Boise council considers new oversight of Pride flags on Harrison. What it means
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Boise formalized Pride flag oversight, giving control to the local neighborhood group.
- New state law restricts public Pride flag displays; Boise moved to stay compliant.
- Flag volunteers care about LGBTQ+ support and representation
A big change is coming to Harrison Boulevard.
Each June, a loosely-organized group of volunteers makes, repairs and replaces the Pride banners that hang along the tree-lined street. But the city of Boise and the North End Neighborhood Association have recently agreed to formalize the arrangement, limiting what flags can be flown and who will put them up — placing responsibility solely in the hands of the neighborhood association.
The agreement will come before the Boise City Council on Tuesday for ratification, city spokesperson Maria Ortega said by email.
It’s good to have an agreement, but it’s not ideal, said Erik Hagen, president of the North End Neighborhood Association. The association in past years has maintained the U.S. and Idaho flags and does not own the Pride flags, Hagen said. Other people have managed the process of putting up the rainbow flags that celebrate LGBTQ+ pride.
“It was never our intention to be manager of flags,” Hagen said by phone. “We just want to be able to have people be free to do what they want within the confines of the law.”
The agreement is a result of a controversial new state law.
In 2025, the Idaho Legislature passed multiple bills limiting and restricting where Pride flags can be flown on public property. The law, which took effect April 3, says that only the American, Idaho and other state flags, the “official flag of a governmental entity,” and some additional flags may be flown.
The other flags allowed are for military branches, prisoners of war or those missing in action, Indian tribes and the official flags of Idaho schools. Flags of other countries may be flown on special occasions.
Boise, which has flown the Pride flag at City Hall for since 2013, kept flying the flag anyway. Mayor Lauren McLean noted that the law lacks an enforcement mechanism, so it isn’t a crime to break it.
But her defiance drew a warning from Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador of potential consequences if legislators update the law to include penalties such as the state withholding tax money. Boise officials later said several lawyers had volunteered to provide free legal services in the event of legal action about the flags. So far at least, neither Labrador nor anyone else has sued Boise.
Nonetheless, in May, the Boise City Council voted to comply with the law by making the Pride flag and an organ-donor flag official city flags. The move prompted dozens of pro and con messages to City Hall, according to documents obtained via a records request.
This city’s new agreement with the neighborhood association allows the Pride flags on the city-owned street-lamp posts along Harrison. The association will be responsible for all costs, according to the agreement. And no one other than the association can put up flags on Harrison without the city’s approval.
That provision prohibits what happened during the weeks before June: Some unknown person or people put up a second set of Idaho flags on the third flagpole mounts on each lamppost. The first two mounts hold the U.S. and Idaho flags.
The additional state flags may have been an attempt to pre-empt the placement of Pride flags in them, association officials previously told the Statesman.
But who did that is not the only mystery involving the Harrison flags. Here’s another: Who has been putting up the Pride flags?
For years, the effort has been driven by organizations and people who care about flying the flags during Pride month and who assume various roles in the process. The organizations include Boise Pride and the Liberating Spirit Metropolitan Community Church.
The North End Neighborhood Association this year took the stance that it was responsible only for the U.S. and the Idaho flags that line the flagpoles along Harrison Boulevard, according to Hagen, the president.
The association has had an agreement with the Ada County Highway District since 2001 that discusses only two flags, according to a copy of the agreement the Statesman obtained via a records request. While the city controls the Harrison lampposts, ACHD is in charge of the medians they’re built upon. Old guidance from the city of Boise hasn’t been recorded, Hagen said.
When the second set of Idaho flags appeared before the start of Pride month, Hagen said, he took them down. In part, he said, that’s because the neighborhood association’s board had voted to interpret the agreement with the highway district as providing for only one Idaho flag.
“There’s no written document anywhere telling people how they can go about requesting to put up flags on Harrison, except just stumbling through it, like we have,” Hagen said by phone in early June. “There’s really no way for them to know who to ask.”
Hagen expects that the Pride flags will go up again next year under the new agreement with the city. But after Labrador recently said that “Everyone is Welcome Here” signs can’t be allowed in schools, Hagen said it’s anyone’s guess what happens next.
The flags are still important to the volunteers who’ve helped put them up. In several previous years, flags have been vandalized. This year, a quieter year for vandalism, still saw half a dozen flags affected.
One volunteer, Jordan Hall, said he has in past years woken up early on June mornings to replace damaged or stolen flags and to help supply materials for the Harrison flagpoles.
He estimated he’s spent over $5,000. Hall, who is 40 and gay, didn’t come out until after he had served in the military closeted.
“I want whoever ripped them down to see that we will be resilient,” Hall said Saturday morning, June 29, as he walked by flags up and down the boulevard, wearing rainbow bracelets and a watch with a rainbow band. “There’s nothing they’re going to do that’s going to knock us. So if they pull down 100, I’ll replace 100.”
Judy Cross, another volunteer who is a deacon for Boise’s Liberating Spirit Metropolitan Community Church, 1088 N. Orchard St., said she’s been helping put up Pride flags for about a decade. Cross, 78, moved to Boise in 1977, she said by phone. She identifies as queer.
After a bout with COVID-19, Cross is on oxygen, but she said she still loves to climb up the ladders to help hang Pride flags. She estimated that the church has spent $300 a year on the flags for Harrison.
“It is a simple, beautiful act of support that is for people who may not have the courage or the ability to come right out and talk about it,” Cross said. “LGBT queer people in the community can drive by and see the flags up and be encouraged that there is support.”
