This is a view of our American flag at half-staff this morning in front of Eden Prairie City Center. The flag was lowered to half-staff pursuant to the City’s new flag etiquette and protocol, which was adopted by the City Council at last night’s Council meeting. The flag was lowered today at the request of President Bush to honor the life of Ms. Rosa Parks on the day of her interment.
Earlier this year the City had fumbled its flag etiquette on a couple of occasions, and the Council heard about it from citizens. In order to do this important ceremonial task correctly, we felt we needed to develop our own flag etiquette and protocol. After talking to my staff about who we should ask for help on this task, Police Chief Dan Carlson suggested that we ask the Police Reserve Unit members for help. That was a good idea.
To the right is a photo of Mr. Woody Franklin. Woody is our squad leader with the Reserve Unit. He is a former Marine and an Eden Prairie resident. He led the effort to research and draft a new flag etiquette and protocol system for the City.
These are the other members of the committee [see photo below] that worked on this new policy. They were all in attendance last night at the City Council meeting to present the Council with the new policy and to answer questions about it. 
The new etiquette and protocol, which we will post on our City website, establishes, among many things, a new Reserve Unit Color Guard which will take charge of the management of all City flags at all of our municipal facilities.
The care and management of how the City displays its flags is important. We want to do it right. With the help of the Police Reserve Unit, I think we’ll be doing it right from here on out.
