Over 100 banners honoring the Heber Valley’s veterans are hanging over Main Street for Memorial Day.
City staff have been busy this May swapping out banners for different causes after compromising over competing demands for the space.
The city received too many banner requests to accommodate during the month of May, including the Heber Market on Main, the Soldier Hollow sheepdog competition, the high school rodeo finals and more.
But the veterans’ banners require all 108 of the city’s spots, with specific locations requested for each one. The applicant wanted them to hang uninterrupted from May 13 through May 28, as public works director Matthew Kennard explained during a city council meeting May 7.
“Whenever we have the veteran banners up, we’re not able to put any other banners out, which looks extremely good, but it makes scheduling extremely difficult,” he said.
Kennard said by allocating banner space to each applicant or event throughout the month, the city could be fair to everyone who had applied for displays.
“All of these banners that go up along Main Street… is an actual investment that other companies have made, or other organizations or other individuals,” he said. “So I do think it’s important to know if we start removing the ability for anybody to hang their banners, that’s also removing their investment that they’ve put into their creation.”
He proposed a compromise to give everyone’s banners time to hang, including displaying the veteran banners for several days each around Armed Forces Day and Memorial Day, for a total of 10 days for the month.
Councilmember Yvonne Barney spoke in favor of following the public works department’s advice this spring. She recommended the city set aside several days around Memorial Day for the veteran banners each year and work with the applicant to figure out solutions for the future. That may include banners to honor all the branches of the military for Armed Forces Day next year.
“It would be really neat to have something with Army, Marines, Air Force, all of those banners. I would love to see that,” she said. “And we’ll have a really neat way of honoring all of our veterans, honoring the new recruits and going forward.”
The council voted to adopt her recommendation, so the public works department implemented the compromise this May to give time to all the banners.
But not everyone agrees that’s enough time. Pam Patrick spoke up during the city council meeting to say how important recognizing veterans is to her.
“It’s for everybody to remember the sacrifices that all of these men and women have given for our country,” she said. “Veterans mean an awful lot to me: my father, my brothers, my cousins, uncles.”
The city also hangs the veteran banners for the Fourth of July and Veterans Day.
The Main Street banners have a contentious history in the city. Heber adopted a formal banner policy four years ago, after LGBTQ+ Pride-themed banners sparked pushback in June 2019. In 2020, the city council decided to restrict banners to promote federal and state holidays and non-political, not-for-profit events sponsored by the local government or the chamber of commerce.
