Carmel to revisit policy on war memorials.

It started out as a classic small-town drama over whether to temporarily hang a banner from a memorial or not to hang a banner from a memorial. Then the police got involved, and politics, and veterans groups—and for now, at least, Carmelites have agreed to come together to peacefully resolve the kerfuffle over the banner.

Here's how it went down: Last Friday, Carmel Planning Commissioner Ian Martin and resident Cindy Lloyd were each out for a morning walk in town, and they came upon a celebratory centennial banner hanging from a stone bell tower in the median of Ocean Avenue.

It was Jan. 8, just a few hours before Carmel was set to hold the first of 100 events celebrating its centennial year. A few years ago, Lloyd successfully led the charge to get the city to remove Christmas lights from the tree out of respect to the World War I memorial. So she and Martin, offended to see it used as a prop for the centennial banner, decided to remove it.

"War memorials should always be treated with the utmost dignity," Martin says. "It doesn't matter if it's up there for [just] five seconds."

Lloyd delivered it, neatly folded, to the nearby home of Barbara Livingston, Carmel Residents Association president and a co-chair of the Carmel Centennial Committee.

Later that day, two Carmel police officers knocked on Livingston's door to investigate a call about the missing banner.

"We just went there and retrieved it," says Police Chief and Interim City Administrator Mike Calhoun. "It wasn't stolen, it wasn't damaged. We documented it, and case closed as far as we're concerned."

The investigation showed up on the weekly Carmel police log under the header, "Information in malicious mischief."

"Two members of the community took it upon themselves to remove a centennial banner from the WWI memorial located at San Carlos and Ocean," the police log states.

"The banner was not damaged however required the company that hung it to return."

They did, they rehung it, and it served as the backdrop to the afternoon's event, which included the opening of a time capsule from within the stone archway. Everyone seemed happy—for a few hours, at least.

Letters started coming in to Carmel City Council.

One came from Will Bullas, a Vietnam War veteran: "I applaud the actions of Planning Commissioner Ian Martin and resident Cindy Lloyd in removing the centennial banner," he wrote.

"War memorials are not erected at the convenience of the rest of the world to use as an anchor point or display/billboard for any function or celebration. Memorials are 'holy ground' and constructed so that subsequent generations will remember the service and sacrifice of those who participated, whether at home or abroad."

Another letter came from David Tool, a retired U.S. Army colonel.

"Although a centennial is surely something to be celebrated and I send my congratulations to all in your community on the happy occasion, I felt an adrenaline surge of disappointment and sadness that the war memorial would be trivialized in this way," he wrote.

He goes on to call the placement of the centennial banner "vandalism, even desecration."

Another letter was from Paul Rodriguez, a past commander of American Legion Post 512 in Carmel, who was discharged from Fort Ord in 1985.

"The hanging of the banner with out notifying us was the true act of vandalism of this sacred memorial," Rodriguez wrote. "[Former mayor and another Centennial Committee co-chair] Sue McCloud has worked with us veterans in the past and…she should have called us first."

The issue also came up at the Carmel Planning Commission meeting Jan. 13, where Rodriguez came to speak in support of Martin. "I want to applaud him for his action," he said. 

The centennial committee and City Council had approved the plan to hang the banner there, and Livingston spoke up as well. 

"We made a mistake," she said. "There are no bad guys in this scenario. Everybody did what we did from honest mistakes."

In an effort to correct those mistakes, when the Planning Commission next meets in March, they're expected to create a subcommittee that will look at the protocol for treatment of war memorials in Carmel. (There's also a 9/11 memorial.)

"I’m pleased this episode has resulted in such a positive and meaningful outcome," Martin says. 

There's a simultaneous effort underway to restore the World War I memorial itself to its intended design. Richard Kreitman, a gallery owner who is running for City Council, is leading the charge on fundraising and permitting to replace the existing bell with one designed according to plans by the original architect.

Charles Sumner Greene designed the World War I memorial in 1921, but funders appear to have run out of money to cast the bell according to his design. It hung bell-less until 1966, when an old California mission bell was received as a gift.

Kreitman hopes to retire that bell to the Carmel Public Library then replace it with a bell according to Greene's design, which will include an inscription reflecting the original intent of the monument, honoring veterans.

(The stone arch itself has also been replaced, after an errant driver hit and destroyed it in 1977.)

Kreitman will speak about his proposal Jan. 18 before the Carmel Historic Resources Board, and aims to raise $8,500 to make and install the bell. His goal is to have it hanging by Oct. 31, Carmel's official 100th birthday.