Two months ago, I wrote about the plight of a private, Tocquevillian-style civil association in the small town of Orcutt, California. That group, the Old Town Orcutt Revitalization Association (OTORA), has raised $60,000 in private donations to build a flagpole — from which the American flag would fly — encircled by a memorial to the U.S. armed forces. The flagpole and monument would be located between a highway exit and an adjacent park-and-ride lot, at the entrance to the community’s Old Town section. But the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) refused to grant approval for the project. Finally, citing a 9th Circuit Court ruling, CalTrans declared that hanging an American flag on public land constitutes an impermissible act of “public expression.”

Steve LeBard, who has spearheaded OTORA’s effort, has continued to make his case to the California legislature and to CalTrans directly, aided by TV coverage from Fox News. A bill to overturn CalTrans’s ruling stalled in the California legislature, but a process has now been initiated whereby the state would sell the small patch of land in question to the county of Santa Barbara, which hopefully would be more accommodating. (The process is expected to take four months, and OTORA would write the check on behalf of the county.)