An Avenue of Flags Is Hit by Vandals : Santa Clarita: Twenty-five defaced or stolen banners will be replaced. The city received national attention for its 4-mile show of colors.

Santa Clarita’s nationally recognized display of American flags attracted a different kind of attention Friday when vandals defaced or stole a quarter of the flags from atop city light standards, city officials said.

Eighteen of 100 flags that had lined Lyons Avenue since shortly after war erupted in the Middle East were discovered missing early Friday. Seven others had been desecrated by red paint, officials said.

Numerous residents noticed the missing and desecrated flags and contacted City Hall, city spokeswoman Gail Foy said. The desecrated flags were immediately removed by city workers.

“We have been called the most patriotic city, and the town is probably not going to be very happy about this,” Foy said, adding that 250 of the town’s families have a relative serving in the Gulf.

“That’s a sin,” said Dan Jak, an official with Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 6885. “It’s a shame somebody would do something like that to flags.”

The city received widespread media coverage when it erected the flags along a four-mile stretch of Lyons Avenue two days after war broke out in the Gulf, Foy said. The 4-by-6-foot flags run from San Fernando Road to the Golden State Freeway.

The flags were purchased some years ago by the local Boy Scouts, who donated them to the city. Attached to a metal pole, the flags were slipped into metal brackets bolted near the top of 20-foot-high light standards, Foy said.

Because of the height of the standards, Foy and sheriff’s deputies who patrol the small city speculated that vandals may have used paint guns to fire paint pellets at the seven flags and indiscriminately desecrate them. The painted flags were burned by the city shortly after they were taken down.

As for the missing flags, some may have been stolen after they were blown down by high winds that gusted through the city late Thursday and early Friday. They also may have been removed from their brackets by the thieves, Foy said.

Even though Lyons Avenue is one of the city’s major streets, it would not be unusual for the flags to be taken from the light standards without anyone noticing, Foy said.

“This town pretty much rolls up at 12, so it is pretty quiet even on that main boulevard,” she said.

The 25 flags are expected to be replaced on Monday. Each will cost the city $68.

“There are always going to be kooks and people against these things,” said 76-year-old Martha Corken, a Santa Clarita resident who served in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II. “So what are you going to do?”