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Crescenta Valley has its own flag

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The people have spoken. The Crescenta Valley community will have its own flag. The design is the artistry of La Crescenta resident Steven Park, who, with his son, 10-year-old Monte Vista Elementary School fourth grader Justin, created an image that most voters at last Saturday’s election considered best represented this unique community.

Park’s design — which depicts an orange-golden sun behind green mountains and blue-colored townscape with the names of La Crescenta and Montrose — received 206 votes from the 365 votes cast for the six choices in the flag design contest.

About 25 designs — a mix of hand drawn and computerized images — were submitted by residents and others outside the area, as was allowed in the contest rules. The designs were narrowed down to the top six by the Crescenta Valley Town Council’s flag committee that was headed up by Town Council members Robert Thomas and Liz Arnold.

Only residents of unincorporated La Crescenta and Montrose were eligible to vote in the final selection which was held in coordination with the Town Council’s regular election of council members on Saturday at the Crescenta Valley High School library.

Thomas is the one credited with suggesting the community needed its own flag, after he recently noticed a community flag of Eagle Rock flying with two other flags above the Glendale (2) Freeway near the Harvey Drive In-N-Out Burger.

“I got to thinking, ‘Eagle Rock is part of Los Angeles, just like we’re part of Los Angeles. How come they get a flag and we don’t have a flag? We should have a flag,’” Thomas previously told the Valley Sun.

Park’s design began with a brainstorming of concepts, he said. Park is an industrial designer by trade and has helped to design children’s museums and theme parks, including the Baltimore Children’s Museum.

He was born in Korea but moved to the South Bay as a child and has lived in La Crescenta with his family for about 10 years. His family consists of wife Helen and sons, Justin and Bryce, 7, a first grader at Monte Vista Elementary School.

Park heard about the flag contest through a flier placed in Justin’s Thursday folder, a weekly take home package of homework and school and community related announcements.

Park said it was fun to work with Justin on the project, bouncing ideas and working together on thumbnail sketches, before finally creating and submitting what became the winning design.

Thomas said he was delighted with Parks’ design and glad it was the winning — of several wonderful — designs.

“I love it, it really describes La Crescenta [and Montrose] at a glance,” Thomas said, adding, “The San Gabriel Mountains are represented in the background with the name La Crescenta in that portion of the flag, and Montrose is nestled in the smaller Verdugo Mountains in the forefront, with the blue buildings of our community in between. It’s got the green mountains for prosperity and the sun coming up for a bright future.”

Thomas said the next step is to firm up locations to fly the flag, which may include the new library, the Crescenta Valley Water District, the sheriff’s station, local schools and county parks.

“Wherever they fly a flag, that’s where we’ll approach,” Thomas said. “We’ll need permission from a lot of agencies, but we’ve got a community flag and I’m really excited about it — it’s a neat one.”

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