The county’s attorney, Robert Mitchell, Jr., recommended that a notice of appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court, filed earlier this month to keep the county’s options open until he could meet with the two boards, be withdrawn, saying the zoning ordinance could be revised to address the flagpole height issue.

A BZA decision said that the flagpole at the Apple Blossom U-Store-It, erected in 2005 by business owner Jerry Kirk, violated the zoning ordinance’s 40-foot limit for structures in the Highway Commercial District. But Kirk appealed to the Clarke County Circuit Court in 2006 and his family continued the appeal after his death last May.

And this past Jan. 8, Circuit Court Judge John Prosser ruled that the pole is not a structure under the ordinance and further stated that the BZA decision had violated the U.S. Constitution’s freedom of speech provisions.

Zoning Administrator Jesse Russell said the county should act quickly to change its ordinance, adding he hopes to have amendments on the Planning Commission’s agenda this spring. Public hearings on the amendments would then be conducted by the commission and the Board of Supervisors, he added.

In addition to the storage facility’s flagpole, any others existing before the ordinance is amended would be allowed to stand, Russell said.

The county’s main concern is not about flags, but about potential commercial signage on poles in violation of the law, he stressed.

Because she has a 50-foot flagpole on her property, Supervisor Barbara Byrd (I-Russell) did not take part in the closed door session and abstained from the vote.