Condo association backs down in flag squabble

By ROBERT WANG

PERRY TWP. — A condo association has backed down from its attempt to compel an elderly couple to remove a flag that honors their son’s Army service from their front window.

Gary Duvall, the president of REM Commercial Association Management, which manages the affairs of the condo’s 22 units on Channonbrook Street Southwest, said the condo’s board will not seek penalties or levy fines related to the flag against Richard and Marlene Gano. Their 55-year-old son is an Army master sergeant stationed at Fort Knox, Ky.

“I’m elated,” said Marlene Gano. “I’m glad to know that the Blue Star mothers ... [can] put their star in the window and not be concerned about being harassed.”

Her husband, a 76-year-old Army veteran, was skeptical.

“They may say they’re going to back down ... but sometime in the future it may come back up again.”

Marlene Gano said she put up the flag when her son served in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and again in 2003 when her son was deployed in Iraq for a year. Families of servicemen display a red and white flag with a blue star for each loved one in the Armed Forces during wartime.

Duvall said after a Repository article on the matter was posted at CantonRep.com Saturday that his Canton-based company received dozens of calls and e-mails objecting to the association’s initial stance that the Blue Star Service Flag violated its rule on window displays. Some of the messages were death threats, he said.

“Unfortunately, it just got blown out of proportion,” said Duvall, who stressed that his company enforces but doesn’t set the policy. “The manager, she didn’t realize what the emblem meant. ... It’s basically everyone from calling us communists to ‘is our company run by al-Qaida?’ ... [And] “‘I hope you don’t ever need protection from the Army.’”

Duvall said a REM employee has four children in the military, while the CEO of REM has a husband who was an Army Ranger. He added that REM staffers will be donating their labor to build a veterans memorial in Massillon. He explained that the window display rule is meant to maintain uniformity in order to maintain property values.

Duvall said it was highly unlikely that the Gano’s claim that they never received a copy of the rules is true, but he said the association’s attorney had determined that the Blue Star Flag could be considered an American flag that the courts have ruled are exempt from condo rules. He said the board still expects the couple to remedy other condo rule violations.