{"id":13515,"date":"2015-07-29T12:39:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T16:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=13515"},"modified":"2015-07-29T12:40:03","modified_gmt":"2015-07-29T16:40:03","slug":"breakdown-the-upcoming-confederate-flag-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/29\/breakdown-the-upcoming-confederate-flag-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"BreakDown: The Upcoming Confederate Flag Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, August 6th, Danville City Council will vote on an ordinance to restrict what flags can be flown on city-owned flagpoles. It&#8217;s obvious that this will be an up-or-down vote on the Confederate flag that flies at the museum. In this BreakDown article, I&#8217;m going to give my analysis of where I believe each member of Danville City Council stands on the issue and their probable vote.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Technical Note<\/strong>: Even though BreakDown articles are usually about detailing something that&#8217;s already happened, I feel that&#8217;s the best way to classify this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>First, let&#8217;s look at the wording on the letter from City Attorney Clarke Whitfield to council regarding the upcoming ordinance vote&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>SUMMARY<\/strong><br \/>\nIn order to create a clear, standard, and uniform policy regarding which flags may fly on City owned flagpoles, the following ordinance has been recommended to Council.<br \/>\n<strong>BACKGROUND<\/strong><br \/>\nThe proposed ordinance creates a clear, standard, and uniform policy with regards to which four flags may fly on flagpoles owned by the City. Only the flag of the United States, the flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the flag of the City of Danville, and the POW\/MIA flag may be flown on City owned flagpoles. Nothing in this ordinance in any way prohibits or limits the carrying of other flags in public or the displaying of other flags on private property.<br \/>\n<strong>RECOMMENDATION<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff makes no recommendation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Let&#8217;s run that through the BreakDown machine. A Big Board, please.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>SUMMARY<\/strong> section tells me that council directed the attorney to come up with something that gets rids of the flag without going afoul of the state law regarding monuments. That had to have happened in a closed session for attorney matters. Votes for those types of directions are taken in a non-recorded straw poll, so that means a majority of council members agreed. If a majority of council members agreed to make that directive, that probably means that there&#8217;s a majority that will vote for this ordinance. <em>Ultimate BreakDown from that? The ordinance will pass and the flag will be gone.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>The <strong>BACKGROUND<\/strong> section simply adds the POW\/MIA flag to the accepted list so that it can fly at the Veterans Memorial at Dan Daniel Park.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>RECOMMENDATION<\/strong> is the most interesting part to me. Clarke Whitfield issued his legal opinion regarding the flag issue back in October and can&#8217;t step away from that in any form because that could be used against him and the city in any litigation. On the thousands of letters to council that I&#8217;ve looked over, I&#8217;ve almost always seen &#8220;Staff recommends that Council approve&#8230; blah blah blah&#8221;. This &#8220;No Recommendation&#8221; tells me that Clarke Whitfield did what he was told to do, but isn&#8217;t comfortable with saying that this ordinance would hold up in court. Or for you Blazing Saddles fans that remember the scene where the bible is shot out of the preacher&#8217;s hand, the next line is appropriate here. &#8220;Son, you&#8217;re on your own!&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All righty. Let&#8217;s now do the Pre-BreakDown where I tell where I believe that the council members stand on the ordinance and the flag issue. Let&#8217;s stick all the names in a random list generator and put them on another Big Board.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, a vote for the ordinance will be a vote against the flag. Or it&#8217;s a vote for the flag&#8217;s removal. Confused yet?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Larry Campbell<\/strong> &#8211; Even if you&#8217;ve been orbiting around Uranus, you know that Campbell is a flag opponent. He&#8217;s an easy vote for the ordinance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gary Miller<\/strong> &#8211; In Round #1 of the flag issue, Miller&#8217;s main objection to removing the flag was the state law against changing monuments, because that would invite a lawsuit. This ordinance circumvents that state law, and will probably result in a lawsuit. The Round #1 issue was cut and dried. This ordinance in Round #2 is specifically targeted at only the flag. I&#8217;m 85% confident that Gary Miller will vote for the ordinance. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/22\/youcentral-gary-miller-on-the-confederate-flag-issue\/\" target=\"_blank\">FYI: We&#8217;ve published Gary Miller&#8217;s statement on the issue in a previous article<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lee Vogler<\/strong> &#8211; Lee Vogler is smart enough to know that the flag issue will never go away until definitive action is taken by council, one way or the other. He&#8217;s also smart enough to know that one group or another is going to be ticked off at him no matter how he votes (Fun Fact: Danville&#8217;s city code requires council members don&#8217;t have the choice to abstain on votes). Finally, he&#8217;s smart enough to know that the continuing controversy is handicapping Danville&#8217;s reputation in the economic development realm. He&#8217;s going to be running for election in May 2016 and he&#8217;ll stay in the SAFE category no matter how he votes. I&#8217;m 80% confident that Lee Vogler will vote for the ordinance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sherman Saunders<\/strong> &#8211; Saunders is just as much against the flag as Larry Campbell, but he won&#8217;t come out and say that publicly. He&#8217;s a\u00a0 guaranteed vote for the ordinance and the only question will be if he joins in the discussion with his opinion on the flag issue.<\/li>\n<li><strong>John Gilstrap<\/strong> &#8211; Gilstrap has been relatively silent during this Round #2 but I&#8217;m very confident that he wants the flag gone. If nothing else, I believe he wants it gone just to get rid of the problem. I&#8217;ll say that I&#8217;m 75% confident that he&#8217;ll vote for the ordinance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Buddy Rawley<\/strong> &#8211; Buddy Rawley has been publicly silent during all of this after his head exploded during round #1 comments from the public. From the media table, I can see steam coming out of Rawley&#8217;s ears at times while the comments go on and on. I&#8217;m 90% confident that he&#8217;ll vote &#8220;No&#8221; on the ordinance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Alonzo Jones<\/strong> &#8211; Jones has been a flag opponent, though not as upfront about it as Larry Campbell has been. Unless he has concerns about a promised lawsuit, he&#8217;s a safe vote for the ordinance. I&#8217;ll say that I&#8217;m 95% confident on that.