Group blasts Leavenworth for denying flagpole

LEAVENWORTH, Wash. – A constitutional rights group has accused the city of being arbitrary and “non-American” for preventing it from erecting an 80-foot-high flagpole at the east entrance to the city.

Foundation for Liberty is a constitutional rights organization based in Vancouver, Wash., that plans to build an office in Leavenworth later this year.

The group’s founder and president, Matt Erickson, applied to erect the flagpole at the site last summer. Since then, the city has imposed three emergency moratoriums on new flags.

The city’s Planning Commission voted 5-1 Tuesday to recommend approval of a new ordinance that restricts flag poles to 35 feet high to eliminate visual clutter, preserve property values and maintain the city’s Bavarian theme.

In an April 30 letter to city officials, Erickson said that any ordinance that limits the flying of the American flag in order to better promote the city’s Bavarian theme is “fundamentally flawed.”

“I hope that those pushing the concept that the American flag is contrary to the Bavarian Village theme are only ideologically non-American, as opposed to anti-American or un-American,” he wrote.

Erickson created the group to promote and distribute a newsletter he started self-publishing after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He described the newsletter as a study guide on the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Articles of Confederation.

He said he wants an 80-foot, lighted flagpole next to the building to show “proper respect” for the American flag.