(The Center Square) \u2013 Adoption of two additional city flags honoring gays and Blacks were delayed Thursday by the St. Petersburg City Council.<\/p>\n
The proposals are in response to second-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ordering the removal of street murals with similar themes.<\/p>\n
The flag proposal is now scheduled to come before the council at its Oct. 23 meeting.<\/p>\n
The vote to delay came after some council members on Thursday expressed concern that the proposal had not been through the normal committee review process.<\/p>\n
The sponsor of the proposal, Councilwoman Gina Driscoll, said she wanted to get it approved as quickly as possible to reduce the chances that it would be scuttled by opposing groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince this became public, it has been at risk,\u201d she told her fellow council members. \u201cSomething could happen at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state of Florida in August ordered the removal of street murals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,\u201d the governor said on social media.<\/p>\n
Speaking to council, Driscoll described herself as \u201ca straight white girl.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the flag proposal was a way to \u201cexpress myself as an ally\u201d but that the flags would also reflect on the city as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt reflects who we are,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Councilman Richie Floyd praised Driscoll for proposing the new flags.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a creative idea that continues to push forward representation for LGMQT and African American communities,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are in a dark place in our history right now, specifically when marginalized communities are attacked constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
But other council members worried that the state could preempt any move to adopt the new flags. Cities are created by the state and can be abolished by the state, a city attorney told council. Cities do not have First Amendment rights, he said.<\/p>\n
Legislation has been proposed in the last three legislative sessions that would restrict the flying of municipal flags, the attorney told council.<\/p>\n
Another council member cautioned that approving the new flags would set a precedent that other other less popular and more controversial groups such as Neo Nazis might follow and asked to be included on a city flag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 Adoption of two additional city flags honoring gays and Blacks were delayed Thursday by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[28,2239,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-1586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-florida","tag-general","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}