Boise does the right thing, backs off new city flag design | Opinion
Update: Boise Mayor Lauren McLean announced Tuesday morning that the city is going to stick with the current flag and hold off on a new flag.
I really hate to pile on, but the city of Boise needs to go back to the drawing board with its new city flag designs — or better yet, just scrap them altogether.
At the risk of offending the artists who created the designs, they are ugly.
And how is it that the city received ideas from 3,000 residents and designs from 140 local artists, yet all four of the final designs ended up looking so similar?
They all have similar pastel colors, and it seems like having a star was a prerequisite, since they all have a star. Two of the designs have identical-looking syringas, the state flower, although, as I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere, syringas have flowers with four petals, but the flags show five.
The city said it came up with the four finalist designs after months of community input, and a flag design committee — composed of Boise residents, including civic leaders, elected officials and city of Boise staff — “carefully reviewed every submission with thought and care.”
First of all, I have to even question why the city needs a new flag design. Did anyone even know that Boise actually had a city flag until now?
Granted, as the city points out, the current flag has been in circulation for 35 years, so maybe it’s time for a redesign. Or maybe not.
I’m not saying I love the current flag (like I said, I didn’t even know what it looked like), but why do we feel the need to change it?
The current design admittedly is boring and plain, with the city of Boise logo, which won’t be changing, on a blue background. It looks fine to me.
Trust me, I’m not on the side of this weird take among triggered right-wing circles that the new flag designs are “socialist-looking,” whatever the hell that means.
Unfortunately, this is turning into an opportunity for the haters of Mayor Lauren McLean to beat up on her once again.
Which means, as has become typical in our political environment, McLean supporters now feel the need to defend the flag designs.
But seriously, even if you defend McLean, you’ve got to admit the flags are not pretty.
I know I’m not alone on this one. The city is getting flamed on social media.
There’s even a change.org petition to stop the redesign. As of Monday, it had 2,630 signatures.
It’s OK for the city to hit the pause button on this one, with the message, “We’ve heard you and we’ve decided to keep the current flag design for now.”
The city is asking the community to vote on the four final designs, using ranked-choice voting (apparently trying to further trigger the conservatives), but there’s no option for “none of the above” or any place for comments.
As a Boise taxpayer, I have to question why we are even bothering with this.
(Lately, the city seems to be suffering from mission creep, doing things that don’t necessarily improve services or improve quality of life or reduce my taxes. Did you see the latest city TikTok video in which staffers absolutely butchered “Pink Pony Club”? Chappell Roan should file criminal charges.)
You might recall that the city of Pocatello redesigned its city flag in 2016 after being declared as having the worst city flag in the country. That redesign was justified. Its old flag looked as if it was designed by a seventh grader on a Commodore 64 computer for a 1980s Sizzler promotional video.
Pocatello’s new flag was recently ranked 11th-best in the country, so it’s no longer an embarrassment.
But Boise’s current city flag isn’t an embarrassment. It’s just plain.
Which is just how I want my city government to be.
This story was originally published April 8, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
