MILWAUKEE – After six years of discussion and debate, the City of Milwaukee moved one step closer Monday to adopting a new city flag.
The city’s Steering and Rules Committee voted 5-3 to approve the resolution to adopt the “Sunrise Over the Lake” as the official flag of the city. Most people know the flag by its moniker of “The People’s Flag”, which won a 2016 contest out of over 1,000 entries the third proposed candidate to replace the official city banner since the current flag was adopted in 1954.
The latest push for adoption by the city of “The People’s Flag” was started earlier this year by 11th District Alderman Peter Burgelis, a first-term common council member who has said the current flag doesn’t represent the City of Milwaukee today, and hasn’t represented it for many years.
“The current city flag…I think is a great time capsule of (mid-50s) Milwaukee clip art” Alderman Burgelis told WTMJ Monday. “That flag is a great representation of Milwaukee in the past, but it doesn’t inspire and it doesn’t look forward to the future”.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Milwaukee alderman renews push to adopt “People’s Flag” as city’s official flag
During Monday’s Steering and Rules Committee meeting, some members renewed concerns that during the contest to design the flag, not enough residents of the city were consulted on its makeup. Others seemed eager to push the measure for adoption so the Common Council could focus its efforts on other matters.
Bob Baumann, DiAndre Jackson, and Russell Stamper were the three “no” votes Monday.
While there have been two other flag redesign contests held in Milwaukee, one in 1975 and another in 2001 (neither of which yielded a result approved by the city), much of the modern discourse surrounding the city flag dates back to 2004. At the time, a poll conducted by the North American Vexillological Association, rated the flag of Milwaukee as the fourth worst of all major cities in the United States.
Then in 2015, a TED Talk Youtube video hosted by radio producer Roman Mars dissected the science of vexillology, or the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags. In the video, Mars took particular umbrage with the City of Milwaukee flag, which he described as “one of the biggest train wrecks in vexillological history” (the Milwaukee flag discourse starts at the 10:53 mark of the video):
After “The People’s Flag” was voted on in 2016, it would take until 2018 before the Common Council officially voted 6-2 to revisit the proposal later in the year. Then in 2019, the body started an entirely new process to decide upon a new flag for the city, after the Milwaukee Arts Board determined the previous November that the process which led to the selection of “The People’s Flag” was not inclusive enough.
The resolution will now be brought before the full Common Council, which Alderman Burgelis has said he hopes to have voted on during their next full meeting September 24th. If passed by a simple majority and approved by Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, the flag could be officially adopted by the city in January of next year.
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