Commission decides against changes to city flag

MANAGING EDITOR

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Clovis City Commissioners believed the city flag wasn’t broke, and they decided not to fix it.

By an 8-0 vote Thursday, the commission opted to keep the rarely-used — and, prior to commission discussion, largely-unknown — flag the way it is.

The city’s flag is the city seal against a yellow backdrop. A Clovis High student had approached Mayor David Lansford earlier in the summer about possibly updating the flag, and Lansford brought it to the commission during the July 7 meeting.

There are two known copies of the flag. One is currently in Hobbs for the annual New Mexico Municipal League conference. The second was discovered in a closet by city staff and brought to the meeting for display.

Commissioner Chris Bryant addressed the matter and spoke about the seal’s importance to the community. The seal is a Zia symbol and other smaller symbols — a handshake to represent partnership, the Clovis High Wildcat logo, a cow head and crops to represent agriculture, a train to represent the railroad and aircraft to represent Cannon Air Force Base.

“I firmly believe,” Bryant said, “our current flag represents Clovis and what it’s about.”

Suggestions for a new flag included the Clovis point, projectile points first found in Clovis in the late 1920s which date back to the North American Paleoindian period about 13,500 years ago

Commissioners Bobby Sandoval and Gary Elliott echoed Bryant’s sentiments. Sandoval was concerned any alteration of the seal should require consultation with the Zia Pueblo tribe, and Elliott was concerned the city might need to change other places the seal is used.

Commissioner Sandra Taylor-Sawyer assuaged such concerns. She said she was indifferent about changing the flag, but that removing the seal from the flag would have no impact on anywhere else the seal was used.

Bryant moved to keep the flag as is after the approximate 10-minute discussion.

Lansford had the final word on the matter, noting, “I think we should be flying it from our offices, instead of keeping it in a closet.”