<\/li>\n<li><strong>James Buckner<\/strong> &#8211; Although Buckner can be hard to read at times due to his relative quietness, I&#8217;m getting a very clear vibe that he&#8217;s tired of the whole issue. I get the feeling that he&#8217;d be willing to sell the Sutherlin Mansion for $19.99 just to get rid of the headache it&#8217;s causing. (Obligatory Deceased Billy Mays reference anytime I say $19.99: &#8220;But wait, there&#8217;s more! I&#8217;ll double the offer!&#8221;) I surely can&#8217;t blame Buckner for that attitude if I&#8217;m right, because I&#8217;m feeling the same way now. I believe he&#8217;ll vote for the ordinance for that reason and will say I&#8217;m 85% confident on that.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fred Shanks<\/strong> &#8211; Shanks surprised me at the last council meeting when he went on the record supporting the flag in the around the horn session. It was refreshing to hear somebody take a clear stand supporting the flag, no matter if I agreed with him or not. Be bold, be brave, be Fred Shanks. He&#8217;s a 100% safe vote against the ordinance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So with that analysis, I&#8217;m predicting a 7-2 vote for the ordinance. It will pass, and the Confederate flag will come down soon afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>And there you have a BreakDown, a pre-BreakDown and enough analysis to make everybody mad at least once. That means I&#8217;m doing my job well. Heh.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/KuEywg6.jpg?resize=450%2C298\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"298\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, August 6th, Danville City Council will vote on an ordinance to restrict what flags can be flown on city-owned flagpoles. It&#8217;s obvious that this will be an up-or-down vote on the Confederate flag that flies at the museum. In this BreakDown article, I&#8217;m going to give my analysis of where I believe each [&#8230;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breakdown","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-3vZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13686,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/18\/i-know-are-true-81715\/","url_meta":{"origin":13515,"position":0},"title":"\u201c\u2026I KNOW are true!\u201d (8\/18\/15)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 18, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm going to make a lot of people mad but the truth sometime hurts. Get ready because... \"These five things I KNOW are true!\" Somebody's gotta say it and that somebody is me. Let's put the truth on a Big Board. \"Fred Shanks' motion to start the sale process of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;...I KNOW are True!&quot;","block_context":{"text":"...I KNOW are True!","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/i-know-are-true\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13603,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/07\/youcentral-lee-voglers-confederate-flag-speech\/","url_meta":{"origin":13515,"position":1},"title":"YouCentral: Lee Vogler&#8217;s Confederate Flag Speech","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 7, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"As in the previous YouCentral article, SouthsideCentral is pleased to print all types of commentary. Here, we publish Lee Vogler's speech from Danville City Council's Thursday night meeting. From: Lee Vogler My generation likely has a different view of this issue than most of those who came before us. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/UGOjrNJ.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13540,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/04\/bettingline-flagmageddon-day-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":13515,"position":2},"title":"BettingLine!: Flagmageddon Day (Part #1)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"(Editor's Note: Everybody likes making a friendly wager once in a while! For Entertainment Purposes Only, of course. That's why we're introducing a new category called \"BettingLine!\". If Las Vegas won't take any action on what's happening here in the Southside region, we will! Not really, because SouthsideCentral discourages all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BettingLine&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BettingLine","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/bettingline\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13555,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/06\/danville-city-council-live-8615\/","url_meta":{"origin":13515,"position":3},"title":"Danville City Council &#8211; LIVE! (8\/6\/15)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"(Editor's Note: This article is now complete.) We're LIVE! at Danville City Hall for tonight's City Council meeting. It's going to be a long one, so thanks in advance for following along with SouthsideCentral. We've already got our \"pregame show\" article with what's been going on up to now. Refresh\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/HoGKzbH.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/HoGKzbH.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/HoGKzbH.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/HoGKzbH.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10790,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/25\/breakdown-danville-city-council-10212014-meeting\/","url_meta":{"origin":13515,"position":4},"title":"BreakDown: Danville City Council (10\/21\/2014 Meeting)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral was at Tuesday's Danville City Council meeting (but you knew that). Even though everything Confederate flag related has been rendered moot, let's still do a BreakDown on what happened. Let's Break it Down on a Big Board... The 5:30PM closed session was to meet with coal ash attorney Charlie\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BreakDown&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BreakDown","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/breakdown\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":31911,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/06\/23\/breakdown-the-62116-danville-city-council-meeting\/","url_meta":{"origin":13515,"position":5},"title":"BreakDown: The 6\/21\/16 Danville City Council Meeting","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's take a comprehensive look at what happened before, during and after Danville City Council's June 21st meeting. We'll analyze what you were able to see, what you weren't able to see and throw in some other thoughts. We call this a BreakDown. If you want to see SouthsideCentral's recap\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;BreakDown&quot;","block_context":{"text":"BreakDown","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/breakdown\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/KuEywg6.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13515"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13519,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13515\/revisions\/13519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}