Cotati to fly flag again

<p>The American flag is likely to fly again from a 66-foot tall downtown Cotati flagpole that's been empty for two years and has become a point of contention about patriotism and priorities.</p><p>This week, a businessman offered to contribute equipment to raise the flag and the city's Chamber of Commerce said it has been been hatching plans to get the flag up again.</p><p>Cotati officials also pronounced themselves ready to make sure the job gets done.</p><p>The flurry of activity followed a story Monday about a citizen's months-long efforts to convince the City Council to pay for the flag installation and the council's hesitation due to budget concerns.</p><p>“It just kind of struck me that budgets shouldn't be the reason that we can't fly the flag, so I called the city,” said Leland Fishman, a Penngrove resident whose Petaluma company, Fishman Supply, has been a city supplier for 25 or so years.</p><p>Fishman said he will supply all the hooks, halyards, swivels and pulleys needed and will try to arrange for a boom truck tall enough to raise the flag.</p><p>“I'm glad they (council members) were able to go beyond politics and honor our veterans and our country,” said Greg Karraker, who badgered the council for months to raise a flag again, saying its absence indicated a lack of respect for the country and its veterans.</p><p>Frustrated by the city's failure to move on the issue, Karraker, who lives just outside the city, had mounted a campaign to raise money for the job. He said that he had collected about half of the $2,500 the city had estimated was necessary. Now, he said, with the consent of contributors, he will give the money to the city.</p><p>City leaders maintain they had never ruled out paying to get the flag raised again, but had yet to deal with it. Also, they said, it was Karraker, a frequent critic of city policies, who politicized the issue.</p><p>“It became an effort to further a political agenda,” Councilman Mark Landman said of Karraker's flagpole campaign.</p><p>“The city always intended to do this, never said it wouldn't and if there's something left to pick up, of course we'll do that,” Landman said.</p><p>Karraker said, “Now that we're all pulling together, I certainly hope this can get done by Veterans Day.”</p><p>Meanwhile, the Cotati Chamber of Commerce came forward to say it too has been planning to get the flag flying again.</p><p>“This has been on our to-do list for months now,” said chamber president Andre Morrow. “We're going to work in collaboration with the city.”</p><p>Fishman said he hopes that getting the flag, which is still in the possession of the city, raised again will heal some of the rifts that have developed.</p><p>“At a time when this country is as polarized as it's ever been politically, why should an empty flag be something to continue to push people apart,” he said. “Let's just get a flag up there and we'll have one less reason for people to be on opposite sides.”</p>