Mayor’s Minute: Why we need a new city flag.

This is part of our guest intro series with City of Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, where he breaks down what City Council is up to – in just one minute. ⌛️

What's in a flag?

The sad truth is that most people – whether they’re new to a city like Columbia or have lived here for years – don’t 1. know what the city flag looks like and 2. don’t fly the flag, take ownership of it or have much pride in it. Another challenge is that our flag mostly represents our city government instead of the people, the history and the culture of our city.

Vexillologist (a.k.a. flag expert) Ted Kaye noted that the City of Columbia flag, like many city flags, doesn’t adequately represent residents or follow good flag design principles. (Watch his TED Talk on city flag design here.)

That’s why we've embarked on finding a new city flag for Columbia with the Columbia Design League (CDL) and One Columbia for Arts and History. Lee Snelgrove, who is both a Columbia Design League board member and executive director of One Columbia for Arts and History, stepped up and organized the public initiative with assistance from the Columbia Design League and fellow board members.

We announced the flag design competition in the spring and received nearly 550 flag designs from residents. I think you’ve seen them here.

Photo courtesy One Columbia

Right now, we’re in the public input period of the process (don’t forget to provide input on your favorite!). At the end of the year, a jury will make a recommendation in discussion with City Council to get us to the final proposed flag. Once that’s done, the final flag will be presented to us on City Council for adoption as the new official flag of the City of Columbia.

Some really impressive and creative flag designs have been submitted, but the most important piece of this process is your voice.

God speed,

-Mayor Steve Benjamin

If we’re being honest here, I’m pretty glad we’re replacing the old city flag. It’s boring. 🤦‍ I’m so happy Cola is doing its part to make people aware + allowing us to have a voice in the decision of the new one.

Maybe it’ll become as popular as our state flag – people wearing it with pride around town – as t-shirts, bumper stickers on their cars and, maybe, permanent tattoos? 🤔 Idk; we can dream, right? I just love Cola that much.

– Beth