SCOTTS VALLEY — For the third year since approving the raising of commemorative flags in the city, the Scotts Valley City Council moved to fly the rainbow pride flag over Scotts Valley City Hall next month at its meeting Wednesday evening.
“Since 2022, the council has chosen to fly the pride flag during Pride Month, which is June 1 to June 30,” said Scotts Valley City Manager Mali LaGoe at the meeting. “We already own a pride flag so there’s no fiscal impact to making the decision to fly the flag again this year.”
The Scotts Valley City Council adopted a policy in June 2022 that allows a councilmember to request the raising of commemorative flags at Scotts Valley City Hall alongside the California and United States flags. The request is then agendized and voted on by the council at a later meeting. At a meeting in April, Scotts Valley Mayor Derek Timm requested to raise the rainbow flag for Pride Month.
“I’ll just add, since I did request it, that this has been very important to so many members of our community that our city has done this,” said Timm at the meeting. “And I’ll say, if you’re a member of the LGBTQ community, right now, there are a lot of members of that community that are at high risk of suicide. There’s a lot of acrimony coming at that community right now, and so the ability for our community to be supportive and show our support, I think it says a lot and means a lot to the community.”
Other members of the council then voiced their support to fly the pride flag this year from June 1 to June 30, including Vice Mayor Allan Timms, who requested the pride flag to be raised last year.
“As a fairly vocal proponent of flying the flag and also the flag policy that we introduced in 2022, I don’t think I could say it much better than the mayor,” said Timms. “However, it is a very important issue for a large segment of our community and it really does further the goals that we have of being an inclusive community and welcoming everybody regardless of any difference that we might have. We are a community and we accept everyone.”
Scotts Valley City Councilmember Donna Lind mentioned that she didn’t realize how important the flag raising for Pride Month was to local members of the LGBTQ+ community before deliberating on the 2022 flag policy.
“When this first came to me in 2022, I would say I was ignorant of the background,” said Lind. “I still remember we had 30, 40 kids come in and shared that, to them, it was about more than sexuality. It was more about inclusion and that Scotts Valley had a reputation of not always being inclusive. And they were very well-spoken. I think they touched all of our hearts, speaking about what it meant to them and what our support meant to them. Their well-spoken, well-prepared presentation totally changed my outlook.”
Councilmember Krista Jett, who was not a member of the governing body in 2022, also expressed her support for raising the rainbow flag this June.
“I feel like raising the flag really affirms Scotts Valley’s commitment to inclusion, the equal rights of all residents and I believe that everyone deserves to feel seen and heard and valued,” said Jett. “For those reasons, I would support raising the flag.”
Councilmember Timms moved the item, which was seconded by Jett and the Scotts Valley City Council voted unanimously to approve the motion.
To watch the meeting, visit scottsvalley.gov.