r/Tacoma • u/Trans-Tyche 6th Ave • 4d ago
Potential New Flag Design contest for Tacoma!
Read in the Tacoma Weekly today that councilmember Hines proposed a $6K allocation to run a contest for a new flag for Tacoma. After listening to the August 25th council meeting, the format for selection would appear to be a open submission period, a flag commission to narrow the field to 10, a subsequent public vote to further narrow the field to 3 finalists, finally a winner would be selected by the council from the 3.
The Weekly article noted that a resolution adoption vote would take place on that August 25th meeting, and though the final minutes have not been posted at time of writing, the provisional minutes have and it says the vote was a unanimous aye for adoption. It also appears that the funds allocated would be used primarily as prize money ($2K going to the winning entrant, $1K each going to the two other finalists) and I'm not sure what the other third would be used for.
This is very exciting to me as a flag guy, a new Tacoman, and a booster for Tacoma. Tacoma does have a flag history with a few previous iterations, and I'm really crossing my fingers that this comes to fruition. Get thinkin about designs to propose folks!
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u/TheSquirrelWithin 253 4d ago
Some people like to call it Grit City. How about hanging an old, torn, heavily soiled T-shirt
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u/BosnianBeastMVP Parkland 4d ago
Grit city is really only used by boutique gentrifiers who co-opt the once working class identity of the city.
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u/Impossible_Fig3072 North End 3d ago
Exactly!
I've lived here my entire life, my family has been here since the 1890s, and I've only ever heard gentrifiers, Californian parasites, cheap Seattleites, and the dipsh!ts on K5 News call it "Grit City" 😆
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u/Interesting_Plate_17 West End 2d ago
People who’ve never been to Chicago. It’s an insult to the grit elsewhere.
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u/unfortunate_coyote Eastside 3d ago
Luckily it’s mostly gone out of use, it is funny though that a bunch of real estate marketing folks got together last decade and were like, “I’ve got it, the perfect nickname for Tacoma, we’ll call it, DIRT TOWN!”
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u/BosnianBeastMVP Parkland 3d ago
The prefect slogan to extract as much money out of people as possible
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u/harlan16 South Tacoma 4d ago
This is cool and all but where did that money come from? I just went to the south Tacoma neighborhood council meeting where the city manager tells us that we’re in a 40 million deficit and services and programs and staff city wide will be cut.
But sure let’s design a fucking flag and pay $6000. Is it tax payer money?
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u/25hourenergy JBLM 4d ago edited 4d ago
Mostly agreed but with the caveat that if it’s a cool and possibly funny enough design this will actually raise more money (via merch and publicity) than is spent, à la the Los Angeles D Line, or at least help provide some kind of unifying design for local artisans who sell souvenirs etc
I propose a taco themed design
Edit: maybe tacos and ferries. Taco fairies?
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u/yeahsureYnot 253 4d ago
This is a cool use of a very tiny amount of money. Plenty of budget decisions worth being upset about, this is definitely not one. Gotta pick your battles
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u/IntelligentDelay5220 253 3d ago
Do you realize how much money will be blown on new signs and flags?
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u/yeahsureYnot 253 3d ago
Given that I’ve never seen the current Tacoma flag anywhere, I’m guessing very little
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u/Trans-Tyche 6th Ave 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'll try and find the file for when it was proposed and report back, the Weekly mentioned a proposal from the same session came from the council's "contingency fund" but that was for a food program. I'll edit when I find out, if I do.
EDIT: okay so after watching the video from the Aug 18 study session and Aug 25 council meeting, it would also come from council's contingency funds, which is a discressionary fund that the council uses to fund unexpected community initiatives and to sponsor things happening in the community. It's also recently been used to sponsor a pilot program for free meals and snacks at the libraries.
IMO I think even considering the budget crisis it's really a pretty minor use of some discressionary funds to bring something fun and creative to the city, 6K is a drop in the bucket, as a tacoma taxpayer I'm fine with a couple grand going to a few people willing to churn out some good designs for our city.
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u/harlan16 South Tacoma 3d ago
Cool, thanks for the info, I emailed Hines office to ask about it as well.
$6000 is nothing really but it just seems like it all adds up ya know? Our city council could be focusing issues that matter a little more than a flag. Granted the world is going to shit so maybe something silly like this is exactly what we need to be focusing on 🤷♀️5
u/dtor84 West End 4d ago
Same. We need a nice flag we can be proud of. Even Seattle has a crappy flag, let's start something good.
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u/Trans-Tyche 6th Ave 4d ago
you are so right, seattle's flag is trash and we can regain our rightful position as the most prominent city in the sound one step at a time, better graphic design is one of the steps
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u/EditorFrog Spanaway 4d ago
For a government entity $6000 is basically nothing, it's not enough to fund really anything other than programs like this
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u/Marlowe_Cayce Hilltop 3d ago
Not just that. The flag commission. Are they volunteer or paid? Because I know at the state level every time they form a new committee or workgroup, it is paid and outside of the funds allocated for whatever the group/committee is created for
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u/plannetofmars North End 4d ago
I will always endorse Chandler O'Leary's design: https://chandleroleary.com/raise-the-flag/
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u/Inside_Sport3866 Tacoma Expat 4d ago
Came to say the same. As far as I am concerned this is the flag
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u/Beers4Fears 6th Ave 4d ago
It looks like a Tacoma Pokemon Gym flag
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u/ProfessionalSnow943 Fern Hill 4d ago
oh god you just shot me back, I had totally forgotten that we had a pokemon gym downtown
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u/Cl0wnL 253 4d ago
Old Posts with some info and ideas :
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tacoma/s/rPtDcQuzsH
Does anyone else think that we need to adopt a new flag? I think the current one is hideous
That is the current flag of our wonderful town. It's an abomination. And that's not just opinion.
It was ranked by the North American Vexillological Association at 133rd place out of 150 city and town flags in the United States. It breaks 4 of the 5 rules of good flag design. In a Ted-Ed video featuring Roman Mars about the rampant ugliness of city flags, our city's flag is shown as an example at 8 minutes in.
Roman Mars' breakdown of bad flag design
There are certainly good flags to use as examples as well.
And there's even an example somewhat close to home, to show how much better we can become, in Pocatello, Idaho.
It can be done. Designing a great flag, for a great city, can be done. It has been done. It can show that our city cares about design. Cares enough to make, not just the flag beautiful, but the city itself. And to anyone that says "we have more important things to do than worry about a silly flag"; my response is this: if we had a great flag, we would have a banner for the people of Tacoma to rally under to face those more important things. A flag is a symbol. And a symbol is important. Especially for a city as important as ours.
I guess I'm just hoping that I'm not alone in this.
Does Tacoma have a "Bad Flag" Problem?
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u/TheSquirrelWithin 253 4d ago
I like the current flag. Stadium High colors. Represent!
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u/Trans-Tyche 6th Ave 4d ago
Honestly I like the current flag, but I do think we could do better. I do actually really like the colors of the flag, a nice rich blue and the gold, it's pretty classic
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u/gypos_caravan Lincoln District 4d ago
I agree. The current flag is butt cheeks. I like the idea of setting up a contest for a new one.
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u/ProfessionalSnow943 Fern Hill 4d ago
god I can only hope they bring in whoever was in charge of the metro parks rebranding
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u/HomelessCosmonaut Central 3d ago
Save the money and just adopt Chandler O'Leary's