walkLEX: Lexington's council chambers violate state law.

LFUCG Council Chambers - Lexington, Ky.

I've always been a stickler for the rules for displaying flags. While visiting Minneapolis, Minnesota for Midsommar Dag 1995, I advised the director of the American Swedish Insitute that the flags on the front of their Turnblad Mansion - a beautiful thirty-three room French chateauesque mansion built in 1908 - were incorrectly displayed. Federal law requires that the American flag appear, from the perspective of the audience, to the left of other flags. 4 U.S.C. 1 § 7. You see, the Swedish flag was on the left. The director was quite happy that someone, albeit a twelve year old, pointed out the error. Particularly as Norway's  King Harald and Queen Sonja were soon expected to visit.

Which turns me to the subject of my post: Lexington's City Hall.

While attending last week's board of adjustment hearing (the proposed subdivision in the Western Suburb was denied), I took a few moments to take in our beautiful city hall. Though I didn't take a sufficient number of photographs, I did admire the former Lafayette Hotel which had closed as a hotel in 1963 and served as private offices until 1982 when the city took over the building as its new city hall. But what caught my eye in chambers were the flags.

Yes, the good ol' Star Spangled Banner was appropriately displayed with an eagle finial atop its flagstaff. Note, however, that federal law is silent with regard to finials. The Kentucky flag, at audience right, found a spear-like finial atop its flagstaff.

STOP. Am I the only one who knows chapter 2 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes? K.R.S. 2.030(3) mandates: "The emblem at the head of a flagstaff used to display the flag of the Commonwealth of Kentucky shall be the Kentucky cardinal in an alert but restful pose, cast in bronze, brass, or other suitable material."

"Shall be." That also means not optional, so does a phone call need to be made to central purchasing?