After the Milton City Council recently voted to replace the Confederate Battle flag featured on the city’s seal with the First National flag of the Confederacy, officials do not anticipate the seal change to have a significant budgetary impact.
Last week, the council voted unanimously to replace the Confederate Battle flag with the Star and Bars flag during the city’s executive committee meeting. The highly debated topic was brought before the city’s elected officials this past summer, in which the council both discussed and heard both sides of whether to change the seal or have it remain the same. With the unanimous vote, the item was part of this week’s consent agenda during the regular council meeting Tuesday which was also unanimously passed by the council.
Once approved, City Manager Brian Watkins said he and city staff will go ahead and begin the replacement process.
“The direction we got was to make the transition, but to make it efficiently as possible,” Watkins said.
At this moment, Watkins said there is no estimated cost of how much it will cost to change the city seals, which include the city’s itinerary, employee uniforms and the city signs located at the city hall building, the fire department building and the Guy ThompsonCommunity Center.
Watkins said at one time it was estimated to cost around $20,000 to make the seal change completely. However, Watkins believes the estimate can greatly be reduced by having a lot of the work done in house by the city staff and begin planning for the transition in a cost-effective manner.
As an example, Watkins did suggest using the remaining city itinerary with the old seal on city letterheads, etc. then implementing the change on the new itinerary. The same could be done with the seal on employee uniforms.
“We could use what we have left and make the change when we get new itinerary,” Watkins said. “Once the uniforms get worn out we could replace them.”
Following Tuesday’s meeting, Watkins said he plans to meet with staff this week and begin to discuss options in the replacement.
“It will probably be a couple of months or so before you see someone on the side of the building (painting the seal),” Watkins said. “It will take a little while.”
Watkins said he will present the council with a new rendering of the seal at a future meeting for approval.
While the decision will definitely impact the image, it will not change the flag display at the Heritage Plaza, where officials say the Stars and Bars flag is currently on display.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: City of Milton Seal to change soon