This past December, the city of Prescott Valley informed resident Tawney Baccellia she had to take down her Trump 2020 flag or face hundreds of dollars in fines.
“It was shocking,” said Baccellia, “that someone would try to tell me what I can and can’t fly in my own yard.
Prescott Valley code enforcement defended the removal order because it is a violation of city code to fly a political flag in one’s own yard more than 60 days before an election and over 30 days after.
Prescott Valley Mayor Kell Palguta sided with Baccellia in defending her first amendment right to fly the flag in her back yard saying, “Who are we to tell her no.”
Palguta said the codes are outdated, and he is in the process of drafting a new ordinance. He said, “15 to 20 years ago, novelty flags weren’t very popular. You didn’t see ‘thin blue line flags’ or thin red line flags,’ you just saw an American flag. As times have changed, the town needs to catch up and we need to change a little bit.”
Some wonder if the order had as much to do with an obscure city ordinance as with whom the flag endorses. There have been dozens of cases of overzealous officials denying people their right to display anything pro-Trump.
Watch the video and learn what Tawney Baccellia plans to do now.
