(Submitted photo)
Village Council | Flag half-staff, for whom?
- Published: September 29, 2025
At the group’s most recent meeting, Monday, Sept. 15, Village Council members asked: For whom should the Village’s American flag be lowered? To what extent ought the Village comply with orders from the state or federal governments, when the orders may be at odds with local values?
Those and other questions were raised by Council members in response to the Village following Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s order on Sept. 10 that all U.S. and Ohio flags at public buildings and grounds be lowered in honor of the life of Charlie Kirk.
Kirk, 31, was a controversial activist and right-wing provocateur who was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. He co-founded the conservative organization Turning Point USA in 2012 and had become a media personality and a prominent voice of the “Make America Great Again” movement within the Republican Party.
At Council’s meeting last week, several villagers and Council members expressed their dismay with the Village’s compliance with Gov. DeWine’s order to lower the municipal flag — a directive that expired at 6 p.m. Sept. 14, and coincided with a separate flag-lowering order to honor those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“I want to apologize to the community for our flag being at half-mast for a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic individual who was happy to instigate violence,” Council member Brian Housh said at the outset of the meeting.
“This shouldn’t have happened,” Council member Trish Gustafson later said. “This was bad form for the Village, for sure.”
Gustafson suggested that the Village lowering its flag for Kirk was contrary to the Village’s “core values,” and that she would have rather ignored the mandate and “suffer the consequences.”
“We gave the appearance that the Village of Yellow Springs is honoring or mourning a part of this man’s legacy, which was hateful and violent,” she said.
During the citizens concerns segment of Monday’s meeting, several villagers also spoke out against the lowering of the Village flag for Kirk.
“As an African American, I’m appalled at the divisive rhetoric [Kirk] spread across the country,” local resident Mike Slaughter said. “The hatred and dogwhistles he spewed have no place in our society or community. I ask you: What message are we projecting by taking this stance?”
“I appreciate Brian’s apology,” villager Alissa Paolella said. “I hope cooler heads will prevail, not just among our elected officials, but our villagers as well — that we not jump to conclusions, but we ask questions and remember how much our choices affect people’s sense of belonging and safety here.”
While municipal staffers are responsible for the hoisting and lowering of the Bryan Center’s flag, Council Vice President Gavin DeVore Leonard said it was his understanding that neither Village Manager Johnnie Burns, nor anyone on his staff, had acted on their own personal “values and presumptions” in lowering the flag for Kirk.
“Correct,” Burns said.
So far in 2025, Gov. DeWine has ordered flags on state property to be lowered 18 times for a total of 105 days, or about 40% of this year; the flag was lowered 25 times last year.
The lowering of Yellow Springs’ municipal flag has honored the likes of former President Jimmy Carter, former Ohio Sen. Ben Espy, Pope Francis, victims of overdose deaths, former Ohio Department of Transportation Director Jerry Wray and the victims of the Aug. 27 shooting at a church in Minneapolis, as well as commemorative observances of the anniversary of 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Memorial Day and more.
In the U.S. Flag Code, which provides nonbinding guidelines for displaying and caring for the American flag, there is no mention of penalties for noncompliance with state or federal directives to lower flags to half-staff.
Looking ahead to any future directives delivered to the Village from the state or federal levels, Housh proffered enacting a resolution he wrote to establish updated protocols for flying the municipal flag at half staff — namely, taking the decision-making or responsive onus off the village manager’s shoulders, and placing it on Council instead.
Housh’s resolution, as he drafted it, reads:
“Except for National Firefighters Memorial Day (May 4), Peace Officers Memorial Day (May 15), Memorial Day (last Monday in May), Patriot Day (Sept. 11), Korean War Veterans Armistice Day (July 27) and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (Dec. 7), the village manager will get confirmation from Council president and one other Council member to lower the Village flag to half staff;” and,
“Village Council will take full responsibility for decisions to follow presidential and gubernatorial orders to fly our Village flag at half staff in line with our Village charter.”
As Housh explained, the first provision of that proposed resolution — for the village manager to get “confirmation” from two Council members before lowering the flag — is in compliance with the Ohio’s statewide “Sunshine Laws,” which prohibit more than two Council members from convening over a Village-related decision without first calling a public meeting.
“This body cannot make any decision behind closed doors,” Council member Carmen Brown said. “Our hands have been tied because of what we’ve committed ourselves to, but they’re not anymore. We have the chance to make it better.”
Additional Council members appeared generally in favor of formally reviewing Housh’s proposed legislation at the group’s forthcoming meeting on Monday, Oct. 6, and as DeVore Leonard suggested, that conversation could open up doors to talk about how the Village responds to future political circumstances that occur beyond Yellow Springs.
“What’s happening is this broader slide to authoritarianism,” DeVore Leonard said. “We’re in a position that the norms have shifted, and I think it’s worthy of us acknowledging that, and figuring out how to address it going forward. So, how do we approach the [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids happening around the country?”
“Or rollbacks on environmental protections,” Housh added.
“We haven’t figured out how to deal with them yet,” DeVore Leonard continued. “It might be worth having a broader conversation about what our values mean in terms of how staff is moving, and what that looks like in terms of Council engagement.”
Village Council is slated to review the resolution at its forthcoming meeting on Monday, Oct. 6, at 6 p.m. in the John Bryan Community Center.
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