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The city of San Ramon is poised for a ceremony Monday evening marking the start of LGBTQ+ Pride Month with the raising of the associated flag on the commemorative pole near the entrance to Central Park following weeks of City Council debate over the matter for the first time in the tradition’s five-year history.
The change in tone came during a council meeting in April when a resolution recognizing Pride Month and raising the flag was pulled from the consent calendar for discussion by District 1 Councilmember Robert Jweinat, who ultimately cast a lone dissenting vote against the resolution while all councilmembers in attendance agreed to revisit the city’s policy.
While the subsequent City Council meeting saw an outpouring of support from and for the city’s LGBTQ+ community and the item went on for review by the policy committee earlier this month, the meeting last week was the first time the topic came to the full council with all members present, giving way to more than an hour of debate before they agreed on changes to the commemorative flag policy.
The major policy change tentatively approved at last Tuesday’s meeting is that the Pride flag and others – with two new commemorative flags having been introduced in recent months – will no longer be subject to routine approval on the consent calendar, pending the finalization of the updated language. Starting next year, requests to fly flags on the commemorative city flagpole near the entrance to Central Park are set to be brought forward as a collective action item each January, with the goal of allowing additional public input and debate in the years to come.
While that night’s conversation largely revolved around the council’s opinions, disagreements and challenges, it was kicked off in the same way the overarching conversation in recent months was – with input from residents during the public comment period.
“The California flag should be flown,” Garry Chaban said. “The City of San Ramon flag should be flown. The United States flag should be flown – bigger than the one we have now flying out there – telling us who we are. We are Americans.”
“I happen to be a Polish, Russian, Italian, German, Swedish American,” he continued. “Do I get to fly each of those flags on their holidays? What are the limitations? What I heard today is there’s not much limitation on what can be flown, and I have a concern with that. And I would hope that the council would continue to look at what’s allowed and what’s not allowed, because not everyone agrees with what’s being flown out there.”
The prominence of that latter point, both nationally and locally as of late, has been a point of pain and frustration for the city’s LGBTQ+ residents and supporters, according to PFLAG San Ramon Valley President Anu Gupta, particularly after feeling that the community had made strides toward inclusion and acceptance in the years prior.
“This year showed us that the LGBTQ community will always be at the mercy of councilmembers unless the Pride flag is explicitly included in the policy amendment,” Gupta said. “We appreciate the elected representatives who have supported us, and we can’t afford to be politicized and marginalized. The draft policy enumerates a number of possible resolutions, but it fails to mention the very one at the heart of this, the Pride flag, which until very recently, was the only commemorative flag displayed.”
In the midst of conversations about the Pride flag and the city’s commemorative flag policy, the council also approved a resolution earlier in May to fly two new commemorative flags – the Disability Pride Month flag at the request of Vice Mayor Marisol Rubio, and the America 250 flag at Mayor Mark Armstrong’s request, both in July – on the flagpole that was originally erected in 2021 as an alternative to flying the Pride flag alongside the U.S., state and city flags outside City Hall.
“While we acknowledge that the list is not exclusive, it would seem to make basic sense that the only commemorative flag with any historical significance be included in this list,” Gupta said. “Respectfully, we do not support the draft policy until this change is added, and we request this edit. We also request the Pride flag be raised in perpetuity for future years without requiring a new, harrowing approval each year.”
The lengthy council debate that ensued was wide-ranging, but centered largely on the points raised by Chaban, what to do in the event that two commemorative flags are requested in the same month, whether to specify the commemorative flags currently being flown in the policy update, and, at the end, how to vote and record the vote on the matter.
The changes agreed to include updating the policy with citations to state law preventing municipalities from flying flags for religious or commercial organizations, to rotate which flag is on top at the halfway point of the overlap if there are two flags being flown at once, and not to make references to any particular commemorative flag or occasion in the policy itself.
While Rubio suggested adding a phrase saying “including but not limited to” flags that are currently in the practice of being flown by the city, a majority of the council ultimately opted to remove that line and leave out any mentions of particular flags.
“I think we can not list out specific months we are going to recognize, because again, we’re being exclusive in our ability to say ‘including but not limited to’,” Armstrong said. “We already heard it once that somebody felt they were left out, and so I would just say stop the sentence right where it says, ‘Commemorative flagpole may be used for recognized nationally, state designated awareness and heritage months.'”
Although the council’s majority agreement on those changes – which are set to be finalized in a draft policy presented by staff at a future meeting – puts an end to the official policy debate at the council level for now, that doesn’t necessarily mean an end to the tension at the heart of the discussion, or clarity on where the city stands in the increasingly prominent debate between proponents and opponents of publicly recognizing LGBTQ+ rights.
The policy update does not reflect the changes requested by Gupta and other LGBTQ+ residents and supporters in the public comment period, nor is it likely to satisfy residents such as Chaban who disagree with “what’s being flown out there” – particularly since the Pride flag is set to be erected as planned once again, just days later.
“I just didn’t get an answer to a very sincere, simple question – what about the people like this gentleman over here that raised the question: What if some people just don’t want anything up there? I thought that’s a very simple question,” Jweinat said.
The answer under the new policy, Armstrong noted, will be the annual workshop in January in which a resolution on commemorative flags for the year will be brought forward for public discussion and a council vote.
In the meantime, the council and community organizations including PFLAG, the San Ramon Valley DIversity Coalition and Discovery Counseling Center are gearing up for this year’s Pride flag raising ceremony at San Ramon’s Central Park from 5-6 p.m. Monday (June 1). The third annual Valley Pride celebration is on tap from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Danville Community Center next Saturday (June 6).
