown in. Yet he’s succeeded in leading our city government around by the nose.
Toledo should change its city council before it changes its flag. If only council members could so quickly decide that more pressing matters need attention.
Toledo has used a version of its current flag for many years, since 1994, which revised an earlier 1909 design. It holds the city seal. That seal contains the Latin words “Laborare Est Orare,” to work is to pray. Very Toledo.
The proposed new flag needs way too much explanation to explain how it’s connected to Toledo.
Council needs to concentrate on important matters and not waste time on this sorry idea and sorry design that would mean nothing to most Toledoans. It would mean less to a visitor.
Not one penny should be spent on a new flag. There’s also a bit of obfuscation about the future costs of a new flag design. While the costs of a new flag sound cheap, other costs would be contained in next year’s budget.
In any case, one penny is too much.
Council and the administration should throw this flag proposal into the trash can, rather than place it on their agenda, or on a flagpole.
First Published August 10, 2022, 4:00 a.m.
