Pole for U.S. Flag in Mobile Park Ruled ‘Nuisance’

Pete Weissman can keep his American flag and American eagle, but the flagpole has got to go, an Orange County Superior Court judge has ruled.

Superior Court Judge Mark A. Soden, in a preliminary ruling issued earlier this week, agreed with Weissman’s landlord that the pole and numerous other outdoor decorations, including a woodcarving of World War II soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima, were displayed knowingly in violation of the Fountain Valley Mobilehome Park’s regulations.

“We’re going to appeal,” Weissman declared Thursday. “I’m not giving into this kind of tyranny.”

It all started in February, 1983, when Weissman, a self-employed plumber and electrician, ran Old Glory up a newly installed flagpole outside his mobile home in the Fountain Valley park.

Park owner Gerard Dougher objected, saying park regulations forbid “non-growing objects” in front and side yards. In a written notice, Dougher contended that the 20-foot length of 1-inch steel piping sunk in concrete constituted “non-living ground-cover” and must be removed. When Weissman refused, Dougher filed suit.

Weissman, 41, and his attorney, Stuart Parker of Westminster, thought it was a slam-dunk kind of case.

So sure were they that the defense of constitutional First Amendment rights to display patriotic sentiments would prevail, Parker said Thursday, that he rejected Dougher’s attorney’s request to have the suit dismissed earlier this year.

(Neither Dougher nor his attorney, Terry R. Dowdall, could be reached for comment Thursday.)

When they insisted the suit be brought to court, Dowdall in June amended the suit to add Weissman’s wind chimes, some of his potted plants, his bird feeder --”everything up to, and including, my garden hose,” Weissman said--in what Parker called a deliberate attempt to cloud the obvious constitutional issue. The flagpole was referred to simply as a “steel pole.”

After four days of testimony, Soden took the case under submission on July 23rd. His Aug. 5 ruling, technically a preliminary decision called a memorandum of intended decision, held that Weissman’s erection of a “steel pole” to display the American flag constituted a public nuisance.

Parker said the decision was based on recent additions to the state civil code making any breach of a mobile home park’s reasonable rules and regulations a public nuisance.

Before Weissman can appeal, Parker said they must await Soden’s signature on a final writing of the order, expected by early next week. In the interim, Parker said, park owner Dougher cannot try to have the pole removed.