Newport’s Fling At Fame Has Flagged Lack Of Maintenance Leaves Dream In Tatters

Newport is giving up on its 10-year effort to join that elite club of cities with nicknames people remember.

A good nickname says something about a city: the Eternal City, the City of Lights, the Big Apple, the Big Easy.

A mediocre nickname at least says something about the foliage: the Emerald City, the Rose City, the Lilac City.

Then there’s the City of Flags. You know: Newport.

Some say it was always a dubious proposition that this old mining town could attract tourists by calling itself the City of Flags.

Still, many think the late Christine Hodgkins had a nice idea when she won a contest to give the city an attention-getting theme. Dozens of state flags flapping from poles lining the sweeping curve of U.S. Highway 395 at the south end of town provided a splash of color.

“It’s just a neat sight when you come through town on a warm summer day and you see them lining the street,” said Susan Hurst, a clerk at Newport Video.

The trouble is, lack of maintenance threatened to make Newport the City of Rags. City officials worried that the faded banners would detract from a downtown renovation that will introduce 1920s-style street lamps.

“It looked like a Civil War battlefield,” said City Councilman P.J. Hillestad, who recently persuaded the council to furl the tattered ensigns. “The flags just look tacky. They haven’t been taken care of in years.”

He said the city has been paying the Newport-Oldtown Chamber of Commerce to maintain the flags, but the job wasn’t getting done.

In fact, no one has gotten around to implementing the City Council’s 3-2 decision Nov. 18 to remove the flags. Even thieves and vandals won’t take them, as they used to do with some regularity.

“That’s the problem,” Chad Leslie said as he surveyed the frayed flags in front of the body shop where he works. “Nobody wants to take care of them.”

He wishes someone would, though.

“I’d like to see them keep it,” Leslie said. “It kind of sets us off from the other towns.”

City Clerk-Treasurer Yvonne Doolittle said the council left the door open to reviving the flag theme, perhaps as a small cluster of flags that would be easier to maintain. She noted that the trademark registration on the City of Flags logo on city stationery doesn’t expire until spring.

Councilwoman Marian Gerimonte, one of the dissenters in the vote to deep-six the flag theme, favors the scaled-down cluster idea. She agrees, though, that the present system can’t continue.

“The upkeep was just more than anybody anticipated,” Gerimonte said. “The flags just seem to deteriorate something fierce.”

Outgoing Mayor Kevin Murphy said he’s ambivalent about the theme, which soon will be Mayor-elect Dee Opp’s problem. He encouraged the City Council to ask residents for suggestions.

“If they can improve it somehow and make it a draw to bring people into town, fine, but I don’t know if flags are really a draw,” Murphy said. “It’s had some good points, but basically it has just gone downhill over the years.”

A group of teenagers wandering through town with one skateboard among them failed to see any tragedy in the demise of the flag theme.

“Oh, so they are like blaming us or what?” asked Ben Stark, 14.

He came from Spokane to hang out with his friends in Newport, where they all insist there’s nothing to do.

What Newport needs more than flags, said Taylor Napolsky, 14, is a good skateboard park.

City of Skateboards. Hmm.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo