{"id":64382,"date":"2025-11-21T22:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T22:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/64382\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T22:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T22:57:08","slug":"laguna-beach-plans-to-solicit-designs-for-an-official-city-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/64382\/","title":{"rendered":"Laguna Beach plans to solicit designs for an official city flag"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Coming up on its centennial year in 2027, Laguna Beach has revived conversations about adopting an official city flag.<\/p>\n

The Laguna Beach City Council on Tuesday formed an ad hoc committee \u2014 consisting of Mayor Alex Rounaghi and Councilmember Sue Kempf \u2014 to consult with the city\u2019s arts commission to develop a process for soliciting designs.<\/p>\n

Longtime resident Chad Cooper created a flag<\/a> that was first brought before the City Council in 2013. The banner features the Main Beach lifeguard tower with the sun setting over the ocean behind it. Wrapped around its base are the words, \u201cartistic freedom,\u201d along with the year, \u201c1927,\u201d in reference to the city\u2019s incorporation date. It also displays pelargonium, the city flower.<\/p>\n

Cooper said his father, who lived on the East Coast, asked him to send a Laguna Beach flag. He began a search for a city flag, but even after attending a meeting of the City Council, he found the dais displayed only the American and California flags. That\u2019s when he decided to take on the task of creating a municipal banner.<\/p>\n

Flag design, according to the North American Vexillogical Assn.<\/a>, should adhere to a set of principles that include combining distinctive features with simplicity, meaningful symbolism, a limited number of basic colors and the avoidance of lettering or seals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe process was long and expensive,\u201d Cooper told the council on Tuesday. \u201cI did extensive research on the history of Laguna Beach and flag design. The concept was born from the thoughts of hundreds of local people. \u2026 A couple years later, I presented the flag to the City Council, and people applauded. The flag has deep meaning. It fully represents Laguna Beach. It also abides by vexillology international guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Laguna <\/p>\n

Laguna Beach resident Chad Cooper holds up a flag he created in 2013 during a City Council meeting Tuesday.<\/p>\n

(Andrew Turner)<\/p>\n

Cooper said he self-funded the project and has been giving flags away, adding, \u201cWe really don\u2019t need a contest for something that already exists. This flag is ingrained in our local culture. The locals have already enthusiastically embraced it. Hopefully, you guys will, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s flag recently appeared at a regional water partnership signing ceremony in Crystal Cove, convened by leaders from Fountain Valley, Laguna Beach and Newport Beach to mark their collaboration on a water well agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were preparing for this signing ceremony at Crystal Cove with Newport Beach, they said, \u2018We\u2019re bringing our city flag. Are you guys going to bring your city flag?\u2019\u201d Rounaghi said. \u201cI assumed we had a city flag. \u2026 It seems like a city should have an official city flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Cooper presented his standard to the council in 2013, it was reported in the Daily Pilot<\/a>. The article noted then-City Clerk Lisette Chel-Walker said that, according to former Councilmember Verna Rollinger, Laguna Beach had a flag in the 1980s. The result of a design competition, that flag was lost after being loaned to the county.<\/p>\n

Councilmembers had the option this week to have staff return with a resolution to adopt Cooper\u2019s creation as the official city flag. While appreciation of his work was expressed from the dais, the council showed interest in a competition to potentially design a new city flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Chad\u2019s design, and I can appreciate how much work you\u2019ve done,\u201d Kempf said. \u201cThe fact that you\u2019re just distributing it to everybody is pretty amazing. You don\u2019t often see that. \u2026 I think since we have our 100-year [anniversary] coming up, it should reflect, in some way, our 100 years. It\u2019s a pretty big deal for a city.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to the solicitation of further designs via a competition, Kempf said the council \u201croutinely\u201d takes that avenue. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe review art \u2014 the banners that go up on the streets, the public art you see all over town, temporary art installations that we do on the grass here in front of City Hall,\u201d she said. \u201cThat would be my choice…to get some more examples from the artist community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming up on its centennial year in 2027, Laguna Beach has revived conversations about adopting an official city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[38689,21387,38686,2731,2323,38688,6052,38685,10,5771,38687,131,133,132,5860,38684,5968,68],"class_list":["post-64382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-art-commission","tag-banner","tag-centennial-year","tag-cooper","tag-council","tag-crystal-cove","tag-design","tag-design-competition","tag-laguna-beach","tag-lettering","tag-local-people","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-newport-beach","tag-official-city-flag","tag-process","tag-tuesday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}