LYNNWOOD, Wash. — Lynnwood Pride says the City of Lynnwood has prevented them from flying a Pride flag at Wilcox Park during Pride Month in June, citing a policy implemented by the city’s former mayor.
The City does plan to hoist a Pride flag at City Hall during Pride Month, but Pride organizers feel the flag will not be visible enough.
“Their single flag at City Hall is in a very non-visible area,” said Lynnwood Pride Director, Charlette LeFevre. “It’s just one single flagpole.”
LeFevre also pointed out it’s hard to see the flagpole from the road because of all of City Hall’s trees.
“I can’t control exactly where the City Hall flagpole is, but I think it’s appropriate at the seat of government, for that flag to be flown there,” said Mayor George Hurst.
City staff will raise the flag and hold a Pride event on June 6 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
“I don’t want to chop down the trees that are around here,” Hurst said. “So, yes, this is the flagpole that I think is appropriate to have a bright flag.”
LeFevre disagreed, noting that Wilcox Park “is a flag park.” The park has more than two dozen American flags, as well as a POW/MIA flag.
The issue comes down to a policy implemented in September by former Mayor Christine Frizzell.
The policy says that the “City will not display a ceremonial flag based on a request from a third party, nor will the City use its flagpoles to sponsor the expression of a third party.”
The policy says commemorative flags and banners may be displayed through a mayoral proclamation, but notes that they cannot be flown in City of Lynnwood Parks, unless explicitly noted in the policy.
LeFevre says the implementation of the policy was “sneaky” because the organization had already, at that time, requested to fly the Pride flag in the park.
“They knew of our request,” she said. “So for them to literally sneak in a policy unannounced, unreviewed, actually denying the raising, or essentially what we call an expressive right to raise the Pride flag, is quite frankly, despicable.”
Hurst said he was unaware of the policy before he came into office in January.
“It’d been great if the city council had been told about this last September, right?” he said.
However, he noted the policy is in place for a reason.
“That policy was created just so that there was some control,” he said. “Because I don’t want no skinheads coming in, saying ‘you need to raise a Nazi flag.’ If we didn’t have a policy, it’s possible that would have happened and so it just seemed clear that a policy was needed.”
The council will be discussing the issue in early May.
In the meantime, Lynnwood Pride is urging people to come to the upcoming City Council meeting on April 27 at Lynnwood City Hall at 6 p.m. to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting.
They are also urging businesses to display their own Pride flags.
KIRO 7 attempted to contact former Mayor Frizzell for this story, and left a voicemail at a phone number that appeared to be connected to her. We have not received a response.
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