Trump flag flying over Talbert Marsh taken down months after inauguration, following complaints

John Villa, executive director of Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy, has no idea who hoisted a blue flag near Talbert Marsh bearing the words: “Trump 2024” and the slogan “Take America Back” a couple dozen feet up an electrical pole, likely hopping a fence that surrounds the nature preserve his nonprofit manages in order to do so.

All he knows is that it was been hanging over Coast Highway since well before the president’s inauguration, it wasn’t supposed to be up there in the first place and it was still there months after he took office.

“We had a car go off of the road and airborne into Talbert Marsh right there in October,” Villa noted. “I can’t say for certain the flag was what distracted them, but it was in the morning, so too early for drunk drivers.”

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Villa said he and others at the conservancy have fielded numerous calls from passersby about the flag, contributing to his belief that it posed a traffic hazard. But there’s no ordinance in Huntington Beach limiting how long campaign signs and other displays can hang on private property, so city crews weren’t going to step in to remove it. And although the pole is on the nonprofit’s land, it technically belongs to Southern California Edison.

The conservancy did contact the utility, and a technician was sent out. But, according to Villa, that person said the flag didn’t pose any immediate risk of interfering with transmission lines and sparking a fire, so they left it there.

Southern California Edison was unable to confirm whether such an interaction took place, SCE spokeswoman Diane Castro said Wednesday. But they did send someone to take down the flag “immediately” after the Daily Pilot reached out to the company for comment Tuesday evening. She added that if one of their employees had previously declined to remove it, that person would be reminded of Edison’s policies.

“Unauthorized installations on power poles are unsafe for both the community and our line workers,” Castro said in a statement. “These attachments — whether it is a lost dog poster, a garage sale sign or something larger — can obstruct our crews, making maintenance and power restoration dangerous.”

Villa said the conservancy’s issue with the flag was based solely on the potential hazard it posed, and had nothing to do with the message it displayed. He added that the nonprofit does “not get a lot of federal funding,” so it has little stake in the politics of whoever sits in the Oval Office. However, Villa said, he does worry about “the future of some agencies we deal with that are federal.”