A year after voting to allow commemorative flags such as the pride flag to fly over City Hall, Riverside leaders have reversed course.
The City Council voted 5-1 Tuesday, Sept. 17, to reinstate a previous flag policy governing all city-owned buildings and flag poles. Now, only the American flag, California state flag and city flag may be displayed at City Hall and other city-owned sites.
“The time for this failed social experiment has come,” Councilmember Chuck Conder, who proposed reversing the rules on commemorative flags, said at the meeting Tuesday.
“We need to stop it,” he added. “It has been a distraction to things that need to get done in the city. This policy has caused divisive sentiments across the city and a government is supposed to represent all of its citizens and not take sides.”
Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes voted against changing the flag policy and Councilmember Steve Hemenway was absent Tuesday.
“It is painful to have this come back today to be requested to be repealed,” Cervantes said, “when I’ve had residents personally come to me and look me in the face and tell me what these flags have meant to them.”
The vote Tuesday came a month after the council rejected expanding the list of commemorative flags allowed at city-owned sites, and it reversed a May 2023 decision to allow pride flags and flags for Holocaust Remembrance Day and Black History Month at City Hall.
In May 2023, the council approved flying commemorative flags by a 5-2 vote with Conder and Councilmember Jim Perry opposed.
But the makeup of the dais has shifted since then. Three newcomers — Councilmembers Philip Falcone, Sean Mill and Steven Robillard, all of whom took office in April 2024 — joined Conder and Perry Tuesday to overturn the May 2023 decision.
“I will continue to do my part every single day by working hard to better the conditions of our community, improve the quality of life for all Riversiders — period,” Mill said Tuesday. “Riverside is great because Riversiders are diverse. Always, as I do every single day, celebrate our diversity — flag or no flag.”
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A handful of speakers supported the council’s decision Tuesday.
“I strongly urge the council today to vote with the motion and go back to the old days of three flags,” speaker Rich Gardner said. “Those three flags represent everybody.”
Others, however, opposed reverting to the old flag policy.
“It shows exclusion, not inclusion,” speaker Michelle Horn said of the proposal.
Speaker Candy Doss told the council she was surprised by the effort to remove commemorative flags.
“I have friends who are Jewish, I have friends who are Black, I have friends who are gay and lesbian and I have friends and neighbors who are disabled,” Doss said. “So all of these flags are meaningful to some people.”
